So much beauty

Even though this is a tough time of year, there’s still so much beauty to be found – and especially so with the recent fine weather.

  
Here (below) is a magnificent oak. I love tree skeletons just as much as trees in full leaf, if not more so. 

(As so often, my world is tilted. Usually I correct the pictures, but I didn't notice this one until I'd uploaded it and now I can't be bothered to change it.)

I adore the bluey greys of this view. They make me want to be a watercolourist – but I had fun nonetheless with my new smartphone camera trying to capture the exact shade of light and dark as I saw it (as advised by Carol of Life of Pottering).

For some reason these distant hills remind me of Lord of the Rings, and the little hobbits trudging through vast swathes of wild countryside. I think it’s because Frog had a Tolkien map or perhaps some pictures that looked like this – I must try and find it/them.|

 

This is My Secret Wood from the outside – a glorious multi-hued tangle, soon to burst with new life.

This is the road that meanders along the ridge of the hill behind the house. Round every corner is a fabulous view. Here are the three beech trees in a line that I’ve mentioned before.

And, just in case you think that winter is a drab time, here is some lichen that leapt out of the hedge at me in a psychedelic way.

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

Tuesday

Wednesday

How wonderful life is

 Since the beginning of April, at the suggestion of the counsellor I’m seeing, I’ve been keeping a Notebook in which I try and write down all my thoughts and feelings. I’m now on Volume 4.
 
It’s become my best friend and helps me acknowledge the upheaval that’s going on inside  (since Frog died, in early January), instead of dashing around being busy and pushing everything to the dark dusty corners of my mind, for attention When I Have Time – which is of course (in my case) never.
 
This morning, after two good nights’ sleep (a rarity), I wrote the following.
 
Perhaps I can be glad that I met and lived with Frog and that he is still alive somewhere.
‘How wonderful life is, now he’s in the world.’
And, god willing, we will be together again.
 
Those are probably the first truly hopeful words I’ve written in the Notebook, which is why I’m sharing them with you.
 
(As you may – or may not – have noticed, I’ve been silent here for a couple of months. That’s been for several reasons:
-       There was too much going on my head to begin to be able to write something coherent
-       I had the Notebook and that was enough
-       I was too miserable.)
 
Here too, now I’m on a roll, are some pictures from the last few months.

The Scots pine that answers to mine. (See earlier post.) 

Looking through the mudra of my Scots pine to the hill where the other one lives. (It’s hidden behind that stand of trees, which is new Scots pines.) Thanks to my friend C for the idea for the picture.

A good crop of fat acorns

A puffball nearly as big as Ellie

The view from the distant Scots pine (and my friend C and her dog)