rainbow over Lammerhooe

something to brighten up the morning walk on the road to Latchley

windy days

We have experienced a succession of wet and windy days recently. It is hard to capture the wind in a photograph but the pampas grass gives some idea of the strength of the wind. And the scene below is of the Tamar valley in its autumnal clothes. There hasn't been much to photograph recently!

relativity goes tits up

Our neighbours all report seeing long tailed tits regularly in their gardens but they seem to avoid our feeders (too full of hungry sparrows?) so it was very pleasing to see one (on the frozen apple tree) for the first time today.

two suggested universal laws of nature:-

1. Buy any garden furniture or barbecue equipment after 1st March  and it will rain incessantly until September.

2. Put some fertiliser and weed killer on a grass lawn and it will not rain again for several months.

Clearly these two laws must interact, and this would suggest that you should only buy garden furniture a day or so after fertilising the lawn, or conversely fertilising the lawn several hours after buying garden furniture. This may be one of those higher dimensional problems with a solution in an alternative universe.

snow falls

and so it snowed a few inches, enough to bring everything to a slippery halt. The quick thaw allowed some colour to creep through the white.

farewell to 2012

No road out.

It feels like 2012 inches of rain  have fallen this year!

Happy New Year and here is to a sunny 2013.

Noah where are you 2

and the scene at Horsebridge this afternoon, Royal Inn still accessible but you may need to go now if you want a pint before Christmas.

on the towpath

apart from death and taxes two other things are certain, as soon as the cherry blossom appears a gale will blow it all away, and as soon as a drought is declared in England it will pour with rain.

Dismaltide

At this time of year in the meadows it feels as if the party is over, the tussocks are drab and collapsed, seed heads look like cigarette butts chucked on the floor and ground out, the carpet is sodden, and the buzz of conversation has gone. All that chatting up and flirting, and vivid displaying on the dance floor in party frocks is over. No one has cleared up yet, but one gets the impression that the party goers, once over their hangovers, somehow somewhere will start the party again next year.

rainbows

It has been that kind of weather, sharp showers and bright sun, with gold at the end of the lane.

hogweed flowers again

hoar frost or rime on the remnants of the dead flower head of hogweed

and the view from the bottom of the garden

frost, blue sky, Venterdon barns and the church

more from aladdin's cave

another magical image from our favourite lane, thanks to the exceptionally hard frost

end of the rainbow

Showers and strong sunlight make for vivid rainbows, and provide a fitting photo to mark a break in Spot's blog, at least for the time being, unless we see anything visually interesting over autumn and winter. There are over 1500 pages on this blog, and more photos, to trawl through if you should happen on the blog and be interested in our home area. Use the labels, or blog search facility to find the things you are interested in

rainbow martins

after a very very wet day, the sun came out this evening to add a little background colour to the aerobatics

a brown time

one of the stranger consequences of this long cold dry period is that everything has turned a light brown. Normally at this time of year (and all year) Cornwall is a rich vivid green. But no grass is growing yet, and the landscape looks as if Nature has taken to painting in watercolours. The sun is still quite low in the sky and in the morning and evening the world around us has taken on a novel hue.

For the last couple of weeks a pair of jackdaws have taken to sitting in a fir tree overlooking our garden. One of them is making a sound like a creaking branch or a very rough purr. I can't find any reference to this call but I assume it is a love poem. They are very interesting birds.

at the end of the road

by some happy chance there was gold at the end of the lane this evening.

snow drops and snowdrops

some pictures from our walk today. The snowdrops are very nearly out, and the snow was falling once again.

icefall

the water in Kit Hill quarry has frozen solid but no dogs were allowed to try it out given recent tragic events. It is so cold that an icefall has formed on the quarry face. (OK, the blue is cheating)

the fields of gold

another strange day with a golden sunset across freezing fog creating an eerie and magical world of soft suffused light; it reminded me for some reason of the song, but fields of miscanthus not barley.

squall over Dartmoor

and still it rains, the ewes must be soaked. Dartmoor is on the far horizon, Hingston Down to the right.