Category: Tales from Pond Cottage
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Winter into Spring
It’s a turning point. For so long it seems a teasing fantasy, a few brave buds on some hopeful trees and shrubs, a cheery blackbird outside the bedroom window greeting an earlier sunrise. Then suddenly there’s no doubt. Whatever the weather, Spring is here and this year it brings an unexpected new season to Pond…
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Let nature sing? Our blackbird sings the blues
#LetNatureSing. Are we listening? In front of our eyes and ears, the natural world is shrinking. ‘Let Nature Sing’ is a lyrical call to action. The RSPB recorded birdsong has the haunting sound of another time, a forgotten place.
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Ice breakers
And after the snow melts…snowdrops. Good to walk without plunging up to the knees in white stuff. Even better to feel the warmth of the sun. For the first time in two weeks the road to Pond Cottage is open and, apart from the odd Henry Moore shapes emerging from what’s left of roadside snowdrifts,…
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Weaving a magic spell against Brexit borders
Weaving with dogwood feels like satin flowing through your fingers: soft, supple, satisfying. What’s more, concentrating on rhythm and shape leaves very little time for thinking about Brexit. Or mind-numbing border politics.
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Are we inviting the storms?
Oddly, almost eerily, quiet today. For nights over the last week the house has rocked with angry sound. First Gertrude then Henry came rattling at the windows, hammering on the doors, playing merry hell round the chimneys. The latest storms have blown over but surely Imogen will not be far behind?
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Here’s to hibernation
It’s cold. Half way through January when the new year no longer feels festive, that’s when I realise the winter slog is only just beginning. But there’s a kind of comfort in the snow.
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In praise of the shipping forecast: pure poetry
The North wind doth blow though not very hard. Our windmill acts like a weathervane even when it’s not turning and it is facing resolutely north. We shall have snow.
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Reds (almost) under the bed
A flurry of white feathers on the pond, a pile of guano on the front doorstep and two peanuts in a corner of the hall. Welcome signs of wildlife at Pond Cottage and, note, they are not all outside the cottage. While swans (mostly) keep to the pond, our doorstep guano is deposited by bats roosting…
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Zen and the art of the Big Garden Bird Watch
Stay still sparrows, I’m trying to count you. Cup of coffee on the table, notepad and pencil in hand and I’m set for a happy hour looking out the window. Make it two hours. Settling down for the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch I wondered if it would be cheating to do the count over the whole…
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Let’s get weaving
It feels good to be weaving again, even if only to mend the border of an old log basket. New green willow cut from the edge of a Scottish stream gives a rough and ready handmade look to a shop-bought basket so evenly woven it could have been made by machine. But hands-on, head-down weaving…
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Swanwatching at Pond Cottage
Phew! Great relief as mother swan appears round a bend in the stream with four cygnets in tow. We had an anxious half hour after arriving at Pond Cottage when only the dad and two young ones appeared at the bank to be fed. It’s not easy being surrogate swan parents!
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Survival of the fittest at Pond Cottage
Sunday Sunset over the pond. It’s around 5.30 pm, and I see from my handy weather app that we’ve gained more than an hour and a half of daylight since the beginning of January. For some reason I always find the longer days of February bleaker than the twinkly darkness of midwinter.