New Year 2021

Winter lake

I can’t believe that it’s more than two months since I felt positive enough to write a new blog! However, today is the beginning of another year and I feel I should try to look forward in a more positive and hopeful frame of mind and put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard!) once more. 

 As is natural, at the end of the year, all of Nature slows down, retreats into itself and awaits the coming of the Spring. We humans are no different, if we just allow ourselves to tune in to the gentle whispers of our more primitive selves, and this year has forced many of us to do just that, whether we want to or not. Life has still gone on, but at a slower pace and in a restricted way, and this sometimes proves very hard to accept, when we are used to bustling to and fro. I am no exception to this and have felt that life has become harder in lots of indefinable ways – worsening weather and darkening days have restricted how much outdoor activity I can, or want, to do and I have spent far too much time being sedentary and unmotivated. 

However, I have been out for a few short walks but, like me, most of the larger animals, such as the deer, have been reluctant to show themselves! Jeni came with me for a circular walk that took in the barn where I saw the owl and, as we walked towards it, I told her to have her phone camera at the ready, in case he/she put in an appearance. As we got to the gated entrance and looked inside the beautiful Barn Owl flew from the dark recesses, directly towards us, skimmed over our heads and flapped off across the field on silent wings! Jeni was so surprised by the silent beauty that she only caught a whitish blur in her photograph, but we were both so pleased to have seen it.

 On another day, we met up and went for a walk around Shepton Mallet and across increasingly muddy fields to complete a grey and drizzly walk, but we shall try to do it again when the weather is better, and perhaps walk further. 

View towards Shepton Mallet

 Like many, our Christmas plans were pretty much scuppered, but Jeni and I made the decision to drive to Cheltenham to spend Christmas Day with my Mum. I cooked the turkey the day before – it was much larger than we really needed as, originally, Dave was also going to join us until Milton Keynes went into Tier 4 and he had to stay put. I got up at 5.00am on Christmas Day, collected Jeni at 6.00am and drove to Cheltenham to share breakfast with Mum. A lot of the journey was completed in darkness but gradually the sky lightened in the east throwing the bare winter branches into stark relief against a pink and golden dawn – it was really beautiful and quite awe-inspiring. 

I decided against taking my usual cross-country route from Tetbury as the temperature was below zero and only the major roads had been gritted, so we went by way of Cirencester. Usually, I skirt the town on the ring road but, as there was so little traffic about, I decided to try and find my way through the Town Centre ( a route I am not that familiar with) and I am so glad that we did! The little, winding streets in the old centre of the town were hung with beautiful, glittering lights and, in the centre of the market place, was a lovely Christmas tree – we both began to feel quite festive – a feeling that had been entirely absent in the run up to the Big Day! 

The road from Cirencester to Cheltenham runs alongside the River Churn, which had flooded in many places, creating lakes in the flood meadows, and at one point, just outside North Cerney, the whole road was flooded. Luckily, by then, it was quite light so we were able to navigate safely through it, keeping to the crown of the road, and sending up bow waves on either side. 

We were at Mum’s by 8.30am and soon tucking into smoked salmon and scrambled egg, before opening our presents and preparing the Christmas lunch. In the afternoon we had a family Zoom meeting, which slightly made up for the fact that we couldn’t all be together this year, and then, after a mince pie and a slice of Jeni’s cake, we repacked the car and headed homewards. The temperature had registered 1C as we left Cheltenham but, by the time we reached North Cerney, it had dropped to -2C and just before the flooded bit we saw a car nose-down in the ditch at the side if the road. There was police tape around it, so it had obviously happened earlier in the day, and been dealt with, so we carried on, through the water and out the other side, only for the back wheels to twitch as we came into a bend. I corrected the little slide, only for the back end to twitch out again, so I cut my speed to ‘crawl’ and we carried on carefully. In hindsight it was probably a small area of ice created by water from the flood dripping off vehicles and freezing just at that point, but I drove very carefully until the temperature rose to a more acceptable 0C and the roads were dry. We still made it home in about 2 hours, which is my normal journey time, so the lack of traffic on the roads obviously made quite a difference.

I had already decided to return to Cheltenham for January to keep Mum company during her least-favourite month so, just before all of Somerset was thrown into Tier 4, I headed back, with a laden car, to spend New Year with Mum. 

Bemused cock pheasant!

Even though Mum lives in, what is now, a suburb of Cheltenham, her garden often hosts more wildlife than I see in the countryside. When I was here at the beginning of December, we were visited by a cock pheasant, who flew into the garden, and then seemed quite bemused to find himself surrounded by fences. After pecking about in the borders for a while, he fluttered up onto the back fence and posed for ages before launching himself into the next garden. Yesterday, we were visited by a small flock of fieldfares, who spent a long time pilfering the berries from Mum’s holly tree (there are two in the photo, but it’s a bit blurry, as I took it on maximum zoom through a double-glazed window) and today, whilst we were eating breakfast, a large, beautiful and healthy-looking fox trotted across the lawn and disappeared through a gap under the fence panels! I am half-expecting to pull back my bedroom curtains one morning and find a deer on the back lawn – I’ll let you know, if I do! 

Berry thieves!

Well, we are now past the shortest day and into another year, the days are imperceptibly lengthening, the light is returning and, being a fairly optimistic human most of the time, hope for a better year is starting to grow in my heart. Already early signs of spring are here – a small group of snowdrops flowering in Mum’s rockery, purple primroses flowering in my shrubbery and, back in November, Jeni and I spotted a tree in a park in Wells in full bloom against an azure sky! 

I wish you all a happy and healthy New Year and will endeavour to write more frequent blogs to keep you entertained in this coming year. x

Winter blossom