OUT AND ABOUT ON A WINTERS DAY

Thanks be to the Gods,I've got my wheels back! Since puncturing a rear tyre on Saturday I have been grounded, Today the rain stopped. The wind picked up and I treated myself to a long run about the lanes,up steep hills and down in to sheltered valleys.

Most of the hedges are bare of leaves and the berries have already been stripped from the Hawthorns and the Wild Roses, only the scarlet berries of Bryony remain wreathed about the hedgerows giving the otherwise bleak landscape a festive air.

Fields so recently brown and furrowed now show a flush of new green about six inches high,thanks to the mild weather the winter wheat is flourishing. Here and there small clusters of young sterks (young beef cattle or beeves ) stand sheltering in the lea of a hedge or in a hollow ,there seems to be plenty of grass for them still and the farmers are not having to bring out food yet.

Knots of Goldfinches flit from hedge to hedge looking for Teazle seed or thistle down,pretty little birds the collective name for them is a charm of goldfinches, very apt I think.

Along the lane a trail of spilt corn from a delivery truck has attracted a large number of Pheasant,Partridge and of course Wood Pigeon, all looking plump and healthy. I would not mind betting that one or two of them will be hanging behind cottage doors before dark!

In our garden the lovely Collared Doves congregate in a large ivy clad tree at the bottom of the garden,I consider these delightful birds to be lucky and so I encourage them to stay by bribing them liberally with wheat and corn,there were eight in the tree this morning!

Daylight is fading now and soon I shall draw the curtains against the dark and cold, one of our cats has spent the entire day asleep before the fire,the other on a warm path of floor under which the hot water pipes run, Soon we too will settle down for the evening ,chores over for the day.

Quiet descends of the village very soon after dark at this time of the year,children play indoors and adults, released from lawn mowing and other gardening duties relax in front of the T.V. Of in the Local. Only the sound of a generator in the distance reminds folk that the farmers are still at work in their milking sheds and soon even that sound will die away leaving nothing but the hooting of owls and the hourly chiming of the church clock to punctuate the passing of night.