A halo of light?

In the previous post, I said that even grey days have their charm. Here is some proof from yesterday which was both frosty and foggy. 
 
In the vineyard

This is the field behind the house, used in part as a vineyard farmed organically – hence the lovely long grass.

 
To my eye this scene was much whiter and more wintry than it appears in the picture, but that may just be my eyes. After all, the camera is much younger than I am.
 

 
On top of the hill

Here I am on top of the hill behind the house where three beech trees stand in a line, perhaps the remains of a hedge. This is two of them. 

 

Am I dreaming or is there a halo of light around both trees?

It's interesting that the pictures have come out in different colours. In the first one I'm facing west and in the second north. In this case the camera is more sensitive than I am, because I hadn't noticed any difference.

Wild and free

The sky
 
One place that’s still (mostly) wild and free is the sky. It’s never the same twice and always beautiful and inspiring. (Even grey days have their charm!)
 
Here are some pictures I took yesterday.

I’ve always known these long thin strands of cloud as ‘angel hair’. I thought that was their official name but a quick Google reveals that Joni Mitchell used the phrase in the song ‘Both sides now’ (1967). Whether she was the first, I don’t know. It’s a lovely description, anyway.

 

Last night’s sunset with a just-past-new moon (new last Saturday) and Venus.

 
 
Right to roam
 
Talking of wild and free, I’ve recently signed up for the campaign Right to Roam started by Nick Hayes (author of The Book of Trespass) and Guy Shrubsole (author of Who Owns England?). I’ve read the first book but not the second (yet).

 
They present the shocking fact that we are banned from 92% of England’s countryside and 97% of its rivers, which is wrong on so many counts that I won’t even get started (for the moment).
 
Although since Frog died just over a year ago I haven’t watched or listened to The News (as it’s called – although to my mind most of it is slanted scaremongering Olds), I believe there’s been a recent protest on Dartmoor when a new landowner banned wild camping (or ‘camping’ as we used to call it before there was such a thing as non-wild camping).
 
Thank goodness for people like Nick and Guy.

Ellie

And here, just for fun, is my angel. She's very wild and free (even though she pretends otherwise).

Winter walks and smartphones

I’ve long held out against smartphones as the last thing I want is to be contactable at any time. I like going for long walks and getting away from it all. I like doing one thing at a time. I like feeling in charge of my own life. I prefer emailing to texting because I can do it on my full-size keyboard at home and take time to think before answering. Why would I want to pay £20 a month when at the moment I pay about £20 a year? Why use up more of the earth's resources by replacing something that still works?

Recently however I’ve begun to worry that I’m getting so far behind with technology that I’ll never catch up. Everybody else communicates by text and my fingertips are cracked from pounding the numbers on my ancient phone as I answer them. A friend has suggested listening to audio books at night when I can’t sleep and that I could do this on a smartphone.

So, last week I took the plunge and got one. Most of it I hate and find far more difficult than my old phone. For example, it’s ten stages to dial 999 whereas it was two before. Friends assure me that I’ll soon sail through, but my list of questions gets longer and longer. To my surprise, however, I’ve taken to the camera.

I’ve been using it over the last three days on my walks and here are the results – to begin with, in my opinion, a bit iffy but getting better by the third day! 

I should probably be doing this on Instagram . . . I'll let you know if and when.

Monday

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Wednesday