Looking Back on January

This has not been a good week/month/year so far what with thevery worrying health problems of two of our daughters, both in hospital at the same time (hopefully now both seem on the mend) - the unexpected deaths of two friends, and the illnesses and worries of credit-crunched chums. I had strong feelings of impending gloom as midnight struck on 31st December, and was much disquieted, as I can usually trust my instincts. Only now that our eldest daughter in particular, has emerged with an almost clean bill of health from an utterly miserable time having endless tests with potentially dire outcomes , can we her parents begin to think clearly again.

Meanwhile life goes on here in our little corner of Somerset – and how precious even the most mundane things seem now that our girls are happily back in their own homes once more. I can sit here at my desk, looking out over the landscape beyond, and revel in the small everyday occurences

A dear little robin, Christmas-card perfect, is perched on the freshly shooting honeysuckle tangled around the wire fence between my studio window and the paddock beyond. He has been watching me intently with his head cocked to one side. When I smile back at him I can almost see his eyes light up.
I have bird feeders hanging from the old, now winter-leafless apple tree in the studio garden – a paved and gravelled area along the lowest level of the garden, separated from the lawn by deeply sloping rockery beds and stone steps which are almost over-run with winter-withered erigeron . These provide endless distractions for us as we sit by the garden room window at mealtimes. A grey and blue pottery bell has a hook where the clapper would be, so that a fat ball can be hung from it. Rather over-enthusiastically I fixed two netted fatballs to this, and when both had just small nuggets of food left in them, we were greatly amused to see a starling balancing precariously on the edge of the bell, frantically pulling at the green netting till he successfully lifted it off its hook. As it fell to the ground he dived triumphantly down to demolish its contents, before flying back up to try for a second helping! This proved far more difficult, and in spite of repeated frenzied pecking at the hooked end of the netting, and highly agitated wing-flapping, he had to give up in the end, and sat frustratedly watching from a nearby bough, whilst smaller birds finished off the feast.

Unlike the preceding three to four weeks, when it was VERY cold and frosty but with blue skies and sunshine, the past week has been very wet and mild. The field beyond the paddock must now be very soggy indeed, as we keep seeing puddles in the grass which take some time to disappear. Maybe this is the reason we haven’t seen ‘our sheep’ for over a week now. During the summer months from May to October, the field is home to a herd of cows, who provide fascinating ‘moving scenery’, and we do miss them so much during the winter when the field lies empty. However last year the cows having only just departed , presumably to provide succulent steaks, puddings and pies, we were thrilled one morning to see that a small flock of sheep were now excitedly investigating their new surroundings. Though delighted to see them, we thought they were probably just staying for b.& b., as this has happened before ….. but they have remained here, causing me frequently to be heard singing ‘Sheep May Safely Graze’ , or ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ depending on my mood. As I have absolutely no idea at all of how to hold a tune, this doesn’t endear me to my long suffering husband…. but I can’t help myself.

Anyway, for this past week the cumbrous but cuddly-looking creatures are nowhere to be seen. We hope they have just been moved to dry land higher up the nearby hills, but fear they may now be lying in shrink-wrapped portions on supermarket shelves. So the landscape beyond the garden seems somewhat bereft, and we miss their daily diversions ….. but at least the singing has stopped!

In the gardens, back and front, all is damp and drear, and looks particularly messy as somehow I never got round to cutting back the dead plants at the end of last season (I left them for the birds, is my excuse). Still, we have noticed the green shoots of spring bulbs peeping up through the lawn, so it shouldn’t be too long before we see blessed colour in the garden again – I simply must get out there with the shears and secateurs. I was really uplifted to see daffodils beginning to bloom on the roundabout just outside a village close by …… but even these are very late as last winter they were already blooming by the end of December. No doubt the extremely low temperatures we have been ‘enjoying’ in recent weeks are to blame. It’s all down to Global Warming I suppose.

... so to begin...

I'm sitting here in my cosy studio at the bottom of our garden, watching dusk fall across the paddock directly outside my window, and over the rhyne and fields beyond. Our single-storey home (okay, a bungalow then, but that conjures up visions of uninspired, dull dwellings for the elderly - none of which applies, except that we who dwell here might be considered by the young to be literally 'over the hill') - sits on the gentle southern slopes of the Mendip Hills, with views to die for. From our front gate we can see the cleft in the hills which is Cheddar Gorge, some three miles away, and we have uninterrupted views across the Somerset Levels from every rear window. On a clear day in winter, when the trees across the countryside are bare, we can just see Glastonbury Tor if we lean against the picture window in our garden room/kitchen and peer leftwards.

I was researching a fresh subject to add to my List of Talks on life in the Edwardian Era (around 100 years ago) and came across a book entitled 'Pot Pourri from a Surrey Garden' written by a Mrs. Earle around the turn of last century. It was made up of random diary entries over the course of a year, covering happenings in her garden and the countryside beyond, with the addition of interesting titbits about her family and the wider world. The book seems to have gone into many editions, and I found it so absorbing that I decided to keep a similar notebook myself, using the computer which is installed (along with great numbers of Edwardian magazines, newspapers and books) here in my garden eyrie.

Two of our daughters have got themselves Blogging, and dear sweet souls that they are, encouraged me to do the same. So here goes....