And the weather here today was...

...gloomy but mild. I do like grey days. They always look uninviting from a cosy studio, but are so atmospheric when you're striding forth into their damp embrace.

It was almost spring-like today - fields are ploughed and waiting, hedges ruthlessly strimmed back and ditches cleared.

Although some fields are already green with early summer crops. In a few months time this will be a rippling, whispering sea of wheat.

Not too much bird activity though - good thing, it's mid-January and still time for the 'coldest winter for decades' that the forecasters have been promising. There is definitely a sense of 'quickening' in the land though...although the Spring Equinox, known also as 'The Day of Quickening' in the Pagan calendar, is not until 20th March.

(There is a rather lovely poem concerning grey days and spring here.)

Colds and cold

On Sunday night bumble bees invaded my nose and my head filled with soggy wool. The first winter cold...and a growing sense that the December deadline for Disney artworks was looming nearer. Tried to work but couldn't. Warm bed and cats the only option. I became very aware of the precarious position of freelancing, when time is money and there is no company safety net. Then the snow arrived. And the news that I can relax about the deadline because the project people are away on a business trip...so yesterday we escaped to to the woods with a Thermos of hot chocolate.

The pathways were scattered with pheasant tracks and deer prints. Scurrying in the undergrowth from foraging birds and the trees dripping a musical splattering of melting snow. We headed for the end of woods, where the stalky pines are lined up in eery regiments. There is a cold, stern atmosphere here - thickly layered pine needles muffle footfall. Foxgloves and Fly Agaric thrive in the acidic soil. If fairies live here, they are dark, trollish creatures, lurking in rotten, mossy stumps.

The sun was a fleeting visitor and the chill fell heavily. The only animals to be seen - some young milkers foraging in the fading light.

This morning, the snow is melting and my cold is - almost - gone.

Winter wanderings

Mindful of the warning of the weather forecasters (..."it's going to RAIN HEAVILY this weekend...") I played hooky today and went for a long walk. It has been a mild, damp October, but now Winter is tapping his finger on Autumn's shoulder and saying 'excuse me...MY turn, I think'. The recent winds have layered the ground in a thick blanket and there is a hushed atmosphere as the woodland prepares for the big sleep...

The fungi are almost over...there are a few stragglers, and like latecomers at a party, they are a bit odd and often slimey...

Such dramatic lighting - we are situated many feet above sea level and the landscape spreads out beneath a bowl of sky. You can see the weather changing in the next county and watch as the winds kick the rainclouds into Oxfordshire.

The bareness of the hedgerows has revealed bright jewels...


















...but evening draws in quickly now, and the path leads homewards...to hot chocolate and home made apple pie. Some compensation for the dark and the cold.