Day redeemed

In the end the weather brightened up enough to encourage me into the garden where I raked leaves off the flower beds to let the emerging snowdrops show. Then we went out for lunch in Church Stretton at a place called Acorn, good home-made wholemeal food. Not enough time to browse the interesting shops but on to get that cheap(er) petrol and B&Q Shrewsbury for this year's seed compost and a visit to an elderly friend. She is beginning to get forgetful, couldn't quite place us and said how upset she was that she didn't recognise names on some of her Christmas cards. We had that problem too!
This afternoon I went for a walk, first decent length one since well before Christmas. It was really cold but I was well wrapped up, in spite of some snow and hail. I thoroughly enjoyed it so if you come and stay I'll go again with you! Poor HoF can't walk that far yet and he was stuck at home sorting the church newsletter for the weekend.

No fun

Blah and double blah! I was all set for a day out today, going by train to Chester with my Senior Citizens railcard, before it expires at the beginning of March. But when we checked the trains in the morning the one I needed was 'disrupted' and a later one would have got me there with not enough time before I needed to turn round and come back again. So here I am stuck at home on a grey day wishing for walking or gardening weather to get me out of these four walls. It was fun being stuck at home in the snow but now I want out. The petrol price hike hasn't helped as HoF doesn't want to go out for jollies unless they are towards Shrewsbury where the prices are said to be cheaper. So I have rescheduled my Chester outing for next week and will now see if going out for coffee in Church Stretton will beat the blues.

Enjoying the last of the snow

Forecasters say the thaw starts soon. We usually say England only gets one day a year, so this has been really prolonged by our standards. We went for a walk down the lane yesterday to get some fresh air.

Can you see the children sliding down Church Hill?

Winter birds

Enjoying staring out the window at the birds. Here's a visiting redwing enjoying our 'stream',

all fluffed out to keep warm

a blue tit outside the kitchen window

In the Bleak Midwinter

I love it! But then it's alright for me, I don't have to go to work or wait for a bus. I can stay snug and warm inside, or wrap up in multiple layers and go out. Here are the fairies in our back garden 'struggling' through the snow.

Here's the view from the study where we sit far too frequently and wade through various online tasks. Mostly enjoyable from my point of view. This morning I worked my way through a pile of papers from my in-tray. I feel I should have a pile marked Chuck When I'm Gone because there are things that are totally useless to anyone else but I don't want to get rid of, yet. And no, I'm not being morbid, just realistic, as one of my favourite broadcasters, John Cushnie, died last week at a mere four years older than I. He was the wit that made radio gardening programmes enjoyable, even bearable. His picture came as a surprise; we thought he was a small, elderly fellow. His was the best Northern Irish accent on the airwaves.

And here, from the front window are the school children enjoying the fun. The misty background is actual, as if more snow is waiting to fall. Last night I walked down the village in the dark, eerily quiet, rather like being back in time, snow crunchy like the top of a Christmas cake, to our monthly book group. We discussed The Colour by Rose Tremain which was excellently written but had nothing to endear me to the characters except admiration for their grit. Strangely it mentioned Rangiora in New Zealand, a place I've had much to think about recently, having been 'discovered' by a cousin, more strictly kinsman, from there whose ancestors came from this village and were my ancestors too.

New Year

We didn't manage to see the year in on the Eve but ventured out on Saturday for HoF's first walk of any distance, with the sticks (as he says because he can never remember the word 'crutches') down to the river, and in his case, into it.

Bright and sunny and cold. Hard weather for workers and travellers but I enjoy the weather doing what it's meant to at this time of year. So much better than greyness for us. We had more snow today, arriving just as we sat in bed with the first cuppa of the day. It looked so beautiful and the very silence of it is amazing. So we stayed home and I actually did some housework in the morning and then computering in the afternoon. Well it's hard not to, with the puzzles of family history, even if it's not my own I'm working on at the mo.
I did read 60+ books in 2009 though so I must get off the pooter sometimes.

Christmas video

Let's see if this works. Instructions were given by Skype from Switzerland. We have spent a day weeding emails, which also means wandering into all sorts of interesting byways.