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)

August (so far) in pictures

 Scots pine and friend

A view of my Scots pine friend (the tree slightly left of centre at the bottom of the picture, with its thumb and forefinger together) and the hill (right) whose crown is the home of the Scots pine it connects to. (See previous post for more about this connection.)

The hills on the far horizon are probably Dartmoor. Usually I can tell what’s Dartmoor because it’s yellowy-brown, whereas the rest of Devon is green. Now everything is yellowy-brown except the trees, and they’re starting to lose their leaves - through drought I think, not through cold and the waning of the light.

Gleaming gold

I was out early on the morning of this picture and the cut corn (?) was gleaming gold in the low sun.

Ellie and Aeryn

Last week a lovely niece of Frog’s came to stay with her 8-month-old Akita, Aeryn. Aeryn is a delightful dog, affectionate, good-natured and well behaved. Unfortunately Ellie, an old lady of twelve years, took exception to her and snarled whenever she came near. Aeryn couldn’t understand why Ellie didn’t love her as everybody else did and followed Ellie around. Only on walks did Ellie tolerate her, and here they are exploring the gravel banks on a local river. Aeryn (left in the first two pictures and right in the third) is still following Ellie around however.

Moon

The moon a few hours short of being full. To my eye it looked orange-ier than this, but this is what my camera saw.

Roots

I took this picture last Friday, on the hottest day of the year so far. I had taken refuge in the shade of this beech tree, having climbed a steep hill to get there. As I got up to leave, after a good half an hour cooling off, admiring the view, doing my affirmations, crying and talking to Frog and God, I became transfixed by the tree’s roots.

There are three beech trees in a row on this hill and you can just see one of the others in the hot white background. Judging by the roots, the ground was once higher and I often wonder whether the three trees were part of a hedgerow.

As usual in my pictures, something is wonky, but as the trees appear to be leaning at different angles I can’t tell what the vertical line is and I’ve left things as they are.