Little Things

It's a time of looking for diversions.  I'm trying to think about and enjoy small things.  News is worrying, the weather too. 

Fox in a windy garden

 Outside the sky is a dark grey and the trees in the garden are whirling their branches around with abandon, yet still the Goldfinches fly towards the swinging feeders in a mad flurry, keen to top themselves up with energy before dusk appears. 

Well, I wrote those words on Saturday, on Sunday morning we woke up to find the bird feeders on the floor and the pole snapped in two places.   Luckily it missed the greenhouse windows as it fell.

 The honeysuckle arch had also collapsed and broken. The only other damage appears to be the hanging basket which was dangling on one chain.  Luckily it was rescued before the plants fell out.  We forgot to take it down during the storm.

We popped out to the garden centre at Trentham yesterday morning and bought a cheap and cheerful replacement feeder as the birds (and squirrels) were confused as to where their source of food had gone to.

It was such a wet day at Trentham yesterday but there is plenty to see there at the moment.  I've done a collage of some of the things on offer, photos taken early last week.  We went for a coffee and walk there after I'd had my three monthly blood test (for the PVJak2) it was good to get out in the fresh air.  

The Staffy trail is still around the lake and there is a new Shaun the Sheep trail around the gardens.  Of course Halloween is near so there were pumpkins and of course a few skeletons, it's that time of year.

As I've very little to write about at the moment.  I'll be back in November.

Take care.

Bits and Pieces

 Apologies for a prolonged absence.  We've both had awful coughs and colds over what seems like ages but is about three weeks.  I can't remember when I last had such a bad cold.  It took me back to those teenage years when two or three colds a year were the norm.  Getting older built in the immunity and colds have seemed few and far between over the last decade or two.  As well as home comforts fresh air was needed.

We walked where we could keep away from crowds. Seeking out Autumnal colour.

Fungi was spotted too.  It's a good year for it.

Fly Agaric

Cauliflower fungus

Shaggy Inkcap or lawyers wig.

Not sure what the ones above are called but there were loads of them all along the walk.

I've also been reading quite a bit.

Dear Mum - Letters from Orkney to Sheffield by Susan Tyzack is a series of letters from the author's mother kept by the author's grandmother, which were written home to Sheffield from an Orkney naval base during the last year of the second world war.  The book also tells of the author's own experiences of retiring to Orkney and becoming involved in the local community.

'When I'm in Orkney, I can barely imagine Africa.  I love the cleanliness here.  The bare spare horizontals. The smooth sweep of hill and loch, open, untrammelled by trees. The cold smell of the air.  The shock of a windless day, or the hunch into a near gale, the lean of the walk into it. The hidden hare in the back garden tussocks, the trilling of a curlew.  The long view.  The ever-mutable arc of the enormous sky.'

Sue was a colleague of Paul's.  They worked together in the biology department of the local college for a few years.  She left the college to work in Tanzania and eventually moved to Orkney not far from where her mother was stationed.  Recently we received the sad news via her son that she had died suddenly.  She has left behind a wonderful account of both her and her mother's time in Orkney.

Meanwhile in the garden the foxes are back and paired up ready for the next seasons of Winter into Spring.

and some of the apples are finally ripe enough to take gently from the tree.  

 All for now.