A surprisingly colourful time of the year

This was the view out of our kitchen window at dusk on Christmas Eve.

Its winter, and many days are overcast or cloudy, with fewer hours of daylight, but when you start to look for and notice colourful things you soon see that this time of year isn’t dull at all.

Brian spotted this fungus on a grey day, from fifty yards away. Golden and jelly-like, it is unsurprisingly known as golden jelly fungus or witches’ butter.

Lichen is at its brightest in the winter, the backs of our garden chairs are hosting quite a community!

The local trees are blanketed in it too.

We had a perfect rose bloom on New Year’s Eve, fragrant as well as pristine.

New Year’s Day treated us to a rainbow on our walk, and the rain stayed off in the distance so we remained dry.

We’ve been having a super-frugal phase, resulting in some very inventive and delicious (and colourful) dinners. Often there’s enough to make a lunchbox of leftovers for the next day, too.

 

Library bookshelf:
Anne Tyler – The Accidental Tourist
Emma Donoghue – The Wonder
David Sedaris – Lets Explore Diabetes With Owls
Elif Batuman – The Idiot
Sara Lovestam – Wonderful Feels Like This
George Monbiot – Feral
Rachel Corby – Rewild Yourself: Becoming Nature

Playlist:
First Aid Kit – New Year’s Eve
Anna Calvi – Don’t Beat The Girl Out of My Boy
Manic Street Preachers – Sequels of Forgotten Wars
The Police – When The World is Running Down, You Make The Best of What’s Still Around
The Irrepressibles – In This Shirt
Van Morrison – Sweet Thing
Imagine Dragons – Believer

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the woods and on wheels

Here is a Scarlet Elf Cup fungus which Brian found in the woods. We are definitely not experts on fungi but this one is very distinctive. It isn’t poisonous, and some people consider them edible, but we’ll be leaving it where it is.

After being off-road for the snow week and then while we replaced a broken derailleur, Lucy’s bicycle got back on the road a couple of weeks ago and it was very exciting to be cycling again. Even the return of ‘helmet hair’ was welcome! Its a great time of year to be passing by the verges with their new flowers every day.

 

Brian has been doing a lot in the woodland, to make it as good a site for conservation as possible. These willows have been planted as a renewable firewood resource for us and  future generations. They have been recently pollarded to keep the re-growth out of each of nibbling deer. In a year’s time they will be up to fifteen feet tall.

Now we have a week off together and so far the theme has been: rain. Our ditch is very full and we have lots of frogs – about 18 seen together, lots of spawn, and a newt! This is the wettest Easter we can remember. We just got in from a walk at the university which started as a nice rabbit-watching wander about, but ended with us getting so wet walking back to the car that foam came out of the knees of Brian’s trousers. Most of our clothes are now hanging up over heaters around the house, while we sit and eat chocolate and dry off. We thoroughly enjoyed getting wet knowing that we were going home to a warm, dry house.

What we do for the rest of the week will be guided by the weather a bit, but there’s always something nice we could be doing…such as making a banana cake…and eating it.

Library books:
Salley Vickers – Cousins
Elizabeth McKenzie – The Portable Veblen
George Saunders – Lincoln in the Bardo

Playlist:
Final Fantasy – That’s When the Audience Died
Tegan & Sara – Hang On To the Night
Coldplay – O (Fly On)
REM – Pilgrimage
David Bowie – Loving the Alien