Long May She Rain : woods

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Welcome 2016

Happy New Year! I hope you are having a great start to January, it arrived with such beautiful bright skies and the promise of crisp frosty mornings...but quickly descended into torrential rain and horrible mist, how jolly! It's always good to blow away to cobwebs between Christmas and New Year (even though I am always happy to be a hermit at home!) and luckily by living across from a nature reserve I get the perfect daily opportunity! I have been giving my plans for this year some careful thought, 2015 was actually a very content year for me and I feel I've come a long way compared to the last couple of years, so I am not overloading myself with resolutions yet! Although I am never a fan of New Years Eve, I do love waking up New Years Day with the potential of a whole fresh year stretching in front of you, and cracking open that brand new diary and using your very best pen for that first page, it's the little things!

No doubt I will be back soon to set some resolutions! I am currently in the midst of more building work at home so I doubt my week will be too peaceful, but I wish you a lovely rest of the week!

Katie

Springtime In The Woods

Set this video to full screen and I promise, instant zen! I love living so near the woods, taking Mollie for a walk in the sunshine this morning I couldn't resist trying to capture all those different birdsongs, really heartening sounds. Birds really are my favourite creatures, there's so much to discover about them, I was overjoyed to see the Blue tits have found the nest boxes again this year, I'll be keeping a close eye.

It's my 25th birthday on Monday so after work tomorrow I am counting this as my Birthday weekend, hooray!

Other weekend hopes,

*Get planting more vegetable seeds in the raised beds: spinach, radishes, peas and kale
*Gladly accept I need to unpack my spring clothes, let's hope that doesn't jinx it!
*Bake THIS gorgeous looking cake for my birthday, yes, I always bake my own cake!

Pistachio&Lemon Cake with White Chocolate Sour Cream Icing by Simply Delicious

* Start reading my new book, The Craftsman by Richard Sennett
*Take Mollie to the dog groomers so she looks less like a sheep!

I'm just sitting down to enjoy the new series of Gardeners World, it's good to have dear Monty back, I've lost direction without him!

Hope you see plenty of sunshine and hear plenty of birdsong this weekend!

Katie

Early December Days

Glad to be back! I've been without a laptop for over a week now due to my charger going up in smoke and then the snail mail delaying my new one, but I must admit, I have been getting plenty done without it! The withdrawal was not too great!
The house and Shepherds Hut are now almost fully decorated for Christmas (pictures coming in next post) with plenty of emphasis on using natural decorations. I think most who have driven past me whilst I stumbled back from the woods with bundles of sticks, mossy branches, pine cones and lastly a dog on a lead, thought me quite mad! This time of year we are treated to some amazing light, and this week, we even got fog which did cause it's usual chaos across the country, we can never win with our weather! It still doesn't feel quite frosty enough for Christmas but I'm sure I'll be eating my words on that very soon, there have been some beautiful glittering spiders webs this week. I hope you have a wonderful weekend, I'm off to a Christmas Fair tonight to hopefully finish the shopping, back with more merriment next week!

Also, Friday 13th of December is Saint Lucia Day, which is celebrated widely across Scandinavia. Todays celebrations are a reference to life in the the past lifetime of communities: darkness and light, cold and warmth. Lucia is said to be a bearer of light in the dark winters, hence the importance of candles in the processions. The traditional candle headdresses make today a very beautiful winter celebration indeed, and if you have never tried a delicious Saffron Lucia bun - you're missing out! Here's the recipe!

Thanks for reading!

Katie

Autumn's Last Hurrah!

November Night

LISTEN . . .

With faint dry sound,

Like steps of passing ghosts,

The leaves, frost-crisp'd, break from the trees

And fall.

Adelaide Crapsey

November seems to have disappeared in a flash, and we finally have our blaze of orange leaves! It's still feeling quite mild to me, unless I'm having to de-ice my car before work in the morning, never a favourite job! The fact it's going to be dark by 3.30 is a foreboding thought, but as those evenings draw in at least we are encouraged to spend our longer evenings cooking comfort food, cracking on with christmas crafting, or at the very least settling down next to the fire to watch all those winter programs we've been waiting for (Ie: SHERLOCK!!!!).

Some chilly day recipe inspiration:

Spiced Cinnamon Sugar Puffs by Five and Spice
Indian Spiced Soup by BBC Good Food
Baked Acorn Squash with Chestnuts, Apples and Leeks
Sausage and Swiss Chard Strata Martha Stewart

Doesn't sound too bad now does it? But for now, let's enjoy it's last hurrah! Keep scuffing through those leaves before it's too late!

Back soon with the Monthly Wish List!

Katie

November update - Bonfires, bikes and bloomin' nice trees!

Well I think we've been lucky with November this year (so far!) as bonfire night wasn't a washout we managed to burn the tree stumps that were previously under my new greenhouse! It arrived a few weeks ago, and I have really enjoyed sorting it out ready for springtime! I've even got a reading corner set up so I think i'll be in there for quite a few rainy afternoons with a thermos of tea, lovely!

I've had to say goodbye to my childhood play house this week, luckily it hasn't gone too far, only over the fence where our neighbours children will hopefully spend many happy hours in there! An equally lovely but more grown up structure will be there after christmas...more info about that coming soon...i'm very excited!

I was given this lovely old Raleigh bike by my neighbour, it's rusted to an inch of it's life BUT after some restoration by my Grandad, we're turning it into some original Gardenalia (yep, a real word, buy the book HERE) - just imagine some flowers growing in the basket and maybe some ivy creeping up the frame!

And of course weekends wouldn't be the same without a crisp woodland walk! The colours are still stunning out there. All the pictures in this post are taken on my new Iphone 5, I'm very pleased to have a better camera available apart from my Olympus XA2.

I hope you're enjoying a relaxing Sunday yourselves, thanks for reading!

Katie

End Of March

I decided to swap back to my Olympus XA3, well after my trusty Yashica gave up the ghost (despite Bruce's best attempts at fixing it!) I needed a trusty replacement! It can be a bit annoying to change the focus each time, but you can mostly trust it to behave! Just a few springtime shots from mine&Bruce&Jocks weekends in Kent recently, lots of walking, lots of rocks, and lots of trees! Bliss!

Jock enjoying himself!

Harrisons Rocks, Tunbridge Wells

Broadwater Warren - RSPB site

First sighting of frog AND toad spawn this year!

Broadwater Warren's amazing trees, can anyone explain why?

Eridge Park

Eridge Parks highest point in Kent, hello Surrey!

Eridge Park was a particularly good place to explore, the fantastic tower was built just before the turn of the 20th century, despite it looking rather mythical and medieval! The woods themselves were full of Yew trees, a very gothic and striking landscape - we'll be heading back there soon!

Now, lets see what April has to come!

Katie

Winter Woodland Wanderings!

I'm sad to say that my faithful Yashica T3 has given up the ghost this week! There may still be hope if we take it apart...but at least the last roll in it was a good one! These were from Mine and Bruce's and Thom's woodland walk after New Year, Thom was trying out his recently purchased (from Bruce) Mamiya! Its our usual Hargate Forest route in Tunbridge Wells, you can't beat it!