Behind the House....

The woods are brimming with colour.  Leaves were falling like confetti on my walk yesterday and I can see we are moving towards a late Winter....

These beautiful briony berries are everywhere like glistening necklaces in hedgerows, not for picking though as highly poisonous

This is likely to be poison hemlock (below), giant hogweed is similar (but much bigger) it's not worth taking any chances on picking any of these  - when dry they are harder to identify..  Something like this hurt my hand recently and made it swell.... ladybirds and other bugs hybernate in the stems during Winter.

All the paths are carpeted in leaves, so my muffled footsteps mean I can creep up on squirrels and birds - I have seen a lot of starlings this week - they are in decline in the UK .... I am so lucky to be able to walk out of my door and have this beautiful scenery behind my house...

We had a bright, cloudless sky,  no frosts the last few nights...

Lichen on branches.... lichen does not feed on tree bark, it produces its own food, a sort of solar powered process, so (unlike fungi) is not harmful to trees and is a food source for moths.

Hawthorn berries, abundant just now and a great food source for birds.

pathways like gold coin carpets, glistening in the sun....

I just had to walk through this beautiful golden field (above)

There were fairy toadstools everywhere I walked ....

 I have two weeks annual leave from today.  We should have been abroad but postponed until 2022 so will still have that to look forward to.  We have some days out planned ... back soon.

The new normal: 2nd lockdown woods

 It might be lockdown 2 but I am quite happy with the limited contact with the outside world.  Shops are open, so is the garden centre, we can go out for walks, so the only thing I am missing is the gym and swimming.   I have always been a bit of  a loner so apart from the three men here don't see many other people .... keeping in touch by phone and email with friends and my brothers is something I already happily do.  I like my own company. 

There's a walk near here where I noticed this door appear, it definitely wasn't there before!

Started a bit of doodling.....can't stay still for long though, so will have to finish another day.

On our way back from the woods we saw the help yourself box of a house on the lane was full again (they have put old toys, books and sweets out over the last months)... the treasure this time was huge pine cones,  I took one - the smell was wonderful,  it was sticky in my hand with pine oil - what a lovely surprise.  It was tempting to take the whole lot - of course! but I didn't :)   I have no idea how to extract the waxy oil and don't have a log burner, so I put it in my treasure cupboard until inspiration strikes.

Mollie the cat made a big step forward last night, she cautiously jumped up next to me and then crept on to my lap to be stroked, just for 30 seconds, but it's progress.

I put some birdsong on my blog, hope you like it - if you want to turn it off, just go to the top of the screen right hand corner to mute it.

Bluebells

Only a week since these same woods were carpeted in white, This Sunday they surprised me with a mass of bluebells, I think they are early this year.

This is the woodland at Outwood which I visited on my last post.  It is next to the windmill (which was the oldest working windmill in England until storms caused damage in 2013).  The National Trust owns this woodland, which is part of the Harewood Estate.

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These beautiful flowers are an indicator of ancient woodland, which is defined as land that has been continuously wooded since 1600 or earlier.

Wood anemone spreads via root, not seed and takes 100 years to spread a mere six foot.  because of its slow growth it is usually only found in old woodland.  It is tempting to pick but is poisonous.

Bluebells here are the old English Bluebell and not the more recent Spanish variety that has become invasive in some parts of this country.   The English bluebell is the only one that carries scent (I think they smell like sugar and rain)  and the flower spike has bells on one side only, giving the graceful droop that is so characteristic, the English Bluebell  has white, not blue, anthers.



IN 1548 William Turner wrote about Bluebell in his book, The Names of Herbe's,
 'some use the root as glue' (surprising that such a delicate flower would have such strength hidden inside).   I have been reading about this and found there is evidence that the flower glue was used to fix feathers to arrows in the Bronze age.  Just imagine.


There is so much to see in these woods:  banks of celandine by the stream, wild primrose and violet,  honeysuckle putting out new shoots, hover flies and butterflies everywhere here already.

Our ancient woodland is protected but there are loopholes in our UK development regulations that still leave some beautiful areas in danger of being lost.   There is much about this and proposed amendments to the current protective laws of ancient  woodland at The Woodland Trust website *here*.  

For the next few weeks I am very lucky to be able to see these thousands of wood anemone in drifts mingling with bluebells as far as the eye can see.  Beyond this some fields are now bright yellow with rapeseed.  All I' m looking for now to complete the picture is a spring lamb or two!

Today I am pottering, I might paint a little, do some gardening or even some Spring cleaning! but it's likely I will be heading back to the bluebells too before the day is over........

Last week of March

 Up at 5.30am I sat outside and listened to the dawn chorus.  When it's a little warmer, the best time to start a walk will be now, early, watching the sun rise and hearing all the birds, seeing the light on the fields as our world awakens and the woodland creatures retire to their burrows.   I have a little pocket of woodland behind me so the birds are right up close and very noisy.  Visiting at the moment for food are blackbirds, robins, blue and coal tits, wood pigeon, crow, jay and magpie, wren, chaffinch, song thrush, mistle thrush.  Amber is too old to chase birds now so we sit and watch them eat bread together.

The garden is coming to life, the sticks aboe are to keep cats off my potato crops.  Later this month I will have tomato and herbs in the windows.  This year I decided to let the woods take over a bit so anything that self seeds in my borders can stay, currently I have nettle and violet.

It was Mother's Day in the UK last Sunday and college boy took me to the windmill and the woods. there was much chocolate and cider donated by both sons and I felt very special.

The woods are now carpeted in delicate wood anemone ... 

There was even the odd early bluebell....in a few weeks this same spot will be a sea of blue.

I love visiting the windmill, there are several around here but this is the one you can get right next to.
I have never been inside, although there is another a short drive away that holds occasional church services inside, so tiny you can only fit about 20 people in.  I visited one summer a few years back and found it very special.

There was nobody else here at the woodside windmill as it's quite a long walk across fields and was late in the afternoon so we had all this to ourselves, the birdsong, sunshine and flowers....

Earlier in the week I went to the pretty village of Forest Row... the mission was to get hairclips.

 a lovely lady in the craft shop had some and very kindly put my hair up and
showed me how to use them in different ways.  Below is a little pub that is popular, I haven't been inside but admire the beautiful slate roofing.  College boy is learning bricklaying so finds the patternwork impressive.  I would so love to give that door some tlc though, it needs some wood preserver!

Every shop in this village has the most beautiful window or pavement display, don't you think? there are several health food shops, a florist that also sells organic wine, an organic vegetable shop and a shop that specialises in natural oils and tinctures.  It's only about 10 miles from home and feels like a treat to pop over there for a browse.  There's a new shop where you can join tutorials to learn crochet and upholstering for example, this was their pretty flower display...

This is the hardware shop.  I would prefer a short drive to collect my lawnmower blades, growbags and seed potatos to a shop this pretty instead of big diy store and I like the idea of supporting small local business too.

sold out, whatever it was it was good

and the florist - their hanging baskets are so much more creative than the average garden centre offerings and less expensive.I like the idea of twining the baskets with pussy willow.

Amber is shedding her Winter coat , so we are putting out her fur for the birds, they are grateful.  Imagine all the little nests lined with soft ginger fur.

Do you like a bit of vintage?  I have added a link to a you tube video of my great aunt Olive's wedding, her best man was my grandfather, the little boy was my father.  My cousin had this made up into a dvd and colour enhanced a few years back, the original film was in 1939.  Thought you might like to enjoy it too.  The link is not on this post, it's on my right sidebar.  I have also added a list of the blogs I follow on the sidebar, you might like to visit some that are new to you. 

I have another walk today and a quiet afternoon with my new Leon cookbook.  Lunch for the men is slow roast brisket (I'm veggie so having quorn sausage), to finish we have JK Rowlings Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them to watch on download.... saw it the other night but there was so much to take in that it needs watching again!  Every bit as good as the Harry Potter films and the creatures are amazing....  How's your Sunday going?

Berry Picking

It has been fabulously hot here so days off have been spent mostly in the garden reading library books, berry picking in the woods or hopping on trains to |Brighton beach randomly.  Not much housework is being done, the grass needs cutting and the car needs washing, but these days are too precious to waste and I feel compelled to fill them with as much goodness and treats as possible.

Hubby and I found a new route to woods in a direction we had never explored.  The reward was the most ancient elderberry trees we have ever seen in one place.

 There was over 4 hours walking and we got totally lost! I was afraid it would get dark, then we got caught in rain, but it worked out (we walked with carrier bags on our heads and sheltered under trees).  It was really fun as it was all new to our eyes.

 These beautiful bright shiny red berries look very much like red currant but are red bane berry, very poisonous - just six berries can finish you off... I picked a stem to check their identity at home, but it should be noted this is not wise, our skins are very absorbent and gloves should be worn... note to self be more careful in future, silly.

I saw an abundance of sloe berries, it's going to be a bumper crop this year - they look beautiful and plump but are still very hard, so I will wait as long as possible for them to ripen before picking (to make sloe gin which would be very bitter if picked too early and then need additives to rectify).

There is a lot of farmland around here, despite bordering suburbia, and there are many walks we haven't yet done.  Now the boys are grown up we are venturing further afield.

The blue/yellow sign says 'bull in field' - you can guess that we didn't take that route!!

The walk involved a lot of elderberry and blackberry picking, so much I had no place to put it all so I cooked up my fruit cordial as soon as I got home.  I had kept some lovely old fashioned lemonade bottles that look really pretty for this purpose.

  (Safety Note:  when you have the elderberries on the stems like this picture above, you have to remove them all with a fork and take out the stems and most importantly any of the bright, green, berries as these parts are poisonous (elder contains cyanide in small quantity in some parts of the plant, only the ripe black berries are edible).  I wash all my berries with a sterilising tablet in a bowl of water before cooking with sugar and then straining through a seive - huge mess, great rewards!

Despite the hot weather the UK is enjoying, the woods tell another story - it's definitely Autumn here, full of seeds, berries and nuts.  The landscape colour is changing to Autumn tones and even our little garden is changing, the flowers are getting tired and starting to seed.

fabulous golden rod growing wild on edge of woodland

 I put some old washing up bowls full of water out the last few nights as it has been so very hot, I wanted to ensure the 5 toads living in/under my shed didn't get dry (I put some stones in so they can get back out).  The water level had gone down a lot so I think local foxes have benefitted and also some birds were showing interest.  During the day every cat in the neighbourhood takes a detour for a sip.

I have been to Brighton so many times this month I will bore you but never tire of a train ride, a spot on the beach with a book and a take away lunch from Taj asian supermarket (falafel wrap).  Days off are being crammed as I don't want any regrets when we sink into Winter... when we are  back to being indoors I will dust off my sewing machine I think.

  

The charity shops have had an abundance of amazing shoes lately.  I used to wear shoes like this but could never stay upright in them these days!They do look fabulous but are not for me.  It was fun to play dressing up and try them though.

room for two?

Thank you for your kind comments on my silk paint post, for visiting and being a friendly blogger.  I will be back sometime when things slow down and there is time to ponder.....