Just don’t drop the ball Spud, don’t drop the ball.

This springs bizarre weather seems to have bothered the buttercups little. Our field is swathed with them.

We do little to our meadow, it gets cut for hay* (or haylage) depending on the weather by a neighbouring farmer, he ‘mucks’ and harrows it as required. And puts sheep on it to graze it for a few weeks each year. We pull out a few docks and clumps of nettles each year; but other than that, nature takes its course.

If it were a commercially farmed field I’m sure it would have been ploughed and re-sown by now, the luxury of lolling around in the buttercups I suspect is not a financial option. In the photo below you can see another field across the valley that would appear to be managed in a similar way to ours, if the  yellow haze of buttercups are an indicator that is.

I suppose we have a wild flower meadow, although in my head I think that would mean more diversity and less buttercups, I don’t know. I need to do a little research. 

This year is the 150th anniversary of Manchester to Buxton railway line, look I’ve managed a shot of a train trundling up the valley (I was lolling around for quite awhile, as whilst it is a vital line, that  fortunately escaped Beeching’s axe, its not a busy one)

I wonder what the fields looked like 150 years ago, Freddy the farmer told me there were corncrakes here. Not now. I suppose now there is no way of knowing just how it was.

* Hay from this field smells sweeter than anything Penhaligon’s could sell you.

Yesterday, I felt the need to go and look, to ‘just be’ for a while. I’d not been to see as many of the Derbyshire Open Arts event’s as I’d originally planned, so maybe that’s what drew me into Manchester, lets face it I’m not often drawn to cities.

I snook in, first thing, taking an early train, I visited a few shops (which were pretty empty, just as I like them, considering I worked in retail for decades, I’ve such a low tolerance busy shops).

Then I went to Manchester Art Gallery, they couldn’t have offered a warmer welcome to an  ex florist than the installation festooning the  perimeter railings

Moss, willow, seed pods, ferns, right up my street.

I had a coffee and a delicious piece of Victoria sponge in in cafe (the cake had just the right play off, between sweet butter cream and tart raspberry).

I left my shopping bounty in a locker and then spent a contented couple of hours mooching around, too many things to mention, but the Grayson Perry vase and the work by Eric Ravilious were favourites. But undoubtedly I’m most ‘in my element’   in the the gallery of craft and design.  How do I explain? I’m sure there must be  gallery curator jargon for it, but who knows; I just like the way the clusters of objects, link and flow into one another around the room, it manages to both feed and satiate my curiosity at the same time. Magic ehh?

Those of a curios disposition,  I’m sure would be drawn to the object displayed  in the gallery from Mary Greg collection. Off you go and have a rummage. Enjoy.

When I lurched back out into the Manchester streets, I found them full of hustle and bustle, time I thought to head back home to the hills.

Up until recently he had been in very good health, fit and very active. He loved to travel, one of his favourite places (and he’d travelled to many) was the Isle of Eigg on the west coast of Scotland, he returned there many times.

It’s been a difficult time, regular readers might remember my mother in law died last September followed by the untimely death of our friend Darren just a few weeks later. *Sigh*.

  The local branch of the Royal British Legion had pulled out all the stops

The place was packed, not just with local people but those who had travelled from far and wide. You could  just tell some had made a supreme effort to get there.

One of the veterans shook me, and many many more, firmly by the hand, ‘Thank you for coming, thank you for coming!’ He kept repeating. I thought we were supposed to be thanking them?

There were civic dignitaries, the young (children from Combs Infants School and Chapel High School)

the decorated

the media ( a current member of 617 Squadron is interviewed for the BBC)

There was even a letter to be read, a letter from the Queen, her representative laid one of many wreaths

But there was more to come, at 12:50 hrs,  from the south, over Combs Moss above the nearby village of Combs where Astell lived came the Lancaster Bomber, The City of Lincoln.

We watched, as did many more, from the top of nearby Eccles Pike,

As the Lancaster made four sweeps above the town (here above the high school).

The Dambusters raid has a special place in the hearts and history of this area, not only because of the lost lives of local men,  Flight Lieutenant William Astell DFC and Sergeant Jack Marriott DFM, but because this area was where the men practiced for the mission, using the Derwent Valley, just over the hills,  to perfect the specialist  skills they would need for such an audacious attack.

The Lancaster, having paid its respects, banked off over the hills to join the Battle of Britain Flight down the Derwent Valley (spectacular video here)

Well done everybody, you did them proud.

Some features of spring are as they should be, across the valley I can see small flockettes of lambs zipping around the fields, they may be in playful mode, they may just be trying to keep warm, its difficult to tell; from this distance it’s like watching an early video game.

So what blossom have I found? A snow flake of wild plum

A claw set cluster of crab apple, so near yet so far, as the weather is cold and wet, it may even snow tonight.

I’d a plan to post about blossom in April, I’d have posted beautiful blossom and then delivered seamless segue into beautiful music,  however nature has been slow off the mark, but the music can wait no longer.

Recently we were fortunate enough to have a real gem of an evening of live music, it was a tiny village hall sized affair where we saw Ashley Hutchins and his son Blair Dunlop perform. I’m sure sure Blair’s  musical future is much bigger than village halls (Ashley’s is already in the bag).  Blair’s album is called  Blight and Blossom.

Blair has a  linage of music and poetry,  it is in his  very DNA and, as my mum would say, ‘what’s in tree comes out in the branches’. Enjoy.

It was touching to see (no, make that feel, it was an emotion that was palpable in the hall) Ashley’s pride in his sons performance and craft (and if its not pushing the tree metaphor a tad too far, it was a moment, a memory, to be laid down in the heart wood of the tree.)

After the first day that resembled spring, one which Spud spent charging around the field  overnight he developed a sore looking patch on his neck, about the size of a 50p piece, it was troubling him, it was obviously very itchy. So Mr Uphilldowndale took him off to the vets. Where they shaved the fur off around the patch, Mr Uhdd said Spuds skin coloured up and started to swell in a flash. Poor Spud.

Spud came home with steroid cream, antibiotics, a fish oil supplement for his food and an £80 bill.

Dodger the kitten-cat decided after that upset, what everyone needed was a nice cup of tea, so he put the kettle on.

The kitten-cats have, by their measure a very productive week, amongst others, we’ve got up in the morning to find a dead jackdaw (I’d have liked to see how they got it through the cat flap!)

and a poor shrew that ended up with its head stuck in the mop bucket, not a nice way to go.

I can report Spud is looking much better and adores the fish oil on his food. We just hope that unlike me, Spud is not allergic t the antibiotics.

I returned to the dentists this week, to tidy up some of the emergency work done during my weeks of toothache angst. I was a little concerned by my dentists obvious excitement about the ‘unusually long’ root to my tooth, the very tooth he was about to start root canal treatment on. He’d had to order up a new longer file especially for me*. Gulp, I was starting to wonder if I was in for some alternative  trepaning. But I needn’t have stressed, the whole procedure was much better than my previous experience, helped by a ‘raincoat for my teeth’.

As Spring unfurls, Jammy and Dodger have been enthralled by the upsurge of bird activity in the garden. The bird table is groaning under the strain

Sadly I found the remains of a swallow in the porch this morning, the price we pay for employing these rodent killers…

*Yay for the NHS…

Whilst things are starting to ‘colour up’ around here, it is happening very slowly, everywhere is incredibly dry. We’ve not had any ‘April showers’ of note, as the farmer put it the other day, ‘Its not rained properly since it snowed, and all the snow ended up in the lanes not the fields.’ He chain harrowed the field the other day, it was biscuit dry and the tractor was trailed by clouds of dust.

I don’t think it would take much to start a moorland fire.

We’ve taken delivery of an SLR camera at work this week, a NikonD3100, I’ve brought it home for ‘field trials’ the photos here are taken with it.