I’ve done a fair bit of walking in various parts of the country but never been to any of the big moors in Devon or Cornwall so suggested we have a little break on Dartmoor over Easter. Dartmoor is my kind of walking, I love wild moorland and craggy rocks, with a few standing stones and a bit of history thrown in for good measure. It is good walking for the little chap too, who must have managed almost a km on his own.
The wildlife has been busy in the garden with the bird feeder being visited by blue tits, great tits, coal tits, long-tailed tits, chaffinches, gold finches, robins, starlings and the lovely woodpecker in this (not very good) photo. We’ve also had yellowhammers and a green woodpecker mooching around the lawn and this morning a kestrel was sitting on the fence post.
Yesterday I went to a needle felting workshop at Tamsyn-G’s and had a fabulously relaxed morning learning a new craft. I’ve felted knitting before but needle felting is quite different and a wonderful way of decorating and drawing with wool. The broch in the picture is my favourite of the three things I made and my head is now overflowing with ideas for new projects.
2009 does sound such a long way away from where I feel in my head, that place where 1994 still feels quite close by and celebrating the millennium was just a few New Year’s ago, but here we are, almost a decade into the new century. I’m quite looking forward to next year though, when we can escape this hinterland of not knowing what to call the year, and therefore opting for the longest possible option, and hopefully return to the old system and call the year twenty ten.
Well, the cooking happened, almost all was eaten (we’re still trudging through the Christmas cake, which is rather nice with vanilla soya ice-cream). Christmas was lovely, and hectic, full of family and food and just a little bit of booze. We’ve had a fabulously cold, frosty snap that made everything quite festive, but those memories are being washed and blown away by the soggy January weather.
I’m now the proud new owner of a rather nifty pair of binoculars. In recent years I’ve tried to make more of an effort to identify birds. It seems so ignorant to see them flying around and just label them all birds. Now we’re in quite a good spot for watching birds the binoculars are really handy. Since we’re been here I’ve seen buzzards, woodpeckers, redwings, thrush, blackbirds, wagtails, damn magpies, a small bird of prey that I’m struggling to identify (it’s never around long enough), the barn owl, robins, wrens and lots more little birds still to be identified.
My knitting projects aren’t progressing too well, apart from some fingerless mittens which are easy to churn out. The grey tank top just doesn’t look right so that will probably be unwound and the tiger tank top isn’t shaping up well and would require more wool to finish (not good when the object of the exercise was to use up wool in my stash) so that will probably be undone too. Darn it.
We have 11 people for Christmas dinner and I’m still trying to get my head around feeding that many people, not only for Christmas dinner, but also another few days of meals too. We’re starting with the big cooking this weekend and I think I’ll feel a bit better when there are a few more things in the freezer. A few things are ready already, like my Christmas cake, which even if I do say so myself, looks fantastic. I’ve been trying to crystallize my own fruit to go on top (both me and G have a violent aversion to marzipan). I’ve had oranges, lemons and apple soaking in sugar syrup for a couple of days and it just needs to drain a bit now. The good thing is people don’t actually have to eat it, it only has to look edible.
I’ve finally managed to do something I’ve been meaning to do for a while, which is to import my old blog into this one. I was having a bit of trouble getting things to work properly but seem to have managed it now. So anything before August 2006 was originally written on Abraxas. I’m a bit surprised to see that this means I’m coming up for 7 years of blogging, crikey, that’s a lot of waffle.
The Barn Owl was back this morning searching for a bit of breakfast. I tried to get a photo but didn’t do too well. Believe it or not this blur is a Barn Owl. If you want to see a good picture of one try these fantastic photos by Nigel Pye on flickr.
I might have better luck getting a snap of the buzzard or one of the garden birds, at least they are around in full daylight which helps.
I think I’ve either got a bad camera or a bad owl.
It’s taken me all day to write this post, but that is quite a good thing. When I started this morning it was just going to be one long moan but the day turned out quite well as it happened. I’m sat here now with a glass of wine, nicely relaxed, but might as well start at the beginning;
9.10am – This is going to be a bit of a moan…
For a start, it’s raining again, (not quite as bad a last Monday when lots of roads round here flooded and up the lane someone had to be rescued from their car when it got stuck in 18 inches of water, (but another dismal Monday all the same.
Secondly, cartographically speaking, we are living in a really silly place. We are in the top right hand corner of an OS Explorer map, which is great if we want to go south west of here, but if we want to go more than 3 miles in any other direction we need one of the three adjoining maps. And maps ain’t cheap.
3.25pm – Thirdly. Yesterday we went of for a lovely afternoon stroll on White Sheet Hill. It was a bit damp but beautiful and peaceful. We’d been walking around the hill forts, kids were flying kites on the top of the hill. It was lovely until the calm was shattered by quadbikes, a motorbike and a 4×4 churning up the track. Grrr. There’s a lot of strong debate that goes on about people using vehicles on tracks, bridleways and green lanes. Never mind the noise, after having seen the damage these vehicles can do to tracks around the country I think vehicles should be kept off them.
(interlude – I love the song on the new barclaycard advert – it’s so happy – Let your love flow, by the Bellamy Brothers)
4.30pm (the silver lining) – I’d just put some washing on and something caught my eye out of the back window, hang on, oh crikey it’s a barn owl. I spent the next 20 or so minutes watching the owl fly around the garden and hunt in the field next to the house. It was an incredibly beautiful bird – I’ve never seen one in the wild, hence the excitement. Despite being bullied by a crow and a magpie the owl caught a little mammal in the field and flew off, returning a bit later.
(Whilst I’m on birds the last post was meant to mention that we’d seen – and correctly identified later – a Nuthatch whilst we were up at Stourhead. )
It started with fireworks, which we weren’t too sure how the little one was going to cope with. We were all prepared for howling and making a swift exit, as it happened he loved them, and the bigger the better.
With Anna and Chrissy down to stay for the weekend I got out for my first full day’s walk in Dorset. The weather wasn’t great and the walk instructions were dismal but we have a good, if eventful walk around Bishop’s Caundle. We came across a friendly gamekeeper who suggested we wear bright clothes all winter to make sure we don’t get mistaken for a deer and shot (showing us the bullets for full effect). After a lovely lunch at the Trooper Inn in Stourton Caundle we had a run in with a herd of rather frisky cows. For the first time ever I pegged it over a fence, jumped a river and limbo’d under some barbed wire to get away from cows, who were a bit too interested (in a ‘what you doing in my field’) in our route. A slightly damp three trudged back into Bishop’s Caundle just as it was starting to get dark.
The rain came down so plans for a second night of fireworks were abandoned in favour of a big dinner followed by a soporific evening in front of the woodburner – which has too modes; either not lit or blasting out enough heat a cathedral.
We were rewarded for our early get up this morning with a virtually deserted Stourhead and good weather. The autumn colours on the estate are just getting better and better. As we were on the way home the rain started and hasn’t really stopped. So after roast dinner we had a perfect Sunday afternoon, warmed by the burner, surrounded by the Sunday paper, watching Singin’ in the Rain.
Sunday 8pm and all now suitably restored for the week ahead.
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