No Time to Stand and Stare

24 Mon Feb 2020

Posted by Clare Pooley in churches, family, Folk Traditions, Gardening, plants, Rural Diary, wild birds

Tags

busyness, cataract operation, crocus, Diary, driving, gardening, horse brasses, iris reticulata, medical appointments, muddy lanes, Plough Sunday, Plough Sunday service, pulmonaria, rosemary, Rumburgh Church, snowdrop, sparrowhawk, storm damage, Suffolk, the plough, wintertime, witch-hazel

Both our cars are covered in mud all the time; they are in a worse state now than in the photo! Most of our lane is inches deep in sloppy mud and it is hardly worth our while to wash the cars.

This year has been crazily busy so far and there has been no time for even a short walk since the new year. At last, I have managed to catch-up with all my blog reading, I’ve sorted out all my bank statements and receipts and have got rid of large amounts of paper. I have even spent a little time in the garden weeding and tidying-up the flowerbeds; there has been very little cold weather and the weeds have grown and grown!

Rosemary ( Rosmarinus ‘Miss Jessup’s Upright’) in flower in January

Witch Hazel; the stems covered in lichen.

Crocus

Snowdrops. These and the crocus above grow under the crabapple tree. It has got somewhat weedy there in recent years!

Iris reticulata

Pulmonaria

I have taken a Morning Prayer service at church and attended a meeting with others in our Benefice who take church services.

Plough Sunday Service 12th January. Richard took this service very nicely. Much of the congregation is made up of members of ‘Old Glory’ the Molly Men and their friends and supporters

The decorated plough; the star of the Plough Sunday service.

Look at these beautiful horse brasses!

Most of my time has been spent in the car, taking Elinor to the station on her university days, taking Mum to her many hospital appointments, taking myself to hospital and doctor’s appointments, dental appointments, eye clinic appointments and grocery shopping trips. Mum has had both her cataracts removed and such a load has been lifted from her and my shoulders! She has so much more sight than we thought and the fear that she may not be able to look after herself and live alone as she wishes has receded for a while. She is approaching her 90th birthday and though she tires easily and is somewhat twisted and stooping because of arthritis, she is still able to cook and look after herself. Richard and I had to visit her the week before last to repair her hedge and fence, damaged by the first of our storms. Mum hadn’t been able to do any gardening for some months because she couldn’t see, and the garden has become overgrown with brambles and nettles, thistles and other unwelcome weeds. I had done a few jobs for her and so had Richard but the weeds had taken over and the fence that broke in the storm was covered in enormous brambles.

A rather beautiful female Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus ) who observed me taking her photo

This coming week I only have three appointments to keep and none for Mum except for taking her to church on Ash Wednesday. I’m at the hospital all day on Tuesday having eye pressure tests, I have a hygienist appointment at the dentist on Wednesday and a hair appointment in Norwich on Thursday. Housework has been a bit hit-and-miss lately and I hope to be able to catch-up with all my chores at home very soon.

This is just a short post to let you know what has been happening. My next post will probably be about one of our days out last year, or even the year before that! I have plenty of old photos but hardly any new ones!

January Walks

12 Mon Feb 2018

Posted by Clare Pooley in Rural Diary, walking

≈ 64 Comments

Tags

birds, cattle, clouds, fallen trees, landscapes, lapwing, Minsmere Nature Reserve, primrose, seascape, shoveler, storm damage, Suffolk, super blue moon, tank traps, walking, weather

The day after the storm that cut off our electricity, Richard and I decided to take a short walk to see what damage the wind had caused.

We liked the colours in the sky and the faded earth.

I looked closer at the trees on the horizon.

The wind was still blowing quite strongly and it was cold but we enjoyed being out in the fresh air.

Our first fallen tree

This tree had been part of a hedge round a field. It looks as though it had been dead for a while before it was felled by the storm. The tree had snapped at ground level. Dead trees can be very useful as host to so many other organisms; providing food and shelter for many creatures. They are left in hedges until either the wind knocks them over or until the landowner thinks they are becoming a danger to people passing by on roads or paths.

A view across the fields

A field full of pregnant cows….

and new-born calves. These look like Aberdeen Angus to me.

Another fallen tree

This one could have been dead already, as well. The trunk had snapped three feet up from the ground and the tree was covered in ivy. Ivy (Hedera helix) is usually no problem on a healthy tree but it can smother weak trees and the ivy here would have caused a lot of resistance to the gale-force winds.

This fallen tree had already had someone working on it.

We found some primroses (Primula vulgaris) flowering in the verge on the other side of our front hedge as we got back home.

A week later we drove to Minsmere Nature Reserve owned by the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds). We decided to walk out towards the sea.

Large expanse of marshland covered in reeds

Looking north from the end of the path as it reaches the beach. The little white buildings on the horizon on the right of the photo are the old coastguards’ cottages at Dunwich.

Richard and Elinor sitting in the sun

A closer look at the coastguards’ cottages and a glimpse of the sea.

Looking out to sea

Richard ‘shifting’ one of the WW2 tank traps that have been left in a line along the coast.

Tank traps

Here is a link which describes the anti-tank cubes at Walberswick – a village a few miles to the north of Minsmere.

If you look carefully you might be able to see the large flock of Lapwings we saw flying over the marsh

An unsuccessful close-up of the Lapwings (Vanellus vanellus)

Sunset over the Scrape

We liked the cloud formation here. Stratocumulus undulatus, we have been told.

Sunset

A slideshow showing some of the birds we saw on the Scrape

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A Shoveler (Anas clypeata)

Here are some photos I took of the super, blue moon at the end of January

They are not as clear as I would have liked as I wasn’t using a tripod or our better camera. I include the blurred first one mainly for the beautiful colour of the moon as it rose.

Thanks for visiting!