Category: countryside
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Back again…
Hello chaps, how’s things? It’s been a while, I know, over a year if we’re counting. Are we counting? Well, let’s assume we’re not bothered by the odd month or twelve of radio silence. I bet you’ve been having a rare old time, I know I have – by which I don’t really mean it’s…
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Summer Highlights
Well hello again. It’s sweltering here as I sit in the coolest room in the house (which happens to be my tiny hidey-hole), writing for the first time in a couple of months. I’m not complaining, not really. We’ve had so many summers that failed to fly, summers spent wondering if the sun would ever…
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Autumn colours…
I was beginning to feel a bit cheated by Mother Nature this autumn – what had she done with all the traditional colours? Around here, the reddy-golds have been in very short supply. But today I realised there were other little gems to discover… The bracken fronds were dripping with diamonds… Hips were doing an…
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Turning brown…
We seem to be having an odd autumn around here. I watched our local avenue of horse-chestnuts change from green to dusty brown without stopping at all in any part of the yellow/gold spectrum. Red seems to have been missed out almost completely – except for the holly berries which are trying very hard to…
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First frost…
Well I admit it was only just a frost, nothing terribly dramatic, but the first of the autumn around here. In fact by the time the delinquent dog and I made it out this morning, the sun was blazing and the frost almost gone – it is a beautiful day now, a true autumn glory.…
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Childish excitement…
Hands up those of you who can honestly say you don’t sneak the occasional conker into your pocket at this time of year. I’m sure I’m not the only adult who still gets a little thrill finding a new glossy brown conker on the ground – a split-second regression to playgrounds and autumns past… My…
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What a difference a week makes…
First there was this little chap poking up in the hedgerow… Soon he was joined by these little poppets… And then, just a few days later, they looked like this… That’s the original chap on the right. Now joined by all those babies. Less than a week and such a transformation. I walk the dog…
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Blackberry breakfast…
For the last few weeks I have been watching the blackberries ripen in the hedges as I walk the delinquent dog each morning. On Friday, I could resist no longer. The poor dog stood around, looking just like small children do when you stop in the street to talk to people – that posture that…
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Flights of fancy…
You know how it is, nothing happens for weeks on end, then suddenly everything is going mad and you’re racing to keep up. It’s been like that here for the last few days – but in a fabulous way. A friend of ours loves to fly, and last weekend he decided the weather was perfect…
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Squirrel Attack…
My advice is this – if you go down to the woods today – wear a hard hat. I’m used to trying to squirrel-spot before the Delinquent Dog does, because experience has taught me that if I don’t, I risk having my arm detached from the shoulder as he races towards them on the end…
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That sort of week…
I won’t bore you with the details, we all have them in some guise or other from time to time, let’s just say it’s been that sort of week. But the sun has come out, it’s practically the weekend and I’m feeling a lot better, so with a bit of luck next week might be…
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Low energy levels…
It’s probably hay-fever and the antihistamines that are to blame, but I have to say, I’m feeling tired today – mind and body. Happily though, the garden is carrying on, doing its own thing, not bothering if I turn up to poke it or prod it – just as well. I shall go and…
Mostly Motley 