A Week of Winter

22 Fri Jan 2016

Posted by Clare Pooley in churches, plants, Rural Diary, trees, weather

Tags

Aram Khachaturian, buds, flowers, frost, hoarfrost, ice, Masquerade Suite, moss, music, snow, winter

After the warmest December on record and a mild New Year we have, at last, had a little cold winter weather. Some of the flowers that were blooming in the mild weather have been frosted and turned brown. Others don’t seem to have been bothered by the frost and ice and have continued to flower.

The first ice starting to form on the big pond

We have snowdrops in the garden that don’t look anywhere near being ready to flower but some in tubs have buds that may open in a couple of days. Strangely, a golden crocus which usually flowers in March has appeared in the grass near the end of the drive. The garden is unusually colourful for this time of year.

Slightly stunted pink Hyacinths.

Grape Hyacinths.

Miniature iris

The ‘sticky-buds’ are swelling on the Horse Chestnut tree.

Those four photos were taken the morning after a severe gale when lots of rain, then sleet and wet snow fell. The snow settled for a while but most of it disappeared the next day when the sun came out. The wind had blown the snow almost horizontally and when I went out the following morning I saw walls and tree trunks with snow and ice stuck to them but hardly any snow on the ground.

Small amount of ice on an apple tree.

Melting ice on a window sill

It was a beautiful day

The water-level in the pond has risen quite a lot recently but not as much as we’d expected. Probably ditch clearing and drainage works done locally have meant less water entering our garden. The reeds and brambles need to be cut back here!

Colourful fungi on a dead log.

Even the pond at the front of the house had some ice on it

We continued to get hard frosts at night and then a light sprinkling of beautiful powdery snow on Saturday night.

The big pond

I like the patterns the snow made on the icy pond

We had a hoarfrost yesterday morning but the sun soon came out and the frost melted. I wish I could have got outside earlier!

Pyracantha leaves

Cherry tree buds

Winter-flowering Honeysuckle

Thyme

Marjoram/Oregano

The moss and lichen garden on top of the brick pillar at the end of the drive

A close-up of the moss with its frosted capsules

Crabapples.

I am pleased we have had a few frosts because the birds will only eat the crabapples once they have been frosted.

Richard went to a PCC (Parochial Church Council) meeting on Wednesday evening and came home with two pieces of good news. The first is that we are a stage nearer to getting the screen put in between the Tower Room and the main body of the church at Rumburgh and the second is that when our Rector retires in 2017 we will (eventually) be getting a replacement for him. For some time now, we have thought that we would have to do without a priest when Richard (the Rector) goes. We have a large but sparsely populated benefice and even though we would have tried to keep things going on our own and with the help of retired clergy and the priest from our neighbouring benefice, it would have been very difficult and might have meant that some, at least, of the churches would have had to close. We will have to put up with at least a year’s interregnum before the replacement priest arrives but if we know that we will get a Rector eventually we will cope better.

The piece of music today is a great favourite of mine and very romantic in style. It is quite long (just over 16 minutes) but is in five short movements so you don’t have to listen to it all in one go! This music makes me happy – I really don’t think anyone could help being cheered by it! It goes from a fast ‘Waltz’ to a very romantic interlude – ‘Nocturne’; then to another fast movement – ‘Mazurka’ followed by a slower ‘Romance’. The piece ends with a ‘Galop’. It was originally written in 1941 by Aram Khachaturian as incidental music for a new production of a play called ‘Masquerade’ by the Russian poet and playwright Michail Lermontov. The satirical-romantic play was written in 1835 and has a similar storyline to ‘Othello’. The run in 1941 had to be cut short because of the invasion of the USSR by Germany. Khachaturian later (in 1944) turned the incidental music into a Suite.

Thanks for visiting!

November

26 Thu Nov 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in churches, family, Gardening, music, plants, Rural Diary, theatre, weather

≈ 47 Comments

Tags

Autumn plants, berries, church going, Diary, Don Pasquale by Donizetti, family, flowers, garden work, Glyndebourne Touring Company, house repairs, leaf colour, Open Space Theatre Company, snow, St Michael and All Saints and St Felix church, Suffolk, Uncle Vanya by Chekhov, weather

Red Christmas Cactus

Salmon Christmas Cactus

My point-and-shoot camera stopped working and we didn’t think there was much point in taking it to be repaired. A replacement probably costs what the repair would have cost – if it could have been repaired – so we ordered a replacement which arrived yesterday. Richard kindly said I could borrow his small camera while we waited for the replacement, but I never used it. There haven’t been many opportunities for photography during the past week and the camera only took a couple of days to arrive.

Acer leaves at the beginning of November

After a chilly week or so in October, the weather this month has been fairly warm for the time of year. We have also had a fair amount of rain. I have managed to do a little garden-tidying, though as usual, not as much as I need to do or as I would have liked! There may be a few more days this year when I can finish off the work so I am not too worried. We had a couple of storms with high winds last week which ripped most of the leaves from the trees and Saturday was cold with wintry showers.

Mahonia this November

Mahonia flowers

We had a gardener/landscaper and his assistant come to do a few jobs that Richard needed help with. Almost all our hedges have been cut and tidied by them and the front ditch has been strimmed. The hedges between us and our neighbours on either side of us have been left for now and will be done at a later date. Both of those hedges (like the front one) are on the far side of deep ditches which are fast filling with very cold water and are difficult to do.

Copper Beech at the beginning of November

Copper Beech in the sun in the middle of the month

Another job the gardener did was to dismantle our old summerhouse and extend the concrete pad on which it stood. When I say ‘dismantle’ I use the word quite loosely as all he did was lean on it and it fell down. With the winds that blew last week it probably would have fallen down without anyone’s help. Richard is still deciding which summerhouse to buy to replace the old one. We will be able to keep a few things in it that are needed for that end of the garden and Richard will be able to use it as a little home-from-home – a place to escape the hurly-burly of life in the house – a ‘shed’ with a view (of our big pond). I am sure a comfy chair and coffee-making apparatus will be making their way down the garden and the bell on the wall of the house will be put to good use when summoning him for meals!

Spindle berries beginning to split

Spindle berries

We got a couple of quotes from local replacement-window firms and have made our choice. The work to replace almost all the windows in the house, both garage doors and the back door and window in the garage will be done in January. I just know the weather will be freezing cold when the work’s done and I will have a miserable time of it! However, it will be worth it in the end as the house will eventually be considerably warmer and our heating bills will be much reduced.

The path round our big pond earlier this month while we still had some leaves on the trees

A new reed that has appeared next to our large pond this year

Richard spent a couple of days staying with an old friend in Manchester a few weeks ago. His friend had to retire early through ill health (heart attack) but is much better now and is enjoying not going to work. Richard came home after a very pleasant break much happier about his own retirement.

Lots of little bracket fungi found on a dead branch

Richard and I went to the Rectory coffee morning at the beginning of the month and enjoyed seeing all our friends from church. We came home with cakes, pains aux raisins, marmalade and a book – no prizes in the raffle this time. This month we also went to the Remembrance Sunday service at St James’ church which was quite moving. Representatives from all the villages in the benefice read out the names of all the people who lost their lives in some of the wars we have taken part in – the two World Wars as well as the Korean and the Boer Wars. The American airmen who lost their lives during WW2 and who were stationed at Flixton airfield were also mentioned.

Crabapple ‘Evereste’ covered in fruit . This photo also shows part of the front hedge and ditch before we had them both trimmed and tidied.

Alice came home the Saturday before last and stayed until the following Tuesday. This was only the second time she has been able to visit this year but we hope to see her at Christmas as well which will be fun! Mum came to lunch that Sunday and she enjoyed chatting with Alice and catching up with her news.

The church of St Michael and All Angels

The sundial on St Michael’s wall

Some of the sheep in the field next to the church.

(The three photos above were all taken with my new camera. I think I will need to adjust the settings to get clearer pictures.)

Richard and I had been to the 9.30 Morning Prayer service at St Michael’s church the Sunday before last. Maurice, one of our Benefice Elders, took the service and spoke about St Edmund, Suffolk’s Patron Saint whose feast day is the 20th of November. I had been due to take Mum to her church that day but couldn’t because of lunch-cooking duties. Instead, I arranged to take Mum to church this Sunday just gone. It was very icy with snow still on the ground in the morning and we assumed that it would be as bad at Mum’s house and at Eye; Richard said he would drive us in his 4×4. Unfortunately for Richard, the further inland we got the less snow there was and he found that he needn’t have driven me and Mum after all! He had to sit through a High Church service at Eye church with bells, incense and a procession to boot, because he had been gallant. Richard doesn’t like High Church services – his Methodist upbringing revolts against them. I was brought up going to High Church services and I can worship anywhere really, but do prefer my own local church with my friends and Richard by my side. I think I’ll be left to drive Mum to church on my own as usual in future, whatever the weather!

These next photos were taken by Richard on his phone on Sunday morning.

View of the garden from the conservatory

The greenhouse seen from the conservatory

The garden on the south side of the house from the conservatory

I went out for the evening twice last week. On Tuesday evening I took Mum to a performance of the opera ‘Don Pasquale’ by Donizetti. It was performed by the Glyndebourne Touring Company at the Theatre Royal in Norwich. We loved it very much indeed. The singing, the costumes, the orchestra and the stage set were fabulous. A really enjoyable evening out only spoiled by a gale blowing and making driving and walking difficult – Mum was nearly blown over a couple of times and I had to hold onto her tightly. Clouds of leaves were swirling about in front of the car and bits of tree were falling onto the road all about us. As I drove along I was aware of loose branches swinging to and fro just above the car and hoped I could get out of the way before they fell. Fortunately I got my mother and myself safely to Norwich and then back home again.

Wild Rosehips in the hedge.

On Saturday night Richard and I went to see ‘Uncle Vanya’ by Chekhov performed by the Open Space Theatre Company at The Cut in Halesworth. We both enjoyed the play very much which was acted and directed well. On leaving the theatre we found it had started snowing and as Richard had left his hat in the car he got quite wet and cold on our brisk walk to the carpark. The snow was falling heavily as we left the town and Richard found it very difficult keeping to the road once we left the street-lights behind. Most of our lanes have deep ditches running along next to them and there is always the risk of driving into a ditch in the dark. We were glad to get home again and into the warm. The snow didn’t last long and by morning most of the roads and paths were mainly clear but icy.

All photos in this post were taken either in our house or in the garden except for the ones of St Michael’s church.

My musical choice is performed by Emeli Sandé and Jules Holland.

Thanks for visiting!

September’s End

25 Fri Sep 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in amphibians, family, Insects, music, plants, Rural Diary, trees

≈ 32 Comments

Tags

autumn, berries, buzzard, common lizard, crane fly, family, flowers, Fruit, fruit trees, fungus, garden flowers, greater celandine, wasp nest, wild flowers

Common Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna)

We have had some very cool nights already and lots of rain. Autumn has arrived! The nights are drawing in and when I get up just after six o’clock in the morning on Mondays and Fridays I have to wait for well over half an hour before the sun rises.

Chrysanthemum

I have no news to give you about Alice – I haven’t spoken to her for about a fortnight so I assume she is busy and coping alright.

Morning Glory

Dahlia

To our surprise, the day after I mentioned in this blog that it would take weeks for probate to be granted, it was granted! Richard has spent two days in Manchester with his brother sorting out all their mother’s finances. They also went to a place that Joyce was fond of and scattered her ashes. Richard was hoping to spend three days with Chris and wanted to travel up in his new car but unfortunately his windscreen was hit by a stone chipping last week which left a four inch crack and it needs replacing! The insurance company is sending someone to our house to carry out the replacement today (which is when Richard had hoped to return home). He came home yesterday instead (Thursday). He will have to go back to Manchester in a couple of weeks to finish going through all Joyce’s belongings and deciding what to do with them – a very difficult business.

Dog-rose-hips (Rosa canina)

Blackberries (Rubus fruticosus agg.)

Pyracantha berries

Cotoneaster berries

Black Bryony (Tamus communis) growing through Cotoneaster horizontalis

Cotoneaster horizontalis

Elinor has almost completed two weeks at college, is working hard and her tutors are very pleased with her. She is enjoying the course but finds the social side of college life very tricky. She is very insecure and worries all the time that she is saying or doing the wrong thing. She has also been badly affected by her grandmother’s death and funeral. She is afraid of going to sleep in case she doesn’t wake up again and she is frightened of being left alone both now and in the future.

Eating apples ‘Saturne’

Pears ‘Concorde’

Figs ‘Brown Turkey’

Crabapple ‘Evereste’

Crabapple ‘Harry Baker’

Crabapple

I have been busy in the house and with my mother; Richard has had a lot to do in the garden and has also been arranging our finances now that he has retired. We have had no time for a walk recently and in fact have done very few walks together during the whole year. We hope that in the next week or so things will have calmed down and we will be able to find time to go out together.

Chinese Lanterns (Physalis alkekengi)

Japanese Ornamental Cherry ‘Fragrant Cloud’

Acer palmatum ‘Atropurpureum’

Spindle (Euonymous europaeus)

Hazel new catkins (Corylus avellana)

Elder (Sambucus nigra)

Fungus

The photographs in this post were mainly done during one afternoon this week.

This is the entrance to one of the three wasp nests we have in our garden. They took over an old mouse or vole hole.

Crane fly (Tipula paludosa)

Buzzard (Buteo buteo)

Greater Celandine (Chelidonium majus)

I saw this plant just inside the stone wall that surrounds St Mary’s church in Bungay.

Greater Celandine

This plant is no relation to the Lesser Celandine we see in the springtime. It is a type of poppy, similar to the Yellow Horned-poppy I found on Dunwich beach a few weeks ago. Its orange-coloured sap has been used in Asia for burning away warts and corns since the beginning of Chinese civilisation. This caustic liquid was also used to remove soreness and cloudiness from the eyes! It uses an oil gland on its seeds to ensure they are taken a distance away. Ants feed on the oil and then carry the seed off.

Juvenile Common Lizard

For the second week running, I discovered something hiding under our wheelie-bin. Obviously, rubbish bins are the go-to shelter for small creatures.

Elinor and I admired these clouds as we neared home the other day.

We turned to our left and saw these!

The following song is dedicated to Elinor.

Thanks for visiting!

Oh I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside

17 Thu Sep 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in Days out, plants, Rural Diary, wild birds

≈ 34 Comments

Tags

beach huts, beach shop, cannon.Battle of Sole Bay, community radio station, flowers, fungus, GunHill, herring gull, high tide, lichen, life guards, pier, promenade, sand dunes, sea, seaside, shrubs, Southwold, Southwold & Walberswick ferry, Suffolk

My last but one post featured a walk we took on Dunwich beach. This post is about a walk at Southwold.

As most people who live near the sea know, the best time to visit the beach is after the end of the school holidays. There are fewer visitors and there’s a greater chance of finding somewhere to park your car. The sea is warmer than at the beginning of summer and with luck the weather is good too.

We have been having fairly changeable weather this summer so when we saw that the weather was bright and breezy the other Saturday afternoon we decided to make the most of it and go to Southwold. When we arrived we saw that the tide was right in and the northerly wind was causing the sea to be quite lively.

High Tide

The waves were rolling in round the base of the steps that go down to the sand so we couldn’t get onto the beach just yet.

Stairway to the sea

We walked along the promenade while the tide started to recede.

Southwold Pier

As I mentioned in a former post about Southwold, the pier was restored a few years ago. It is fun to walk out there when the tide is in and see the waves splashing just under your feet. There are places to sit and watch the waves and there are places to buy food and drink and shelter from the wind. The end of the pier is very popular with fishermen. This is a link to the Pier Cam which will show you a little of what we like to see. There isn’t much to see at night except the lighthouse flashing but during the day-time it’s quite interesting and you get to find out what the temperature is on the coast too. Don’t forget the time difference if you live overseas!

End of the Pier

There seemed to be a number of young Herring Gulls about. (Larus argentatus)

Immature Herring Gull

It was a really pleasant walk along the front with other promenaders. As the sand started to appear people ventured onto the beach and the life guards marked out the safe bathing areas. Huddled in coats and blankets, the beach hut owners were sitting with the doors opened as they read or drank hot tea or coffee.

Beach Shop

Southwold Beach

Elinor bewails the fact that our sea isn’t blue. The North Sea is not deep and the sand on the sea-floor gets churned up especially in stormy weather. Our sea is brown most of the time.

At the end of the prom. the path goes up the slope to Gun Hill.

Gun Hill

On the 28th May 1672 a famous sea battle was fought just off-shore from Southwold. This was the Battle of Sole Bay when the English and French fleets clashed with the Dutch fleet. It was the first naval battle of the 3rd Anglo-Dutch War and ended with a tactically indecisive result though a strategic Dutch victory. The English and French fleets combined had a total of 71 warships and the Dutch had 61 vessels and the total number of men taking part was said to have been 50,000. There was great loss of life. James, Duke of York the brother of King Charles II was Admiral of the English Fleet and took up residence for the duration of the battle in Sutherland House in the town.

Cannon on Gun Hill

There are six 18lb cannon on the green and were given to the town in 1746 by The Royal Armouries as protection to shipping against raids.

Gun Hill

Their last known firing was in 1842 to celebrate the then Prince of Wales birthday. Southwold was bombed during the First World War because the German army considered that Southwold might be a fortified place because they had seen the cannon. The cannon were buried for safety during the Second World War!

Cannon

Another feature of Gun Hill is the radio station building.

Community Radio Station in the Casino

The primary radio transmitting studio is located in an old WWII bunker in the grounds of St Felix School Reydon, a village next to Southwold but further inland.

Erigeron glauca

A few naturalised garden plants thrive on the slopes up from the beach.

Unknown Yellow Daisy

I don’t know what this flower is; I see it is suffering from mildew!

FrenchTamerisk (Tamarix gallica)

These plants are often planted for soil stabilisation or to act as a wind-break. They aren’t native but have been established here for a long time and do very well on the coast.

Beach Huts

There are beach huts all the length of the sea-front.

Gun Hill Beach Café

This is one of the two kiosks that sell food and drink.

Looking Towards Walberswick

Walberswick is the seaside village next to Southwold going south down the coast. The two places are separated by the River Blyth as it flows out to sea. There is a ferry operating during the summer months.

Looking Towards Walberswick

Sand Dunes

We thought we might walk through the sand dunes to the ferry.

Sand Dunes

The Marram Grass (Ammophila arenaria) was bending in the strong wind.

Fairy-ring Champignons (Marasmius oreades)

I found a rather shrivelled fairy-ring.

Sea-Buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides)

The tree is small and suckers easily. It has thorny twigs that have silvery scales that rub off. The bark is fissured and peeling.

Sea-Buckthorn

The leaves are long and thin with silvery scales on them. I couldn’t see any fruits on these trees so they were probably male trees.

Camp Site

There is a camp-site on the outskirts of the town.

We almost got to the River Blyth but Elinor began to get a back-ache and we had to turn round and make our way back to Southwold.

Towards Southwold

As well as the lighthouse you can see the tower of St Edmund’s church and the water tower.

Towards Southwold

Tiny House

Lichen

Chicory (Chicorium intybus)

Common Bird’s-foot Trefoil (Lotus corniculatus)

Southwold with one of it’s many greens.

Southwold

Lifeguards

Southwold Beach

Sea at Southwold

Southwold

Here we were approaching the pier again and the car park beyond it. You can also see the two-storey pavillion building at the end of the pier built in 1936.

I hope you have enjoyed this visit to Southwold.

Thanks for visiting!

Keswick and an Evening Walk

03 Mon Aug 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in Days out, plants, Rural Diary, walking, weather, wild birds

≈ 33 Comments

Tags

clouds, Derwent Water, flowers, geese, holiday, Keswick, Lake District

Our second day in the Lakes was cooler and rainier than the first. Again, we left it until after midday before we left our cottage and this time went to the nearest town – Keswick.

Fortunately, the rain left off for the first part of the afternoon so walking round the town was fine.

An interesting alleyway in Keswick

I had never been to this town before and Richard hadn’t visited for many years. I loved it! It has lots of interesting shops and plenty going on but it isn’t as packed with tourists as Ambleside is.

We bought gifts from the shop below for my mother and our next-door neighbour (who watered our tomatoes) and also a jar of marmalade as Elinor wanted some. My blogging friend Rachel, formerly of ‘Could Do Worse’ visits the Lakes every year and when I saw this shop I thought of her.

IMG_5042Chocolate shop in Keswick (640x480)

The Chocolate Shop

Here is what Rachel had to say about it last year. She did three or four great posts from the Lakes last year and you’ll find them just before and just after the post I’ve given you a link to. She has recently started a new blog called The Patch Out Back – do give her a visit.

A pretty tree in the park.

After wandering round for a while, and Elinor sampling some of the best chips she had ever tasted from The Old Keswickian, we agreed we’d like to see the lake. To get to Derwent Water from the centre of the town you walk through an underpass and alongside part of the town park which is where I took the above photo.

IMG_5044View of fells from Keswick (640x480)

From the path we could see the fells that surround the town

Lots of very friendly Greylags and Canada Geese wait to be fed by anyone foolhardy enough to buy packets of goose-food from the shop.

This is Derwent Water

Derwent Water

As you can see, it was a very cloudy day.

The lake has four islands on it and one of them is just opposite the ferry landing stage near where we were standing.

The clouds began to drift lower and we knew it would rain again soon.

It was nice to watch people rowing on the lake

IMG_5056Fells next to Derwentwater (640x480)

Fells near the lake

We found this lady and her Poodle most amusing.

She got to the shore-side and took the dog’s lead off and replaced it with a long rope. The dog was very excited and was barking loudly and shrilly. It galloped into the water and splashed about, snapping at the water (I can’t imagine how many pints of lake water it drank). The woman was having to hold very tight on the end of the rope especially when the dog saw a large flotilla of geese come into view.

The geese remained out of reach, to the poodle’s disappointment.

I saw some attractive Bush Vetch (Vicia sepium) near the lake.

As it started to rain again we made our way back to the car and then drove back to the cottage.

After our evening meal, Richard and I went for a walk down the lane our cottage was in.

IMG_5059Greater Bird's-foot Trefoil (640x480)

The first plant I saw was Greater Bird’s-foot Trefoil (Lotus pedunculatus)

The cloud was low and everything was very wet but the fine rain soon stopped.

Spear Thistle (Cirsium vulgare) was everywhere – (as it is here at home)

IMG_5063Marsh and Spear Thistle (480x640)

Marsh Thistle (Cirsium palustre) has smaller flower-heads and they are grouped together at the end of the stems. (A Spear Thistle is behind it)

Masses of Heath Bedstraw (Galium saxatile)

Sneezewort (Achillea ptarmica)

Sneezewort’s name ptarmica comes from the Greek word ptarmos which, surprisingly, means ‘sneezing’. The plant looks grey and in the bad light that evening the flowers seemed almost luminous. The upper stems are downy and the flower-heads are made up of white ray florets and greenish-white disc florets (though in this photo they look grey). The leaves, which are hot to the taste, used to be used in salads. In the Middle Ages Sneezewort was used to alleviate toothache. Sufferers held the roots in their mouths which helped the toothache by ‘evacuating the rheum’ according to Nicholas Culpeper. I can’t imagine how sneezing would help anyone with bad toothache! Culpeper recommends sneezewort for people with stuffy heads. The powder of the herb was ‘stuffed up the nose..’ which caused sneezing and ‘cleanses the head’. Explosive!

More low cloud

We walked almost to the end of the lane but as it was getting quite dark we turned round, retraced our steps and returned to our cottage.

Thanks for visiting!

The Merry (?) Month of May

16 Sat May 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in cooking, family, Gardening, Insects, plants, Rural Diary, trees

≈ 86 Comments

Tags

family life, flowers, fruit trees, health, spring, Suffolk

Japanese Cherry ‘Fragrant Cloud’

We have been fairly busy during the past few weeks with not much time for trips out. Not that the weather has been conducive to those type of activities; we get one quite nice day with sunshine and a bit of warmth and then we revert to cold, windy days with grey skies and some rain too. We are still getting cold nights and looking at the photographs I took this time last year, the flowers and blossom I am seeing now were ones I saw then during the second half of April. The photos I am including in this post have been mainly taken on the few nice days we’ve had this month.

Crabapple ‘Evereste’

I took my mother to the hospital for her six-week check-up and we were sorry to be told that both her eyes had suffered a bleed or some damage and she would have to return to have injections in both eyes at the same time. We duly returned a few days later and she had the injections. Her eyesight has deteriorated again and for someone who has always enjoyed reading she is finding it so hard not to be able to read with ease any more. She can’t read sub-titles on the TV quickly enough either so has had to give up watching her favourite foreign-language programmes. She has also been told her kidneys are not functioning too well and her GP is having to re-think what medication she should be taking now. She is a brave and sensible woman and is trying to make the best of the situation.

Crabapple ‘Harry Baker’

My mother-in-law has now moved into her care-home. The actual move caused her some distress and she is still very unhappy. She had lived in her home for over forty years and she had been very happy there. She knows that she wouldn’t be able to care for herself if she went back home, even with a full care package, as she is almost totally immobile now and has so many other serious medical problems. But that thought doesn’t take much of the sadness and frustration away; it probably adds to it. Richard and his brother spent two full days last week going through her whole house finding the few things she would be able to take with her to the home and then trying to decide what to do with the rest of her belongings. They had four trips to the tip to get rid of things no longer needed and have stored the rest of her possessions in my brother-in-law’s cellar. My poor mother-in-law is sad that she has to sell her house to pay for her care and that she won’t be able to leave anything to her sons when she dies.

Pear ‘Concord’

My eldest daughter Alice is working hard on the few corrections that have to be made to her thesis before it is printed and bound. She is also rehearsing for her next production with her drama group. Because of her work schedule she won’t be able to visit us until the beginning of June. We haven’t seen her since 31st December – the longest time we have ever gone without seeing each other.

Bergenia flowers. I took this photo on the 5th of May thinking that they may not be around that much longer. In past years I have had all my bergenia flowers eaten by deer or rabbits almost as soon as they came out. Not this year (so far). They are still flowering and have got so tall and look wonderful.

Elinor has taken her Art exam and has finished and handed in all her course-work. She was pleased with the way her exam went. She managed to do all she had wanted to do and didn’t panic at all. Of course, she is now starting to worry that she hasn’t done enough and might not pass her exam! She has an interview on Wednesday with tutors of the next two-year course she has applied to go on. She wants to do Graphic Art and we and her current tutors think that she will do very well.

Lathyrus ‘Spring Beauty’

We are currently applying for assistance for Elinor for next year. This will provide her with one-to-one mentors who will be able to help her if she experiences anxiety at college and it may also be possible to provide her with different equipment and/or furniture which she may need because of her mild scoliosis. She suffers from frequent back pain especially when she has to stand for any length of time.

Apple ‘Discovery’

She has her other exams during the first two weeks in June and is trying to revise for these at the moment. English and Psychology are no problem to her and she is predicted to do well in both these exams but it is Maths as always which is causing her, and us all, such headaches.

Heavy rain on 8th May

IMG_4640Dove's-foot Crane's-bill (480x640)

Dove’s-foot Crane’s-bill (Geranium molle)

Richard is fine and is getting used to the fact that he will need to be on medication for the rest of his life. Join the club, I say! He will be seeing the specialist in a few months time to have his situation reviewed with regard to the lesion on his pituitary gland. Will he or won’t he have to have an operation to have it removed? He is counting down the days until his retirement at the end of August but in the meantime is having to work very hard at work and has been allocated a number of jobs to do at locations all over the country, all to be done in the next couple of months. The firm is getting its money’s worth out of him before he goes. He is naturally saddened about his mother’s situation but knows she is being cared for properly now.

Lilac

Not a good photo of Bush Vetch (Vicia sepium)

I continue to have a problem with my dry throat. I have seen a different doctor at our local surgery a couple of times and he has prescribed artificial saliva spray and also pastilles that should stimulate saliva production. This all sounds unpleasant but the treatment has improved matters a little. I would have liked to find out why I suddenly got a dry throat in January, which can be very uncomfortable at times, and would also like to know if there is anything I am doing or eating which has brought it on. It would be good to know that I could get rid of it by a change in life-style. I cannot get anyone interested in this and am just supplied with medication to alleviate the symptoms. The GP says I am to tell my Rheumatology specialist about my dry throat when I next go to see her – there is a possible connection between one of the tablets I take, rheumatoid arthritis and dry throats. I asked if the specialist might be able to do anything for me. Oh no, I doubt it, said the GP, she will just find it interesting! The one unfortunate side-effect is I am unable to sing properly any more. I get great pleasure from singing and hoped to be able to re-join a choir when circumstances allowed but if things stay as they are I would be a liability. It saddens me that I have had to give up so many hobbies because of my health and I had hoped that I would be able to sing for a while longer – I hope nevertheless that the medication will eventually enable me to sing again. I have also had a very upset stomach for the past ten days. I have had to continue with driving my daughter and mother to the places they need to be and also had a few appointments of my own to keep, but when I have eventually got back home I have no energy for much housework or any gardening let alone the enthusiasm for reading and blogging. I have felt quite a lot better today and have managed to catch up with commenting on the blogs I follow but if I have said anything over the last couple of weeks that has been a little odd please blame it on the stomach bug (it wasn’t me!).

Bluebell (Hyacinthoides non-scripta)

IMG_4645Orange-tip on bluebell (640x480)

Male Orange-tip butterfly (Anthocharis cardamines) on bluebell. It’s a pity the butterfly chose to drink nectar from a bluebell with a bird poo on it!

On May Day Bank Holiday Monday, Rumburgh village had its annual fete and as usual I provided a couple of cakes for the church’s cake stall. Richard pulled a large amount of our rhubarb as well which was also sold on the stall. I spent most of the day before baking the two cakes I took to the fete. We went out in the afternoon to Captain’s Wood to see if the bluebells were flowering. I will put that visit in a separate post.

Honey Cake tray bake. It’s always good to provide tray bakes or individual small cakes for cake stalls. They sell for more money than a large cake does.

The tea tent at the Rumburgh fete

Last week, while Richard was away in Manchester helping his brother sort out their Mum’s house, Elinor and I went to Minsmere RSPB reserve to walk through the woods. This will also be the subject of another post.

While I was baking cakes for the fete I also made an Eve’s Pudding for us to eat at home. I didn’t manage to photograph this before some of it had been eaten. The other cake I made for the fete but didn’t photograph, was a Mincemeat Cake. A good way of using up the extra mincemeat bought at Christmas.

This is the sum total of our activities so far this month. Quite gloomy in places I’m afraid.

Thank-you for visiting!

A Few Things I’ve Seen in my Garden.

21 Tue Apr 2015

Posted by Clare Pooley in amphibians, fish, Gardening, plants, Rural Diary, trees, Uncategorized, wild birds

≈ 38 Comments

Tags

bird's nest, birds, Common Frog, cowslip, daffodils, ducks, fish, flowers, frogspawn, garden, Great Tit, ground-ivy, hazel, Hazel bud-gall, horse chestnut, lichen, Mallard, marsh marigold, moss, pond, primrose, primula, spring, Suffolk, sweet violet, tadpoles, trees, Water Mint

Two very handsome Mallard drakes (Anas platyrhynchos).

Ground-ivy (Glechoma hederacea). Many of the newer leaves are purple and the plant has a slightly unpleasant minty scent.

As I have mentioned before, when we moved to this house there were no Primroses (Primula vulgaris) in the garden at all. We now have a few plants here and there on the banks of our ditches.

The Cowslips (Primula veris) are beginning to bloom. We have always had plenty of these!

A primula hybrid that arrived unbidden about three years ago. I rather like it.

The house next door to us is the former village school. I am not sure when it closed but a friend of ours from church used to attend it during the 1940’s. Where our house and garden is now, there was a meadow full of wild flowers and our friend walked across it every day to collect the milk for the school from the farm next door. These wild flowers we have in our garden are all that’s left of the hundreds that used to be here up to about 50 or 60 years ago. I hope that we can hang on to these few and perhaps, by not using chemicals, encourage them to spread.

Sweet Violet (Viola odorata)

This is our parcels and newspaper box at the end of our drive. We noticed during the winter that it was starting to rot and needed replacing. It appears that we weren’t the only ones to notice the state the box was in. I opened it the other day to find something had made a hole in the back of it ( you can see where the light is shining through just below my thumb as I lift the lid). The next day I found this straw and moss had been put in there. Richard saw a Great Tit (Parus major) flying away from the box so I suspect this is a Great Tit’s nest. I carefully peeped into it a day or so later and found the whole box stuffed full of moss and we can also see lots of straw sticking out from where the box sides are coming away from the base. We have tied up the box and put a ‘not in use’ sign on it and we now await the happy arrival of baby Great Tits.

I knew that Tits nested in holes and I also was aware that Willow Tits excavated their own holes but I hadn’t realised that Great Tits also excavated holes to nest in.

The top of the brick gate-post at the end of our drive is covered in moss and lichen but because we haven’t had much rain recently, it isn’t looking as good as usual. Birds have been collecting the moss for their nests too.

This is a close-up of one of the lichens.

The Marsh-marigold or King Cup (Caltha palustris) is flowering in the pond.

I love its shiny yellow petals.

I took this photo of the daffodils round the pond over a week ago and I am glad I did. On Tuesday and Wednesday of last week we had very warm weather (24 degrees C on Wednesday!) and the daffodils that had come out earliest began to wilt.

Earlier this year I posted pictures of these Hazel (Corylus avellana) bud galls. I went to look at them again last week and noticed tiny flies sitting on all of the galls. I wonder if these flies had hatched out of the galls.

New Hazel leaves

Water Mint (Mentha aquatica). The new shoots are growing round and in the big pond.

Horse-chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum). This photo was taken about a week ago.

This photo of our Horse-chestnut tree was taken on the same day. These leaves are higher and get more sunlight. I was pleased to see that the flower panicles (candles) were growing nicely.

I saw the frogs spawning but unfortunately didn’t have my camera with me. I took this photo of the spawn later in the day. This is the first time I have found frogspawn in our pond and was surprised at how late in the year it was. We have a windswept, exposed garden which may account for it.

There were lots of eggs and I was glad that the fish that live in the pond hadn’t come out of hibernation yet.

I took this picture a week later as the tadpoles were hatching out. The fish still hadn’t woken up!

Two days after this the tadpoles had dispersed but I had also seen the fish swimming in the pond and leaping to catch flies. They were probably feasting on tadpoles too.

I found a dead fish on the path round the pond again – I found one last year that had been caught by the Heron who had been disturbed by one of us. I don’t know what had caught this year’s fish as there was no stab mark on it. It is interesting to see the workings of the food-chain. We are part of it as we get bitten by the flies that the fish eat!

Thank-you for visiting!

Harvest Festival

02 Thu Oct 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in churches, Rural Diary, Uncategorized, weather

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

bats, church, church decorations, Evensong, flowers, Harvest, hot-air balloon, Rumburgh, sowing

Rumburgh Church

Here is an autumn photograph of my church taken on Sunday as we were on our way to get it ready for the Harvest Evensong service. R is one of the Churchwardens and so we got there early to make sure all was tidy (no bat poo on the pews) and to turn on the lights and take the plastic covers off everything. As I have said before, our poor church is damp and has a colony of bats living in it and to protect the furniture etc. we have to cover what we can with bits of plastic sheet. No money to repair the church, no money to buy proper protective covers, not enough money for anything, unfortunately. I like bats and am very pleased that we have two resident pipistrelle bats that fly round our house every evening. However, I am not happy about the bats that live in our church because of the damage their urine and faeces do. The urine especially is so acidic it etches into all the furniture, pictures and flooring. We have to be so careful when serving refreshments after service in case food and drinks are contaminated. Bats are protected and it is virtually impossible to get them moved elsewhere.

Our benefice is made up of eleven parish churches and one redundant church which we use once or twice a year. We have one over-worked priest who has recently acquired an assistant (actually the priest in the next-door benefice who does holiday and sickness cover which is reciprocated), a couple of retired priests who step in when needed, one reader and two elders who take services without communion. All of the churches in the benefice like to have their own harvest festivals, so for weeks on end there are one or two harvest services on most Sundays. Last Sunday was the third consecutive week of harvest and our service was taken by Maurice, one of the Benefice Elders. Next Sunday and the following one there are no Harvest services but then they start up again and we have another three consecutive weeks of ‘We Plough the Fields and Scatter’ right through until the end of October.

Decorated pulpit. Our talented flower arrangers make the church look so bright and festive.

Any harvest contributions of food, fruit and vegetables at our church go to Adele House, a nursing home run by the convent at All Hallows. Other churches in the benefice send their contributions to a local food bank which provides food parcels for the needy.

Decorated Rood Screen.

The Chancel

The Font

The Altar

The Porch

The Porch. Look at the enormous beetroot!

006Bunches of wheat on pew ends (480x640)

Bunches of wheat tied to the pew ends.

One of these window sills was decorated by me.

The church just before the service started.

Maurice plays the organ so he gets plenty of exercise, walking up and down the aisle from the front of the church to the back where the organ is then back to the front again then up the steps to the pulpit.

We were very lucky to get 23 people at our Evensong service – no children sadly.

Today, I noticed that the field at the back of the house was being worked on again.

Sowing the seed. I apologise for the poor quality photo. The sun was setting and it was a little hazy too.

After the coldest August in many, many years we have had a very warm and fairly dry September. There has been mist and fog in the morning occasionally which has made driving to Norwich difficult. It is all set to change this weekend with a storm coming in off the Atlantic which will get to us in the East sometime on Saturday. When it has passed through the temperature will drop considerably, so we are told. Yesterday evening I noticed a hot-air balloon in the sky – a Virgin sponsored one. The thermals must have been just right.

E used to call them ‘hot hair balloons’.

Thank-you for visiting my blog.

Miscellany Part 2

15 Sun Jun 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in churches, Landscaping, plants, Rural Diary, trees, Uncategorized, walking

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

barley, church cleaning, churchyard, coffin bier, electrical repairs, flowers, grasses, guelder rose, hedge woundwort, Klargester septic tank, landscaping, LED lights, lesser tortoiseshell butterfly, memorial stone, micro moth, ox-eye daisies, pond, Rumburgh Church, St Michael's water tower, St Peter's church, walking, wheat

I cannot believe how quickly this year is speeding by! I always think at the beginning of spring that this year I will definitely make a better job of the gardening and I will have the time to do all the things I need to do around the house. I always forget that as spring flows into summer the amount of jobs that need doing multiply and multiply and here I am left far behind yet again. I forget how much time I have to spend away from the house driving about the countryside and this year I have had extra places to go. Mum now has monthly check-ups at the hospital in Norwich to make sure her eyes are still free of macular degeneration. My younger daughter E is hoping to go to City College Norwich in the autumn so we have had a number of visits there over the past few weeks, getting to know the place and some of the people there.

We have had a visit from the electrician who has done some work for us. We had spoken to him a few weeks ago asking him to replace our kitchen under-cupboard lights which were very old and becoming faulty. We also needed a new box cover for the electrics for our Klargester septic tank. The old box cover had rusted away some years ago and we have had an upside-down plastic bin over the top since then! We also need a lot of re-wiring done and some outside lights replacing. The weekend before last R and I were woken in the middle of the night by a roaring noise in the house. For some time we couldn’t think what it was and where the noise was coming from but eventually I realised it was something to do with the electric immersion heater which I switched off immediately. (We use our immersion heater during the summer to heat our water; during the winter we use a gas boiler for water and central heating and this is fuelled by propane gas which is enormously expensive. We are not on mains gas and as we often have power cuts it is better not to have everything powered by electricity. We switch the immersion heater on over-night as electricity is cheaper then.) The thermostat had gone faulty and the water was boiling. The hot tank was emptying and the cold water tank and expansion tank were full of hot water – the house was turning into a kettle. I wonder if steam was rising out of the roof? If it had been left on much longer the tank would have exploded. I phoned the electrician and asked him to add a new thermostat to his list of jobs to do. When he visited last week he put in new kitchen lights for us….

A thin strip of LED lights only a centimetre wide – such bright lights!

he replaced the septic tank electric box cover…..

The septic tank with the electric box wearing its attractive new cover.

and fitted a new thermostat to our immersion heater. He will be coming again soon to do the rewiring and fitting new outside lights.

The landscaper who had worked on our big pond in February also visited our house on the same day as the electrician and filled in all the ruts the JCB had made in the lawn with top-soil. R is very pleased that this has been done at last. He has seeded it all and we are now waiting for the grass to regrow.

The ruts nicely filled-in at last.

While he was at our house we asked the landscaper to look at our small pond and let us know how it can be improved. We don’t want the pond quite so close to the hedge, the liner needs replacing and I would like a boggy area at the side of the pond where I can plant iris, lobelia and other marsh plants.

The small pond in desperate need of improvement

The last couple of weeks I haven’t had to take Mum to church. She has been taken by a young man from her church who lives in Harleston. He works abroad, especially in Asia and the far East, for much of the year as a film director. When he returns home from his high-powered meetings and filming in India and China he resumes his more important job of taking old ladies to church and being bossed about by them. Well, what else has he to do except a bit of script writing! I am really very grateful to him. He stays in this country until September and that is probably when I’ll have to resume my duties again.

Meanwhile, I have enjoyed two weeks of going to church with my husband. It is our month for cleaning Rumburgh church and when we went in last week we were amazed at how dirty it was. The church had had a few visitors who had left some rubbish about and there was dirt which had been trodden in on shoes. The main mess had been caused by our resident bats. It took us about two-and-a -half hours to clean up the worst of the mess. I think that during the summer when we have more visitors and when the bats are active the church should be cleaned more than once a month but some of the people on our rota will only come in once a month or only if we have a service in the church and of course we don’t have services every week in our church. I also find that some of our cleaners will concentrate on the entrance to the church and will often ignore the Sanctuary at the East end of the church where the altar is.

Wild flowers in Rumburgh churchyard

Ox-eye daisies in Rumburgh churchyard

A beautiful flower arrangement on the altar

The old coffin bier in the church

Memorial stone in the aisle

R and I went for another of our walks across the fields a week or so ago. We didn’t intend to go far as we were both tired.

A view across the fields

The path at the edge of the field

Hedge Woundwort

Hedge Woundwort is in flower everywhere we look at the moment. This plant has been used since the times of the ancient Greeks to stem bleeding and treat wounds. Poultices, ointments and infusions were made with the leaves and the flowers made into conserves. It has been proved that the volatile oil contained in this plant does have antiseptic qualities.

An, as yet, unidentified micro moth

St Peter’s church

Water tower at St Michaels

Most of the water in East Anglia comes from springs and artesian wells and is very ‘hard’ water. We all suffer from lime-scale in our homes and all those who can afford one get a water-softener. I love the taste of our water and when and if we get a water-softener I would have to have a tap for un-softened water.

A Lesser Tortoiseshell butterfly

We saw this butterfly sunning itself on the path.

We also saw the crops ripening…..

Barley.

Wheat

We saw other grasses too

And a beautiful Guelder Rose.

I think I would love to have one of these in my garden!

The walk took longer than we thought it would because there was a path diversion which we took but after struggling through nettles and thistles and head-high grasses we had to turn back as the path hadn’t been cleared.

R has spent all this past week away, firstly in Gloucestershire and then he travelled to Lancashire for a couple of days. He returned home on Friday having called in on his mother and spent the night with his brother in Manchester. E and I had spent the day without electricity as there was a planned power cut to enable the electricity company to do repairs. It is difficult to find things to do these days which doesn’t involve the use of electricity. We managed however, and it is a good opportunity to have silence in the house with no humming fridges and freezers, no radios and TVs. The only worry I had during the six-and-a-half hours was whether the food was still alright in the fridge and freezers. It was a very warm day! As it turned out, all was well.

March Flowers in my Garden

10 Mon Mar 2014

Posted by Clare Pooley in Gardening, plants, Rural Diary, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Delft Blue hyacinths, flowers, Goldbrook, Hoxne, iris danfordiae, lesser celandine, Rip van Winkle daffodils, scillas, tautology

Looking at the village map of Hoxne that R picked up on Saturday, I see that the little river running through the village is called the Goldbrook Beck. Another example of tautology. A beautiful day today though much cooler than yesterday. We have a strong NE breeze blowing which is drying my washing very well indeed.

While I’m posting I might as well add a couple of flower photos.

Lesser celandines growing in the tub containing my standard bay tree.

Iris danfordiae

The scillas have grown a little!

My very favourite hyacinth of all – a Delft Blue. It isn’t easy to see with this photo, but the outside of the flowerlet buds and the centre of the flowerlets are a wonderful turquoise. The outer part of the petals are a lovely clear blue which darkens with age to the purpley- blue of Delft pottery. I think I like blue flowers best.