Seasonal doldrums

Yesterday: slush and muck. The lanes ran with melt water.

Today? Still some grubby snow up here and a 'pratfall' on the vestiges of ice awaits the unwary. Our landscape is green again. I stood on the field today and looked around - much as I looked out 10 days ago at the snow covered hills. I knew green would be under the white stuff - how come it's such a surprise?

Everywhere looks battered and bruised and a little washed out. It's much the same indoors. The flotsam and jetsam of the holiday season covers every surface; fridge is full of little leftovers on plates, cards sit drunkenly and the mistletoe shrivels. Our guests have gone home.

We loll around indolently, feeling full and bored to tears by holiday television and its wall to wall crap furniture advertising. Maybe we should get out into the great outdoors which surrounds us....but frankly, seasonal inertia has set in; we can't be arsed. The Glam Ass retreats to his shed and I take up knitting. Ah, the joy of socks!

Our Lovely Presents have not yet found their final homes and sit around where they can be admired, stroked and pondered over. Give me a week and the loveliest little doggy doorstop will be stopping the bedroom window from banging. The chocolate panettone will be scoffed and the Yaktrax crampons will be firmly attached to the boots.

What's a girl to do with this though?

Yes, it's a stone axe head. Possibly about 4,000 years old, maybe 5,000. Blimey! I wasn't expecting one of those.

Next stop: New Year. Only 3 action packed days to go before then.

In which I see the moon...

We are living in a magical marshmallow land where the mundane is topped with soft and bouncy snowy cushions. The ordinary becomes extraordinary masked by snow and ice.

I summon up sufficient layers of clothing, grab the camera and go out to greet the great outdoors. I'll regret it if I don't;  I'll look back in July and think 'I can't believe the garden was ever white-over.' Sod's law has it that the camera battery gives out two snaps into my photo shoot. Pah!

I manage at least to photograph the wisteria outside the front door. Water had trickled drip on drip down the plant and made a fantastic cascade which ends on the outside light. Where the water has come from I don't know - the temperature this afternoon soared to a remarkable -3 degrees (not above freezing you note) - so arguably any water should not have been liquid. I know, I know. The photograph does not do it justice.

The effort of putting on all those layers of clothing should not be wasted so after stumping indoors to put the battery on charge I come back out to feed the hens; up on the field to throw corn and replace frozen water and, at the same time, yell obscenities to the small flock of starlings which have discovered easy pickings. Grr! Damn and blast you! Starlings, leave that food alone.

Later, much later, when the fires are lit and the lights on the Christmas tree sparkle I spy, through the glass of the garden room windows, a rosy glow in the east beyond Fir House. It is the rising moon, a huge moon of the rosiest red which soars, even as we watch, above the horizon. I know last night, the night of both solstice and eclipse, was the night to see the moon but tonight it is here for us. It is the fairly insignificant red dot in the picture below.

If it looks pretty special to me and mine, hung about with all our knowledge and technologies how much more so must it have been to our predecessors on this old hill. A thing of magic and mystery. The shivers I feel on my shoulders are sometimes not to do with the cold.

'Sing Choirs of Angels'

We were 'at Home' yesterday - an event which under normal circumstances would have guaranteed a full house. When snow fell truly, madly and deeply on Saturday morning I think we knew our numbers would be depleted. This isn't a hill for the faint hearted. I am learning this.

No worries - in for a penny, in for pound. Wine, beers and juices were chilled in a snow-filled bin outside, meats were roasted, canapés assembled and warm mince pies amassed. Bring it on.

We missed those who could not join us and enjoyed the company of those who did.  A huge thank you to John who scraped our lane clear of snow - making the last ½ mile a safer journey.

Towards the end of the evening just before the last of our guests drifted away the Carol Singers arrived - Chirbury and Marton Young Farmers. We coaxed them indoors ('Forget your boots, it's only a floor') to sing for us. Their young voices: gruff baritones, shy tenors and wispy sopranos - gave generous measure. 3 carols, all old favourites, sounded pretty good to me.

I love the idea - and I'm not going to be particularly articulate here - of the Christmas story being schlepped round the neighbourhood: I'm thinking Thomas Hardy and his Wessex tales, of mummers and of traditions which come from before-we-know-when; of reasons lost in the mists of time for going door to door to bring news in the depth of winter. All this out of darkness under twinkling lights and boughs of evergreens - we know not why. I have my mistletoe, that most curious of plants, hung on a beam.

I only really wanted to say - 'Thanks for carolling'. You made my day.

Same old. Same old.

I stand up on the field shortly after 8.00am - hen-letting-out-time - and watch as another band of gritty snow bowls in from the north west. It is strangely bleakly beautiful up here at the end of the Long Mountain when the landscape is reduced to a palette of  black and white and grey. The snow has muffled sound as well - there is the merest murmur of a breeze in the conifers of Badnage Wood and the urgent cackles of poultry that is in and wishes (so far) to be out.

I can spare a moment to stand and stare, take a photo or two before stuffing the camera back into a dusty pocket and getting on with the job in hand. I'm wrapped up nice and warm, thank you. Several mis-matched layers and pair of new warm wellies. Gloves, hat, scarf and wes'kit complete the ensemble. Thank goodness the style police can't make it as far as Trelystan.

There is every possibility though that if we make it out of Trelystan today even we won't make it back. A brief trip down to Welshpool in the pick-up is a hairy-scary ride on glassy roads - snow over ice. We are right to be fearful of the dreaded Leighton Bank - the road that gritters forget and where the sun never reaches. The Glam Ass is made of stern stuff and relishes a few slithers. Me? You know I'm an utter wimp and would have turned back long ago. Or is it more to do with men being the risk takers?

We reach Welshpool safely (hurrah!) and get the shopping. Gravity will take us downhill but will we be able to get enough traction to make the uphill journey? We come home via a different route which isn't too bad. Coming down our lane proves hazardous - which is why the afternoon sees Trelystan's gritting team (self and GA) raiding the grit heap and throwing said grit liberally on the sheet ice. Are we now part of the 'Big Society?

 One of a flock of Field Fares looking fairly peeved in the morning's snow storm

The Christmas tree is up and dressed and sparkles in the corner - I'm going to sit in front of the stove, bask in its warmth, and enjoy a few quiet moments looking at the lights and their reflections.

Plenty to do -no time for sitting really. We have a 'bit of a do' on Sunday - will any of our guests be able to get here is the question?

Deer stalking....

Tonight I need to rustle up a reindeer. To be more exact, the silhouette of a reindeer. M, down in the village, feels the need for a reindeer to grace the stage at next Saturday's 'Christmas-light-switch-on' fest.

Me? I feel that cutting out a silhouette is far preferable to making a 3D, life-size papier maché model when the clock is ticking, so have set about an in depth t'interweb search for a reindeer with a perfect profile. In secret though, even this is one reindeer too many at a busy time of year.

Here is my role model:

I came about him by a fairly circuitous route - full marks by the way if you recognise the source of this beastie. (Guilty, guilty, guilty..... but sometimes a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do.....) Full marks to me for my devious means of capturing him too. Hey - this is deer stalking! Scaled up, cut out and with the judicious application of an illuminated red nose and we will have Rudolph.

Tomorrow I shall go armed with my drawing, soft leaded pencil and oodles of confidence and draw him up big-size.

Anyone out there any good with a jigsaw?

The trouble with snow

Apologies for this. More white stuff. Seven days into snow-bound and my world has shrunk to 'getting in' and 'getting out'. We are in a little snow-cocoon which has narrow, slidey and dodgy lines to the wider world.

The truck and snow-drifts. Make a good name for a pub perhaps......

....and the lane looking west towards the Stiperstones - Bromlow Callow is the  tiny black 'eyebrow' at the very top left of the picture.

The road is clear (ish) and with a little care it was possible today to go down the hill to Marton and thence to Bishop's Castle.

I quite like our special isolation up here - we did choose to live here so really shouldn't complain - but how ordinary it is down below.

I must remind myself to be very careful of what I wish for.........

And it's still only November

I stood here not quite 12 months ago - in early January when we were snowed in. I photographed the same view under much the same conditions - how good it is to have another shot at it:

I like the hill's simple, elegant, bleak beauty under a tenebrous and snow laden sky. Tomorrow the quality of light will be different again. Another challenge.

The thermometer tells me it is warmer today but a brisk wind makes me think otherwise. If it's like Siberia in the shelter of the garden it is like double Siberia up on the hill where the hens live.

So glad I'm not a hen.......

White Wales

Tonight? It's  -7 degrees under the cat-slide and falling. Not the chilliest place in the country but cold enough thank you.

Clear blue skies today - but yesterday as above. Here we look west over the Severn Valley and across to the Welsh Mountains. (Powis Castle is almost dead centre.) Perhaps it is because we see this view in monochrome so rarely that this white world is so stunning. I stop the car. I gulp. Inhale. Take it all in and take a picture or two. Jeez, it's cold on the fingers.

The roads were like glass. On Friday I had chickened out completely and turned round - disgruntling the Glam Ass who seemed to relish the idea of a downhill roller-coaster ride. Turning back for home was the better option - either that or my passenger would find himself turfed out onto the side of the road. There are only so many barked 'Keep Your Foot off the Gas! - Don't Brake!' instructions a girl can take as the car, by the sheer force of gravity alone, slithers ever downwards........WTF am I supposed to do then!

I resort to being a weak and feeble woman - albeit a sensible one with all limbs and car intact. The GA reconciles himself to being without a newspaper.

The Council gritting lorry trundled by about an hour later.

In which I confront my inner Nigella

Oh heck. The festive season looms and in its wake the prospect of entertaining and being entertained. Parties. Nights out in one's best bib and tucker; dressing up in something much smarter than the national dress of Trelystan - about which we will mention only the words, jeans, fleece and wellies.

'Smart' means a trip to the back of the wardrobe and revisiting some old favourites. Add a pretty top and my lovely pearls and all is usually well. We scrub up well round here.

Last night saw the first Christmas dinner - a gentle practice run for all those others which will certainly follow.

I sit at the dressing table, showered, dressed and perfumed, coaxing a strand of hair into place when the thought occurs that from this angle, and dressed like this - I'm wearing a low 'v'-necked cashmere sweater - there is something of the delectably generous Nigella Lawson about me. Perhaps it is the billowing embonpoint..... then I stand up and all illusions vanish. Perhaps it is something to do with her apparent statuesque height and my lack of it. Her body seems firmer somehow and I find myself wondering what erm, underpinnings she uses to keep it all in hand (so to speak).


I'll bet it's nothing like this grotesque ensemble to the left - which I've no wish to wear either. Eurgh! Some of these are even worse. Eurgh, eurgh, eurgh. Just imagine smelling of rubber for a start......

Anyway I breathe in and go out, hoping for the best. A good meal was eaten and afterwards I resolve that should I be offered 'seconds' over the next few weeks I shall conjure up the 'wonderful reducing corset' as a deterrent and politely decline. It might work.

In which I risk boring my dear readers.....

Yes, we are still here - although arguably difficult to find this week - low cloud has shrouded the Long Mountain. We have been swathed in grey swirling dampness, shut in, remote and insular. Our world tightens to our field of vision. All sounds are muffled, dulled - but really all our senses are heightened; we taste this weather on our tongues, smell mud and muck and sniff; kick late autumn's dank leaves and 'burn' fingers on the freezing cold of gate or bucket.

At some point in the week there was a great moving of cattle - bringing them down off the fields and in for the winter.  Although only 6 or 7 are visible here, trust me there were many more. Now we only have sheep.

A precious stone?
The Glam Ass, mooching through the dingle, climbs the fence and wanders up the stream. He finds a stone unlike any other stone hereabouts. It is lying in the bed of the stream. It is a thing of beauty. Brought home and caressed it sits in the hand as if were tailor-made. It could chip and hammer. We both so want it to be a neolithic tool.

We will dream on.

From the hen-houses on wheels:

One egg today. One. Better than none I suppose.

I've just counted up - and to my surprise there are 27 potential layers. That many. Crikey! How did that happen? (Thank you SBS for bringing me another 3 refugees!)

Of that 27, nine are point-of-lay which to my mind partly explains the low egg count. Of the others, well some are moulting having laid well this spring/summer and the remainder? Probably just unproductive slackers.

Eeek! Have just remembered - am collecting 2 young Blue Marans tomorrow to add to the flock. That will make 29 pot. layers then....Best not to tell the GA - he sees expensive food going in one end and nothing edible coming out of the other and questions are asked about the sense in keeping old birds that don't lay. I know, I know, quite agree etc but I'm a soft touch and prepared to give them a good retirement.

The night they broke the bank at Monte Carlo Marton
Marton's Village Hall's most recent fund raiser was a Casino Night - for which we received most generous sponsorship from local businesses. One of those sponsors, the son of a local feed merchant, (that's Will Barnes of Inspector Gadjo Trio, son of Nigel Barnes of Powys Leys...) gave his latest CD - which at the end of the evening I bid for and won. (Try the link.) Sat and listened last evening as we sat in front of the wood burner with our 2 snoring dogs - a bit incongruous; the sort of jazz best suited to smoke filled rooms. Felt fairly chilled anyway. Metaphorically speaking.

Nest Saturday there is a craft fair. Never a dull moment eh?

What's for supper?

The nights draw in and the weather is damp and raw. Wild winds have blown the last leaves off the trees and the landscape is curiously light and spacious. I'm sure the novelty will soon wear off. We come in from the garden rubbing our hands to restore the circulation, sniffling in the welcoming warmth of the kitchen. Comfort food is called for - a warm nourishing rib-sticking stew is on the menu tonight.

The Glam Ass was dispatched to find the main ingredient - not an easy task as most people locally must have had the same idea -  and with only one per animal supply was outstripping demand. No, no, no. Not a bull's pizzle - an oxtail.

Here the hunter (with the help of his own assistant, Chester) shows off his prize, which he tracked down in the chiller of Welshpool butcher's 'Rikki Lloyd'. He came out of the shop carrying something which could have been mistaken for a gift-wrapped shalalee.

What a curious thing it is when seen like this and not swinging at the rear end of a cow or packed neatly in a plastic tray - or even arranged artfully with potatoes and greens.

That's more like it - dusted with flour and ready to be cooked very gently with some flavoursome stock, vegetables, herbs and a glug of wine. Plenty of time to time to sit by the fire and read the newspaper while it cooks and the light falls outside. Hours in fact.

Something like 3 hours later it's ready to be scoffed - by which time of course we were so hungry that all thoughts of photographing the artfully arranged end result was forgotten. Readers, we ate it.

Games, candles, not worth the, etc.

I spy kitchen chaos. I spy the Glam Ass making ver juice. What?

Green nasty sour stuff that's what. Its very name has a medieval ring to it.

In days gone by and places far away it was probably juice from unripe grapes but in Trelystan in the first week of November 2010 it's derived from crab apples from our neighbour's tree. In days gone by it was probably valued for its acidic and astringent qualities - but is now (apparently) having a bit of revival in modern kitchens. I blame celebrity chefs.

The GA has got out the amazingly-complicated-juicing-machine (I counted at least 6 demountable parts - none of which will go into the dishwasher....) and is thrashing a basket full of apples into submission. The resultant jus, strained through muslin, is foul. Absolutely foul. The work of the Devil.

Give me a squirt of lemon juice any day.

What, when...but where?

We know 'what' - and as it's November 4th we'll take the 'when' for granted.

Yes, it's time for the Chirbury and Marton annual Bonfire Night bonfire again. Under cover of darkness last night an aggressive advertising campaign started on our lanes:

But 'where' is the question.

One would think with all these big 'arrers' it would be pretty obvious but I've neither stumbled across it or had to give way to a stream of tractors and trailers laden with brushwood, old timber and general farmyard detritus. A possible explanation is that it's not yet been built.

Still, there's just over 24 hours to go - plenty of time to put something the size of a 3 storey building together......

Normal. For Trelystan.

You get up.

You think - 'Today I will do a, b and c'. Tra la.

I skip downstairs to start the day and discover something nasty on the floor of the utility room. Neither dog admits responsibility. I clear it up.

Off I go to let the hens out and find something even nastier seeping from the septic tank. I watch a, b and c disappear over the horizon. I let the Glam Ass eat his toast before breaking the news.

I would have thought, all things considered, that this was a good excuse to Get a Man In. But no. In no time at all my own man has donned his  boiler suit, wellies and rubber gloves. The poorly hand is under at least 2 layers of protective clothing and he's off before my squeak of 'Watch that hand' reaches his ears. The inspection covers come off - slowly because screwdrivering is now quite difficult - and the problem can be assessed.

Adrian who has been helping us do some gardening while we have been a hand short comes over to look as well. What is it about a hole in the ground that arouses so much interest - even one as horrid as this?

I'm not going to go into detail here but Adrian volunteers to dig the tank out; grabbing the spade and getting stuck in without any cajouling or offers of vast sums of money. We watch in amazement. Bless him, bless him, bless him. The man is a saint. Or stupid.

I am dispatched to buy bags of pea gravel to bed down the leveled up chamber (technical stuff this - impressed?) It turns out that in a former life Adrian was a ground worker so what he doen't know about installing things like this isn't worth knowing.

The Glam Ass of course can't resist helping, injured hand or not - and this probably isn't a good idea. When I return The Hand is quite swollen from the exertion - but he's a happy man. Doing stuff again. Normal nearly.

Progress of a sort I think.

PS - He's just made an Ikea bookcase - no stopping him now!