Spring is just around the corner!!

Signs of Spring awakenings

 

A belated and very wet Happy New Year from the Mendip Hills in Somerset! As you may have seen on the news (or indeed, be experiencing for yourselves at first hand!) Somerset is pretty much underwater at the moment and, with no let up in the rain in the foreseeable future, is likely to stay that way for some time. At approximately 800 feet (244m) above sea level I am unlikely to be flooded out but the ground is heavy clay and completely waterlogged, making it very unpleasant to attempt any sort of garden tidy up.

Jeni and I have done no gardening jobs for 2 months now and I, for one, am beginning to seize up from lack of regular exercise! My weekly Pilates class is becoming increasingly important to stop me creaking as I move about! I’ve had to give myself a stern talking to as I realised that every time I sat down I said “Ooof!” and every  time I got up it was accompanied by a loud groan – neither of these noises is necessary or in any way helpful to the task in hand!

Since the beginning of January my neighbour and best friend, Karen, and I have been aiming to walk her dogs every morning, except when it’s blowing a hoolie and pouring with rain at the same time. There are three road walks around our part of the village which are usually passable, if a bit muddy, whatever the weather and help us clock up a 2 mile start to our day. Our favourite of these walks is along a little-used lane which is slightly lower than the fields on either side and sheltered from most of the bad weather by the hedges. Unfortunately, it is not a circular walk and we usually turn round at a particularly deep lane-wide puddle that stays in situ for most of the winter. Looking at old maps, I discovered that this lane is part of a minor Roman road that ran at right angles to the more major road across the top of the Mendips and was probably used to transport goods from one place to another within this industrial Roman landscape, hence it’s previous name of Portway Lane. A bit later in the Spring we’ll find clumps of purple and white violets growing on the banks and the old stone walls are covered in moss and lichen with several varieties of ferns growing in the gaps.

Ferns and moss on stone walls

Not only did the Romans leave a legacy of roads criss-crossing the Mendip Hills, and lead-workings at nearby Priddy, but they also introduced the Roman snail, which is larger than our native garden snail, and edible. For many years the miners at the leadworks had snails in their diet and this dish was revived as a gastronomic treat by the Miners Arms pub which, in its heyday in the late 1990s was serving up more than 4000 snail meals a year. I have it on good authority that the youngsters of Mendip were paid money to collect buckets of these snails which were glamourised by the new name of Mendip Wallfish! The dish was similar to French escargots but used a variety of fresh herbs in the butter sauce rather than garlic.

Another of our walks (again not circular) takes us towards the site of the old railway bridge as, at one time, Binegar had a station on the Somerset & Dorset Railway and also served a narrow gauge railway that came from the Oakhill Brewery situated a few miles away. This successful brewery sent beer all over the country via the railways but, following a devastating fire in 1924, it closed down. Several attempts were made to re-start the brewery during the 20^th century but none were ultimately successful. From the railway bridge we turn along a lane that runs alongside a large disused quarry and turn at Emborough Pond (real name Lechmere Water) which is now a privately-owned fishing lake. Originally it was a fish lake constructed  for the nearby monks of Wells centuries ago. During the winter months there are often mallard ducks and Canada geese to be seen on the water and squirrels race through the trees on the wooded slopes which make the two dogs get very excited!

Lechmere Water covered in ice

In other news, my six chickens have settled in well and I think 5 of them are laying, although not on the same day yet. Even with the clear plastic roof covering their entire run, the rain has still blown in and made the pen a sea of liquid mud. Concerned that they would grow webbed feet or actually become ill, I have invested in electrified poultry netting and fencer so that they can come out onto a grassy area, which they love. I did try letting them free-range in the entire garden, while I was outside, but they soon found that it was more fun to cross the non-existent fence into my neighbour’s garden from where they were reluctant to return home. Luckily, I have trained them to come for sunflower seeds (a favourite morning treat) so could lure them back by rattling the tin and calling ‘Chook, chook, chook!’. They then follow me down the garden in a long line and happily return to their pen. By having an electrified netted area I can safely leave them out when I’m not there, as it would be a very determined fox that crossed that barrier.

Some of the girls on excavating duties!

December seems a long time ago now but Jeni and I managed to attend three markets in the Town Hall during the month. We had successful markets each time which made up, somewhat, for the poor markets we'd experienced for most of the year. By far and away the most popular items were the needle-felted Christmas tree decorations and we ended up creating all sorts, from snowmen and penguins through to highland cows, foxes, hedgehogs, badgers, swans and even a sprout with googly eyes! I also sold quite a few pairs of my hand-knitted socks which is just as well as I have been doing a lot of knitting during this bad weather, so can replenish my stocks for next year. We probably will confine ourselves to October, November and December markets in 2026.

Highland cow bauble

Penguin baubles

As it was our first Christmas without Mum, we decided to have a different sort of Christmas to the one that had become established. In recent years we have decamped to my sister’s house in Sheffield and she and Paul have taken on the mammoth task of feeding us all – I understand this involves many lists and spreadsheets, but they make it look effortless! This year Lynda and Paul opted to have a year off and have a quiet family Christmas with their daughters and the two grandsons, Rich and family went to Jo’s family in Ireland (which they do every other year) and Jeni, Dave and I spent a quiet time in Somerset. I realised that I had not cooked a Christmas dinner for about 15 years and got quite stressed about it. However, it all went off relatively well although ‘lunch’ was eventually dished up at 5.15!

It is now more than a year since Mum died, which seems unbelievable at times. The house sale has still not been finalised although none of us has been back to Cheltenham since the house clearance people emptied it back in September/October. I sometimes imagine how the garden would be looking at this time of year with the snowdrops appearing in little clumps around the beds and the winter aconites blooming under the weeping silver birch tree, the magnolia buds growing long and fat and daffodil bulbs beginning to poke through the soil. I was pleased to see that a few of the snowdrops and one lone aconite have appeared under my apple tree, where I planted them last year and the cuttings of the climbing rose that I took appear to have all ‘taken’, so a little part of Mum’s garden will live on in mine.

Well, that’s about it for now. Let’s hope that the next time I write a blog the weather will have improved and I’ll be back gardening in earnest and basking in warm sunshine!