tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7459649844894538352024-03-13T22:22:20.767-07:00tracks and trails and puppy dog talesCeeDeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07191885216530309850noreply@blogger.comBlogger62125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-745964984489453835.post-89867094507362386512019-09-08T09:47:00.000-07:002019-11-01T09:56:16.460-07:00Farewell to this patch<span style="color: red; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We have been charmed by the Somerset Levels. For 10 years we have explored her tracks and trails and miry ways. This magical, reclaimed land of lake villages and hidden places has woven its spells and shared its secrets with us. It is arrow straight rhynes and hissing reeds. It is lace-towered churches on small hills and great big views. Long legged birds stalk and hide here, safe and secret. Crane, bittern, heron and egret are flourishing.</span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And we have seen newts and bats and hedgehogs visit our own local, local patch. They are welcome.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red;">But now we are moving on. The house is sold and we are fleeing across the border to Dorset's softly wooded vales. There are new tracks and trails to discover and another local patch to explore. Bilbo has already found hedgerows full of pheasant and partridge and a rabbit warren at the end of the garden. As summer loses her grip on the land, our autumn will be full of new sights and sounds and scents. Farewell to this patch ...</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>CeeDeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07191885216530309850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-745964984489453835.post-14829621057803957962019-07-31T08:42:00.000-07:002019-11-01T09:55:32.629-07:00And another local patch<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am sitting at a heavy, oak table on a beamed and shady terrace. There are six oak chairs and an oilskin tablecloth which is spotted lime green and chestnut. The only sound is from the crickets, whirring in the old plum trees. It's called stridulation - that sound they make rubbing legs or wings together - and it conjures up this place. The plums are small, navy blue and dusted with white. Some are have fallen already, forming a raisiny carpet on the prickly ground and little brown butterflies are feasting.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Beyond the wrinkly trees is a rough border of herbs. The lavender and rosemary dance with bright insects: there is a large citrus butterfly with tangerine wing spots; small blue ones; swallowtails and hummingbird hawk-moths. Whip smart lizards lie in the heat, hidden in their cream and brown stripes.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The air is hot and heavy in my throat and eyes. It smells of heat and herbs, dust and pepper. There is patchy, scratchy grass underfoot, pale and littered with dried leaves. The harvest is in and in the distant meadow the bales are sitting fatly, round and golden. Fig trees give a splash of green. Their flat veined leaves are deeply lobed, divided into three teardrop shaped sections, New figs, tiny and pale, cling to the angle where the stem meets the branch.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Coubelous, Caylus, France</span><br />
<span style="color: #674ea7; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">July 2019</span>CeeDeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07191885216530309850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-745964984489453835.post-33474847846069161452019-07-05T08:40:00.000-07:002019-08-01T08:42:26.769-07:00Local patch 45<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />CeeDeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07191885216530309850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-745964984489453835.post-57202965327442170642019-06-24T07:21:00.000-07:002019-08-01T08:38:02.907-07:00Local patch 44<br /><div style="text-align: left;">
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<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Midsummer's day has passed and, meteorologically speaking, it's all downhill now! These are peaceful days of plenty. Hedgerows are buzzing and thrumming. Soft evenings are spiked with the scent of Dog rose and Honeysuckle. In the fruit garden we gather a quick harvest of early berries and currants, but there is plenty to share with the birds. The last rhubarb goes into a cheesecake with ginger biscuit base and the house is sweet with jam making. I love the rows of jewel bright jars, stacked and labelled: summer bottled for another year. On a short, dark day later in the year, we will crack open a jar and let the sunshine spill out, full of lazy promise.</span><br />
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CeeDeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07191885216530309850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-745964984489453835.post-72998685040733489232019-06-10T06:42:00.000-07:002019-08-01T08:52:02.251-07:00Local Patch 43<div>
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Last week, it felt like a second chance spring up on the high ground. Hedgerow flowers, that have already flushed, finished and been forgotten down here in the lowlands, are in full force further north. We enjoyed again the primrose and the bluebell.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #005500; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Back on the Levels, summer is surging forward, relentlessly. Swallows and Martins have nests full of young and the old walnut tree is full of fledgling Great tits. They creep around the bark and practise with their pale, perfect wings.</span></div>
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">School life has an innate rhythm too. it is palpable in the dust of the classrooms: one final push. Keep going everyone, nearly there. History speeds up and there is not enough time to fit everything in. There are exams to take and exams to mark; sports days and singing competitions; field trips and reports; prize giving and prize getting; speeches, gowns and clapping. It is bittersweet and a time for looking forward. We say goodbye and good luck and well done. We watch them flex their new, perfect wings. Fly guys, don't look back!</span></div>
CeeDeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07191885216530309850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-745964984489453835.post-11852183872511683692019-05-31T03:41:00.000-07:002019-08-01T07:58:08.436-07:00Another local patch<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When our children were tiny, we spent two years on the western edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. Puddle-suited and welly-booted, they each climbed their first peak as soon as they could put one sturdy foot in front of another. We followed the fell walls, stumbling with them over the tussocky grass and scrambling onto the trig points. They learned about walkers' cairns and fell asleep to the sound of grazing sheep and crying lambs. They knew all the local tractors by colour, shape and name and would spend every Wednesday morning watching them queue at the livestock market opposite our house.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is a place of wide views and wild weather; a place to get fit in and stay fit for. It feels a little like home and we visit often. At half term our boots were on the fells again. Up in the Howgills, we race up Cautley Spout and on to Calders before reaching the top at Bram Rigg (676m). Ring ouzel, a smart summer thrush, accompanies us, flipping from rock to rock. Like a slim Blackbird, the male has a broad white chest band and yellow bill. It makes its nest on the ground in high and wild places. We are surrounded by upland specialists and summer visitors: Wheatear bounce in the springy turf, Crag martin surf the breezes over the waterfall and there is the ragged cry of Curlew above the tumbling </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Skylark. Returning via Arant Haw (605m) and Winder (473m), it feels good to get mountain miles into new boots. Off the fell, the gate above the sheep farm clacks shut and sets the sheepdogs barking an alert as we pass. We follow the track into town and emerge onto the main road opposite the Lodge that was once our home. This wild place got under our skin decades ago and it is hard to let go.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>CeeDeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07191885216530309850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-745964984489453835.post-64168217215901043272019-05-13T05:17:00.001-07:002019-05-13T05:17:30.484-07:00Local patch 42<span style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Just after 7 in the morning we are dropped in Aller, the village on the bank behind the house. I clip Bilbo's lead on and we go: through the village to the pub and then left, to the drove road that heads across the moor. Chiff chaff chiff chaff, I set my step to the song of the bird. On these summer runs, he is our pace-maker; it is a good rhythm. We leave the last of the houses and take the lane between the rhynes. Spring is in full swing and we count the greens of the countryside: lime green and pine green; lovat and sage; muted like tweed and bright as citrus. The fields are a patchwork, spreading from the drove, dissected by arrow straight rhynes and punctuated by willow. The landscape of the Levels. Flowers of cow parsley, dead nettle and may blossom are foaming in the hedgerow. May blossom is Hawthorn (crataegus), its scent is strong and fresh and redolent of early summer.</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Chiff chaff chiff chaff, my boots pound the road. Mallard ducks take flight from the overgrown rhynes, appearing suddenly from beneath our feet and taking a sharp curving path across the sky, before settling back to the water. Robin and blackbird sing at regular intervals and the tumbling, chattering of starlings on the wires is companionable. A flash of white rump catches my eye and I look carefully to check: it is a bright and chunky bullfinch. Small groups of goldfinch are sparkling with song. There is the high and wild mew of buzzard, the laughing cry of green woodpecker and, on the edges of the soundscape, the cuckoo has returned to the moor.</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Chiff chaff chiff chaff, we turn the bend, pull up the hill into Othery, quickly cross the A361 and head down Holloway Road. The cemetery is on our left, bright with remembrance. As tractors pass, we hop onto the verge and stand quietly until they pass. And now we loop back through Middlezoy. There are lambs in the fields, well grown now, they cry sadly and then dash off in a jolly, leaping gang. From the back of the village, we leave the cricket pitch behind and take the badger track across the fields, choosing our exact route according to the cattle that guard the gates.</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Chiff chaff chiff chaff, the warblers have kept me company along the way. They have played a soundtrack to our run, encouraging us on, a metronome for our feet. We take the footpath between the horses and jump the style into the village again. The stone lacework of Othery church is before us, rooks are cawing and clattering in their churchyard nests. The rusty green of the horse chestnut leaves are stretching and shivering their new-born fingers. And the chiff chaffs replay their song, in step all the way.</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span>CeeDeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07191885216530309850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-745964984489453835.post-29336980243881970742019-05-06T03:37:00.002-07:002019-05-06T06:04:03.190-07:00Local patches, precious spaces and passing it on<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #006002; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A local wildlife blog is a celebration of the ways that nature touches us. In small and everyday details we are woven into our landscape and we have fitter hearts and minds and souls because of it. We forget at our peril. Everyone has a local patch: garden, footpath, common ground, nature reserve or park. These are precious spaces to be treasured, linked-up and defended. We must explore them with our children, sharing with them a sense of wonder and nurturing inquiring minds. Use language and science and art. Feel grounded, stop and look, breathe deeply.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #006002; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As soon as our children could stand, we encouraged them to hike. In waterproof suits and proper boots they toddled with us, splashing in puddles, falling in the mud, developing their nature vocabulary. They learned early the etiquette of the bird hide: approach respectfully, sit quietly, don't bang the doors and windows! Once they had grown up, it took me a long time to break the habit of collecting things, feathers and conkers and pebbles, when walking. But now the next generation has arrived and my pockets can be full of treasures to share again. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #006002; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Our son and daughter-in-law are both keen birdwatchers and so their baby boy has been brought up looking and listening and wondering. For now, they live thousands of miles away - where the Arabian Desert meets the Persian Gulf. Baby Arthur's early birding experiences are of Flamingos on the creek and Hoopoes in the parks. On weekly trips to the oasis he crawls and slides in the desert dunes. They hide in the shade of the bright thorn trees and look for Shrike, Bee-eater and Roller. He is learning a broad and rich nature vocabulary, and he already knows how to behave in a bird hide!</span><br />
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<span style="color: #006002; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">They will be home in the summer to escape the desert heat and I am looking forward to showing Arthur our cool, damp land. He needs a whole new vocabulary for green. There may even be an opportunity to introduce him our local, local patch - where the Great tits always nest in the tall ivy, there are newts in the pond, hedgehogs on the lawn, and bats hunting in the soft mothy night.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #006002; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Happy first birthday Arthur: I wish you a blackbird's song from the garden at dusk; and the scent of a bluebell wood after the rain!</span><br />
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<span style="color: #006002; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>CeeDeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07191885216530309850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-745964984489453835.post-66325764636233752762019-04-20T01:09:00.000-07:002019-05-06T06:03:35.095-07:00Local patch 41<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: red; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Back to the Quantocks. There is a sharp pull up Slaughterhouse Coombe which gets the muscles screaming and the heart pumping; it is good to be alive! The woods are starred with wood anemone (Anemone nemorosa) and scented with ramsons or wild garlic (Allium ursinum). They love these dark, damp soils. I have seen a recipe which smashes the long, strappy ramsons leaves together with parmesan, olive oil and pine nuts to make pesto. We must try it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: red;">We are looking for the Pied flycatcher, a striking summer visitor, which loves these places. But today there is no sign of the distinctive black and white plumage and flittering, flycatching forays. Instead we hear and see a Jay, that brightest and most elusive member of the crow family. Despite feathers of dusty pink-buff with bright turquoise wing flashes, a chequerboard cap and white rump, the shy and secretive bird is difficult to spot and seeing one is always a treat; sometimes they are mistaken for parrots because their feathers are so bright!</span><span style="color: red;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: red;"><br />Finally, </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: red;">we step out of the speckled shade and onto the springy heather tops. From here there are tracks and trails in every direction. We join the Macmillan Way West and make a huge arc across the high ground. The wind is keen and cold and fingers its way through zips and down collars until we are steaming gently. Skylarks toss themselves into the breeze, parachuting back down and drenching us with song. Before we turn our boots off the crest and head down through the woods, there is one further treat: a small group of Wheatear surround us on the path, hopping from heather to gorse, hunting hungrily for insects. These are true visitors of summer. They may just have arrived on this high land within sight of Bridgwater Bay. They may stay for the summer; and breed on these gentle heather hills; or they may be passing through heading further West or North. Welcome back - it's good to see you again!</span></span>CeeDeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07191885216530309850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-745964984489453835.post-72998856239787718442019-03-30T10:39:00.000-07:002019-04-12T06:48:14.349-07:00Local patch 40<span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Suddenly, there is colour everywhere: blossom and catkins, hedges full of primroses. On the waterways there are Gadwall, Shoveller and Tufted ducks all bright with fresh plumage. At Westhay Moor NNR the Great crested grebes are elegant in their summer feathers: cream and orange, black and white. They are beginning to display, weaving complex patterns across the water. Chiffchaffs are shouting from the trees, a Peacock butterfly basks in a sunbeam and, along the gravelly paths, butter-yellow Brimstones dance. </span><br />
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is Springtime in Somerset!</span><br />
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<br />CeeDeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07191885216530309850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-745964984489453835.post-2118228739298315362019-03-18T05:47:00.000-07:002019-03-18T05:47:38.943-07:00Local patch 39<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">We walked in the gentle Quantock Hills, on the western border of the Somerset Levels. We could see East to Glastonbury Tor and the Mendips and North to Somerset's coast, with the Gower Peninsula and the Welsh hills beyond. It is a place of rolling barrows and wooded, stream-cut combes, criss-crossed with ancient tracks and trails. In the oak-woods, deciduous branch and twig are still waiting for their greening, but there is primrose on the banks and sweet violet pushing through last autumn's leaves. The old heather is bleached or burnt on the hillside, ready to spring into life. Skylarks are tossed like rags in the wind, their song tugging at the memory of every other summer of my life.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It is too cool, yet, to find lizards or snakes, but our passage startled groups of red deer hinds and they bounded away from us, disappearing with ease among the bare trunks, or across the heather tops.</span></div>
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CeeDeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07191885216530309850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-745964984489453835.post-82890072767310737222019-03-05T04:28:00.000-08:002019-03-18T04:59:42.533-07:00Local patch 38<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: lime; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">March comes in like a lion … a very wet and windy lion this year! The rivers and rhynes of the Levels are full to overflowing. The water meadows behind our house are part of the managed flood plain. The sluices are opened regularly to let the water onto the fields and relieve the pressure further up the river system. We wake in the morning to find a glistening, silvery ocean. And before long, the watery birds have stopped to investigate. As dusk falls there is the sound of ducks dabbling in the shallows. They pipe and whistle gently to each other.</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the winter-dark hedgerow, there are the acid stars of wild daffodils and the promise of clumps of primrose before long. Prickly blackthorn (<i>prunus spinosa),</i> always the earliest to flower, has made confetti in the lanes. Her delicate white petals have been tossed and ripped by exuberant Storm Freya.</span></div>
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<br />CeeDeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07191885216530309850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-745964984489453835.post-5094735553922012052019-03-01T05:15:00.000-08:002019-03-18T05:16:33.251-07:00Pinch me someone ...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In a thrilling evening in Mayfair last night, at the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards, I was given the Bradt Travel Guide's New Travel Writer of the Year award! Pictured here with Hilary Bradt, I am grateful to them for their amazing competition and the wonderful way that they encourage aspiring writers to this most competitive of fields. My thanks, too, go to the lovely people at Wexas Travel for the promise of the prize trip to Finland. I have dreamed of those Northern lands for many years, drawn to reindeer and huskies and all that beautiful, bleak scenery. There is time, now, to build up muscle tone for snow-shoeing and study the wildlife guides for Scandinavia. Look out for one or two tales from faraway, among my local patch stories …!</span></div>
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<br />CeeDeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07191885216530309850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-745964984489453835.post-20427258123816859442019-02-15T04:04:00.000-08:002019-03-18T04:59:32.247-07:00Local patch 37<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">From the sublime to the ridiculous; we have escaped from the Arctic grip of snow and ice into the warmest Valentine's Day for many years. We dug out tee shirts and sunglasses. Some people jumped into the sea. The hedgerows strained to keep pace with the surge of sappy growth, encouraged by the May-like temperatures. Birds are singing and busy looking for insects. They don't know what month it is.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I went to collect eggs in the soft air before dawn. There was pearl on the horizon and, in these in between times, a tawny was hooting from the tall birches at the end of the garden while a blackbird started his dawn song and the robin shouted out from the plum tree above the chicken run. In the rush to get ready for the day ahead: breathe deeply.</span>CeeDeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07191885216530309850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-745964984489453835.post-78261729009785432682019-02-01T03:47:00.000-08:002019-03-18T05:03:42.071-07:00Local patch 36<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IIYyzUT_ODU/XI93nL1LpQI/AAAAAAAABEQ/WTIW7PNc4NguKSAzlViQzMyqd5i9YM0pwCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/51547948_10218154361601661_8134764532179402752_n%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IIYyzUT_ODU/XI93nL1LpQI/AAAAAAAABEQ/WTIW7PNc4NguKSAzlViQzMyqd5i9YM0pwCK4BGAYYCw/s200/51547948_10218154361601661_8134764532179402752_n%255B1%255D.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="color: blue; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Heavy snow and ice has brought much of central and southern Britain to a surprised halt, with night time temperatures dipping well below zero. Here on the Somerset Levels we have a beautiful dusting. Several centimetres of the white stuff was enough to close our schools and make many roads treacherous. Further West, there were tales of great kindness and generosity as travellers were stranded on Bodmin Moor.</span><br />
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CeeDeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07191885216530309850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-745964984489453835.post-6044858180946753032019-01-20T04:36:00.000-08:002019-03-18T05:56:58.700-07:00Local patch 35<span style="background-color: white; color: purple; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I love the names of the moons. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: purple; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This month we have a <b>super blood wolf moon</b>. It is a super moon because it is at its closest point to the Earth and appears bigger and brighter than normal. And passing through the Earth's shadow, the beautiful, fat moon glows coppery red, hence 'blood' moon. The 'wolf' bit of the name is less clear but probably stems from ancient native American observations. There is a delicious chill in the sound of the howl of the wolf in the night, resonating with tales of faraway and long ago. Of course, there are none here now. The last wolves disappeared from the UK hundreds of years ago. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: purple; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But I shall keep an eye on Bill to see if he is drawn to the night sky this week!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><span style="background-color: white;"></span><span style="color: purple;"></span><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><br />CeeDeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07191885216530309850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-745964984489453835.post-52666183041972866992019-01-06T03:05:00.000-08:002019-03-18T05:02:24.999-07:00Ringing in the new ...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So, we have feasted. We have brought winter evergreens into the house and decorated with twinkling lights, spruce and mistletoe. We have sung carols, listened to ancient truths and prayed our prayers. We have lit tall, ivory altar candles and advent wreaths and we have stretched out in front of the fire to play games, exchange gifts and create shared stories. There have been long muddy walks, hugs, dogs, laughter, tears and new resolve. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And now, with the freshening of the year, I am sweeping up the pine needles and the wood ash. The house is newly quiet. Wrapping paper (non-metallic) has been sorted and recycled. Christmas letters have been put ready for reply, new addresses and family news safely noted. I tie up this year's cards and pack them away with the decorations - to be brought out next December, at card-writing time! We have chopped the branches off the Christmas trees; they make a dry layer in the chicken run, lifting the ladies' feet out of the mud. The trunks are ready to chop and stack in the log pile. They are good fuel once they are seasoned.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the new year, I always make a list for my 'Christmas-self next year'. As well as notes about recipes that did (or didn't) work etc, there are always more philosophical wishes too. For Christmas 2019 I want to: buy less, shop local, invest in people, invite friends, keep it simple, have time ...</span>CeeDeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07191885216530309850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-745964984489453835.post-58395479787982491682018-11-26T09:05:00.002-08:002018-11-26T09:05:23.664-08:00<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />CeeDeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07191885216530309850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-745964984489453835.post-37350192379427231992018-10-25T08:16:00.000-07:002018-11-26T08:57:13.415-08:00Local patch 34<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: red; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Autumn creeps on!</span><br />
<span style="color: red; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We ran up the drove road across Aller Moor this morning. The just-rising sun was beginning to paint ice cream colours in the sky but night was reluctant to let go. Big flocks of starlings were arrowing low across the meadows, half a thousand at a time. They had risen in clouds from their reedy roosts and were now hungry. Rooks, flying higher, were heading for their feeding grounds too. They need soft pasture where they can plunge those great beaks deep into the ground. The croak of raven was tossed on the breeze and the trumpet bray of the cranes echoed across the top of the heavens as they launched themselves from their secret strongholds. </span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ahead of us, along the rhynes, the willows and thorns were full of bright thrushes. The fieldfares, winter visitors from the North, are back! They are beautiful: cinnamon and slate with white underparts. Their chuckling cry is a true herald of autumn.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><span style="color: red;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />CeeDeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07191885216530309850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-745964984489453835.post-91590315795118877612018-09-04T04:09:00.000-07:002018-10-26T05:08:35.212-07:00Local patch 33<span style="color: #990000; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Happy new year! September always feels like a time for fresh starts, new resolve and good intentions, shiny shoes and shiny conkers. There used to be the pleasure of crisp, new notepads and exercise books. <span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Sadness that the summer was over was always tempered by the thrill of the new. What did you do during the summer? Which classroom have we got, which teachers? It is a long time since I was a schoolgirl, but my life continues to be ruled by the rhythms of the academic year and</span> I spend more time than I should in stationery shops, picking pens and pencils, getting organised and preparing for the year ahead. The clamour of the playground reminds me of standing in line and waiting for my own tousled headed boys to burst through the door at the end of the day, clutching drippy art work and usually wearing mismatched shoes and all the wrong clothes. Our walk to school in the morning took far too long as we stopped to examine all the signs of autumn. We gathered beech mast, old man's beard and conkers in their prickly cases. Shiny rook feathers and clusters of hips and haws were carefully transported to the nature corner, or taken home to be copydexed on to shoe boxes or toilet roll tubes in precious compositions.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #990000; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">With their schooldays long behind them, I gradually morphed into a teacher. And this year I am a new girl all over again, with a new job in a new school. As I dragged my brand new books and pads and pens from the car and opened the classroom door, I carefully found a place for the bunch of hedgerow berries and leaves. And I pinned the rook feathers onto the noticeboard. Let the new year begin!</span>CeeDeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07191885216530309850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-745964984489453835.post-40234229093363815912018-08-22T05:26:00.000-07:002018-08-22T05:26:11.521-07:00Local patch 32<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is a hushed, waiting time on the tracks and trails now. The shifting Gulf Stream finally brought a return to recognisable weather and it has rained. 'Usable rain', I heard it called on the radio. The grass has greened but it will take a long time before the great cracks across the land are healed. Levels on our Somerset reserves and waterways remain low. The garden has suffered in the brittle, dry heat. I tipped the contents of several old hanging baskets into the chicken run and they rushed to scratch through it, breaking up the roots and scavenging the bugs and mini beasts inside. Lettuces have gone to seed and the large white butterflies (pieris brassicae) have devastated the cabbages. There are so many this year and their yellow and black caterpillars have feasted.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: magenta; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We went into the mothy night to listen for owls. There was no moon and our dark, Somerset sky was full of stars. The last of the Perseid meteors, debris from an ancient comet, fireworked across the sky. Bilbo started an urgent, familiar dance and under the hedge we found his spiky prey. He is good at leaving them alone, but would so love to investigate! We have seen several hedgehogs in the garden, including a couple of young ones. How lovely that they have bred here this year. Get fat now guys, feed up before the long sleep.</span><br />
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<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The hedgerows and reserves are quiet. The swifts have disappeared from our skies. Suddenly they are gone, screaming south before the wind changes. There are still swallows and martens in good numbers. House martens are visiting the eaves of the old farmhouse opposite, perhaps there is a (too) late brood in there? The warblers are quiet and even the rooks have cackled off to feeding grounds afar. Robin and blackbird are silent.</span><br />
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<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Along the canal, moorhen families fuss quietly in the reeds and young coots practise flexing their long, green toes. The kingfishers continue to patrol their stretch of water. They fly low and sit still and it is easy to miss them.</span><br />
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<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hedgerow harvests are looking rich and full already. Dark clusters of elderberries are bending the branches low. Hips and haws are shining with the fire of autumn. Sloes glow fierce and blue, but they are small this year. The lime globes of mistletoe are looking fat and plentiful. And on the path behind the church, a tangle of hazel and hawthorn is draped with soft, frilly hop bines (humulus lupulus). Brambles are loaded. We picked them for a hedgerow crumble, with windfall apples scrumped from next door. Today, I found a plump pair of green hazlenuts (Corylus avellana) on the tow-path. They will be ripe when the soft leaves of the trees turn colour. But by then they will have been gathered up by the squirrels, wood mice, jays, wood pigeons and nuthatches, providing a high calorie feast at the changing of the season.</span><br />
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<span style="color: magenta; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>CeeDeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07191885216530309850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-745964984489453835.post-26426794769095696912018-07-15T07:59:00.000-07:002018-08-05T13:19:25.816-07:00Local patch 31<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We don't often need to seek out the shade in a British summer. Sun-starved, we move our chairs out of the shadows; we walk on the sunny side of the street; we throw open the shutters and let the light in. It is noticeable that our garden plants do better in sunny spots, unless they are shade specialists. It is an overlooked gardening lesson: get the soil right, get the moisture right, get the light right too. Generally, we feel better in the sunshine and warmth. To sit long into the soft night - as <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">the moths sip from night scented flowers, the bats hawk and twist in the purple air and the family of tawny owls chuckle and chatter from the barn - </span>is one of life's rare pleasures. We know we must protect our skin too. 'Any suntan is skin damage', I read years ago in a beauty magazine and so we cover up when we travel to the sun and acknowledge that perhaps a youthful complexion is one benefit of living in our cool, green climate.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Perhaps we don't think very much about the need for shade until we go on holiday and notice those heavy shutters which are used to protect interiors from the heat of the day. And those colourful, striped awnings over shop fronts really do make sense when we feel the heat of the midday sun. Suddenly, siesta seems very sensible. We appreciate the landscaping that makes towns and cities bearable. In the desert climate of north western Argentina's city of Mendoza, channels of cool flowing water (<i>acequias)</i> from the snowmelt in the Andes, irrigate the shade trees and keep the temperature comfortable. It is hard to imagine the Alhambra Palace in Granada, without the sound of running water and the cooling influence of its cascades, fountains and symbolic pools. Water, and the power of reflection in its mirrored surfaces, is one of the key elements of Islamic paradise gardens. Dubai, that city where there really shouldn't be a city, is surprisingly green and well irrigated. And yet in the fierce heat of the desert summer, it is still too hot for humans to linger in the sun. Even the bus stops are air conditioned.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This year, the gulf stream has looped far to the north of Europe - and there it has stayed, bringing us sustained periods of hot, dry weather. It doesn't feel like Britain. It doesn't look much like it either; gardens, parks and hedgerows are the colour of straw and plants have gone to seed. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Harvest is starting early. At least there is dry weather to bring it safely in, even if the late and cold spring has reduced yields. Here, on the misty, green Somerset Levels, the rivers are low and the ditches and rhynes are all dried up. Our wildlife pond could do with a top up too. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">In this land of rain, we don't always regard water as precious. A summer such as this makes us think carefully about how we use it and save it and guard it.</span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">However, our wonderful, gleaming wetlands are still teeming with life. At Ham Wall it is a good year for butterflies, dragons, damsels and frogs. Like us, the creatures have learned to hide during the heat of the day, but early in the day and later in the afternoon there is plenty to see. They need to go about their essential business: feeding their young and building up fat reserves.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On an early run this morning, I hugged the line of the hedge. As I ran up the hill past the cemetery, I was grateful for the deep, dark shade. Somerset has a rich network of species-rich hedgerows and field boundaries. Many, around the village are steeply banked, suggesting ancient trackways carved into the land. And I noticed the importance of shade and the ability to get out of the sun. We don't usually hide from it in this country but how nice, just sometimes, to have the choice!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>CeeDeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07191885216530309850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-745964984489453835.post-27368009600213386492018-05-31T09:28:00.000-07:002018-06-24T10:20:49.250-07:00Local patch 30<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Last month it was all about the birdsong. The birds are still loud but they are busy too. They are hunting and scavenging, using all the daylight to feed their nestlings and fledglings. Some are raising a second or third brood. The young rooks are insistent at sunrise, their immature caws and cackles playing a constant soundtrack to the morning.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This month it is the fragrance that assaults the senses from the hedgerows. On warm evenings, honeysuckle stops me in my tracks. It casts a spell. The warm, sweet spice sends me checking for its twirling, twisting stems and peaches and cream flowers. We can choose big and blowsy strains for our gardens in a variety of colours but our beautiful native <i>lonicera periclymenum</i> is perfect for our hedges. It is pollinated by moths and long tongued bees, its perfume sending a chemical message throughout the countryside. Dormice eat the flowers and use its bark for nesting and in the autumn it provides a feast of bright berries for thrushes and finches.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wild privet (<i>ligustrum vulgare</i>) produces creamy flowers with a clean, bold scent. Sweet dog rose (<i>rosa canina</i>) uses her long thorns to scramble and twine. Her scent is faint and exotic. Buddleia, rampant and invasive, has a honey scent which draws the butterflies to her like a flickering, animated cloak. If you are lucky enough to walk beneath lime trees (<i>tilia</i>) in flower the perfume is intoxicating and lingers long in the memory. Also known as linden trees, limes occur in fairy groves and ancient tales. Their flowers can be used to make a palatable, protective tea; they produce drippy, sticky sap, but no limes!</span><br />
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, the queen of the hedgerow is definitely the elder tree (<i>sambucus</i>). Her tightly packed, lacy flowers produce waves of bright, fresh, citrus scent, announcing the arrival of summer.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I pushed open the door of the pharmacy and walked into the dark shop, searching for citric acid. 'Don't worry', called a voice from the back, 'I ordered extra this month'. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is cordial season. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We will pick bunches of the cream clusters of flowers, disturbing a buzzing, thrumming cloud of insects. Back home we will twist the flowers from the stalks and macerate them in sugar syrup along with thick curls of lemon peel. The perfume will fill the house and the next day we can strain it, stir in the citric acid, and decant into tall bottles. Summer is bottled.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the pharmacy, the girl behind the counter said with reverence, 'did you know, you can get Elderflower Prosecco'? Summer in a glass, I'll drink to that!</span>CeeDeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07191885216530309850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-745964984489453835.post-17050728067496198722018-04-28T12:08:00.003-07:002018-04-28T14:14:08.607-07:00Local patch 29<span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Suddenly, this week, there are more swallows. Along the drove road this morning, they are skimming low across the meadows in pairs and triplets. They surf the tops of the new grass, weaving between the cattle, between their legs and under their bellies, before peeling off and up high into the sky. Each swooping pass rewards them with beaks full of insects. They tip and turn, agile in the soft air, elegant tails flexing and shape-shifting. Extravagant joy.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial";">Further along, I stop to watch a roe deer munching on the stems in the rhyne. This small, elegant native deer was extinct in England by the 1800s. Tree planting schemes brought it back and it is now widespread once more. I can see its distinctive black nose, large, dark-fringed ears and small white scut. We lock eyes and it doesn't twitch a whisker. Several heartbeats later it has melted into the dawn. Pure joy.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial";">Unusually this spring, in the field at the end of our garden, young cattle have been turned out. For the first 24 hours they dashed around their new kingdom in a boisterous, sturdy gang. Everything was new and fresh. Heady with excitement, they huffed softly on the other side of the fence, pranced and danced, crazy with joy.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial";">In the garden, the birds are busy. Great tits are again feeding young in the nest box in the ivy-covered plum tree. There are blue tits in and out of the new box in the old walnut tree. The reed buntings, who joined us last month when their reedy home was shuddering with snow, have decided they like it here and are still around. They seem to have joined forces with the city of sparrows that live in the bramble and nettle on the wall. Last into leaf, the walnut does now have a haze of fresh green and rusty leaves. A tree creeper has been examining its deeply cracked bark and mossy trunk this week - please stay! We haven't seen you here before. Rooks, with their great bony faces and funny, raggedy trousers, flap and dangle from the walnut's trembling twigs. One of the pack bashes the feeders, scattering the seed onto the ground where seven or eight others, together with a handful of bouncing jackdaws, quickly clean up. It's a rout!</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial";">Our mornings are loud with birds now. Three stood out against the crowd this week: chiff chaffs created a wall of sound; a grasshopper warbler added its whirring, churring call and finally, joyfully - the cuckoo shouted its confirmation that spring is underway. </span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial";">At last.</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And now we can believe. </span><br />
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<span style="color: lime; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After the passion and pain of Holy Week, Easter ushered in a new month. Sick of winter, we have turned our backs on the old season and welcomed British Summer Time, enjoying softer, lighter evenings and the promise of life outdoors.</span><br />
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<span style="color: lime; font-family: Arial;">Finally, there are swallows above the garden. In this delayed Spring, they are so much later here than last year. Great tits are investigating the next boxes; in our new hedge the leaves have burst, showing tiny, perfect versions of hazel and hawthorn, spindle and maple. Blackthorn blossom blows like confetti in the lanes. At home, in the pond, there are dozens of tiny water snails. The water plants are budding and blooming. </span><br />
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<span style="color: lime; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The rooks are busy attending to their nests. Our walnut tree provides them with a good supply of brittle twigs. They crash around, cawing and flapping, busy. </span></div>
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<span style="color: lime; font-family: Arial;">An occasional warmer spell brings out the butterflies: brimstone and peacock. And the pipistrelles have been hawking at dusk. Last week, Bilbo started his agitated dance on the night lawn. I swung my torch through the hedge at the back and found the first hedgehog. Tightly balled until we moved away, it made its snuffly way along the border.</span></div>
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<span style="color: lime; font-family: Arial;">Let the new season commence!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"></span><span style="color: lime;"></span><br />CeeDeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07191885216530309850noreply@blogger.com0