FEBRUARY FILL-DYKE ......

February fill dike Be it black or be it white; But if it be white, It's the better to like.

The above is a very old weather proverb, of which we abound here in England.   Our weather being notoriously variable, there are plenty of proverbs telling us what to expect if this or that happens!     The black and white refers to rain or snow, but as either makes the ground wet, it doesn't much matter.   The Meteorological Office tell us that February is normally one of the driest months.   Not this year!   We have suffered storm after storm, with torrential rain, and considerable damage.   I feel so sorry for all those people who have been flooded out of their homes.   It will take ages to get the water, smell and dirt out, and there is always the chance it will happen again.

Luckily we are not threatened in any way up here.  Macclesfield is a hilly town, originally built on what you might call the foothills of the Pennines, and any river that has thoughts of flooding has had its defences strengthened!  

I took my camera found the Park this morning as it was nice and bright, though there was a very strong cold wind.   Good reason to walk briskly.   But you can see from the above picture how muddy it is.   There were daffodils on this bank last year, but I rather think they might have rotted this year!

Looking from the further end of the lake you can see some of the ducks, gulls and two swans we have here in the winter.    We used to get a lot of Canada Geese, but the male swan is very aggressive and chases away anything bigger than a mallard!

Near the Pavilion in the park is a stone which marks the site of St. Anne's well which was established for the residents of the main road where the park entrance is.  It is dated 1844, but the well is no longer there, and we all have mains water now!   Our dog wouldn't get out of the way, but I think actually he adds something to the photo!

The Park workers, of which there is now only one, and he works part-time, try to keep the beds looking as colourful as possible.   These primulas are the ones making the best of the bad weather!

And although it was a bright morning, with some sun, the rain clouds were already gather!   I took this from our gate in to the Park, as the wind was so strong I needed something to lean against to take the shot.

Good day for going back indoors, and writing a new post!

A BIT PAST THE NEW YEAR !

I fully intended to post this soon after January 1st, and wish all my readers (if I have any left by now) a Happy New Year!

However, we are well into January now, so I suppose it is a bit late!   I thought I'd post some of the photographs I took over last year, some good, some not so good.

Last winter, in contrast with this winter, was very cold and we had a lot of ice and snow.   It was very pretty when it had just snowed, but you can have enough of a good thing!

Squirrels and Blue tits amongst a host of other birds, came to feed on the food we put out for them.

But the Park looked very bleak!

Tulips and later

Foxgloves soon made the garden look a bit more cheerful,  and although the wet summer soaked things, autumn brought some spectacular colours 

especially on our Chinese Rowan tree, which I found several years ago as a tiny seedling, and managed to coax it to full adulthood!

It continued to rain

and by December, the shadows were long again over the Park on my morning walks with the dog.

Still, the days are getting longer now, and bulbs are coming up in the garden already.    I have planted a lot of daffodils that were in troughs on the patio so I am hoping that some at least will come up and make themselves felt!

I love tulips, so I have got more planted in big containers on the patio, and have planted the ones that were there last year in the garden.   Unfortunately I didn't make a note of where I put them, so I will have to have a good hunt round in April and May to see if any have survived a second year.

We don't seem to get out much these days, put it down to old age, but I still go to Creative Writing classes.   Well, classes is perhaps a misnomer, we are a very cheerful group of would-be writers and always have a good laugh!   Does you good, laughing.   Its been proved!

Do leave a comment if you read this - its always good to know someone is there!

Happy 2014!

CHRISTMAS TIME IS HERE AGAIN!

Well, its Christmas Eve now, and I hope you are all ready for the occasion, and I wish you all a very happy Christmas and a peaceful 2014.

We will be on our own this Christmas, just the two of us, which means it probably won't be much different from any other day!   But I insist on putting up a few decorations, plus all the cards we get, plus my little Nativity scene.   This was made in Peru, and as well as Joseph, Mary and the Baby Jesus,  includes a sheep and a very surprised llama!

The dreadful weather the UK has been experiencing this week has mostly missed us by.   We have had torrential rain, and very high winds, but it is sunny now, even if the wind is perishing cold!   Hopefully the snow, which is forecast for Cumbria and the Pennines will pass us by!

So all I can do is to wish you all a very happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year, and I promise to try and publish more blogs in 2014!

Sunrise taken earlier this month from the bedroom window

DULL DAYS OF NOVEMBER

November days here have been rather dreary.   Two spells in hospital, one involving an operation have meant I am unable to get out much.    I can't even take the dog for a walk, so everything that is going on in the Park has to be relayed to me by a rather tired husband!

When I came back from hospital the first time I was astounded by our Chinese Rowan Tree!   In the week I had been away all the leaves had turned bright orangey red and the berries were scarlet.   It stood out like a beacon and was absolutely amazing.   The photograph doesn't really do it justice, but its hard to show the depth of colour.

After a bit the leaves fell off, but the berries are still there - its looking rather Christmassy now!   The birds are gradually getting interested, I think it will have to get a good deal colder before the blackbirds descend and strip the tree.   Meanwhile, I enjoy looking at the berries!

And just to remind us that Spring will come again, this is a picture of some of the tulips I planted in pots last year.   They were very bright and cheerful, and I saved the bulbs and have planted them again this year.   They probably won't be as good, but a bit of brightness is what we need at all times!

Everything now is geared towards Christmas - all the ads on TV, in papers and magazines and in the shops encourage us to gorge ourselves on chocolates and loads of sweet things.   Recipes for ways of cooking turkey and ideas for other things fill the magazines.   At first I felt quite hungry but now I don't want to see another picture of a huge turkey, brown and steaming, leering at me from the page.   Mr.G and I will be by ourselves this Christmas, so we can enjoy it as we wish!

To my followers - I don't deserve you, but thank you for hanging in there!   

I feel very guilty at not having posted here for so long - I am surprised if anyone still reads my blog!     I have no real excuse, except that life, in all its rather tricky ways, has got in the way!

The above photograph was taken in the summer, when the early morning sun slanted in the garden in a rather attractive way.   Now alas, the early sun, if there is any, is from the other corner of the garden, and the sun stays low all day!   There are a lot of tallish trees on our right hand side, which belong the the garden next door, which give shade most of the day now, so we don't get much sun.   The house belongs to a very old lady, who, I suspect has no idea what the garden is like now.   Oh well, maybe if her son comes over from Australia again, we can prevail upon him to trim the hedge/trees a bit!

Our holiday seems a long way away now.   We occasionally think about booking another cruise, but we would like to go to the eastern Mediterranean this time, and that means flying to somewhere, like Venice, first.   I've no objection to Venice, but the hassle of flying, or rather, actually getting on the the plane, rather puts me off.   So we have decided, more or less, to wait until much nearer the time, see how we are healthwise, and then get a last minute, cheaper, holiday.

Otherwise our family stays as it was.   We still have the dog, who is as ever fixated on food, my daughter is moving house later this year, and our great granddaughter is now at proper school, being a "Rising 5".   It just doesn't seem possible that time has gone so quickly!

HOLIDAY JOTTINGS - LISBON, OUR LAST PORT OF CALL

My deepest apologies for any readers I have got left.   I don't seem to have had the time to sit down to write a new blog lately, but as I am suffering from a bad cold now and want something simple (?) to do, I have got going at last!

Our last port of call was Lisbon, in Portugal.  Going under the famous bridge was a close run thing for our big ship!

 This is the capital, but not a tremendously enormous city, so we bravely set out on our own to explore.   Actually, we had been to Lisbon before, on our way to the Canary Islands, and enjoyed a coach ride round the city and a boat trip along the waterfront.   When we were there before we found Lisbon to be a bustling, beautiful city, with lovely tiled pavements and squares, with fountains on roundabouts, in parks and all sorts of places.

This time we took the shuttle bus into the city and were taken to a busy square, with buses trams, and a little market.

The young man here was selling cheese - it all seemed to be one sort, but I couldn't discover more about it.   I would have liked to buy some, but thought it might not travel well!

We decided to go to the Castle this time, and took a taxi as it seemed a rather steep walk up there.   The taxi driver was a bit put out, but eventually took us up, through very narrow winding streets - very much the old part of Lisbon.

The Castle gateway had interesting stonework.   Note the beggar on the left - I was rather surprised to see beggars in Lisbon.   (The man on the right in a blue sweater is not a beggar - that's Mr.G!)

As Castles go, this one wasn't tremendously interesting, but the surrounds and gardens were old and rather lovely

As was the guardian cat!

The views, however, were spectacular!   that was the square where the shuttle bus went from, which encouraged us to walk down back.

The square contained some rather tatty apartment buildings, with grass and plants growing in the gutters.

Walking down was quite an experience, but a tremendously helpful and friendly man in a tile making shop drew us an accurate map of where to get an elevator down to the bottom.   We would never have found this on our own.   It was free, unmanned (luckily there was another, Portuguese, passenger with us!) and they were busy building another one alongside.   We definitely saw a different side to Lisbon from last time, and I was glad we had made the effort to go out on our own.

Next stop, Southampton, and the coach home.   We did say that would be our last cruise, but I have noticed Mr.G looking at brochures!

HOLIDAY JOTTINGS - GIBRALTAR

At last! I have got round to posting about the end of our holiday.   I am surprised there are any of you who still read me, but if you do, you are most welcome.

After Palma we set sail to Gibraltar.   Now I know a lot of people go for holidays to Gibraltar, and its got beaches, lots of sun and cheap booze, but I have to admit, I didn't like it!   It just felt strange to me.   Here it is, a big rock and surrounding land (a lot of it reclaimed from the sea) packed with white houses and biggish apartment blocks.   There are palm trees all over the streets, and bougainvillea tumbling down balconies  obviously a Spanish ambience, and then you come across a red British post box, or one of the old red telephone boxes    In the High Street, there is Mothercare, Marks and Spencer, plus WH Smiths and other British High Street Stores, but in between, and seemingly every other shop is cameras and electronic stuff, leather goods, or alcohol is every shape or form.   And cheap.  Very cheap.   I did indulge myself and buy a leather bag, small, just what I need when I don't want to take my ordinary big bag (purse to you across the pond!)

Approaching the Rock at dawn was spectacular!

We did take a tour of the Rock.   The views were amazing, and it was very interesting to hear about the history.   The Rock itself is honeycombed with tunnels, made by successive armies, linking natural caves etc.   It was used as a Hospital in WWII and as a shelter for the inhabitants when it was bombed.

That's our ship down there!   And Spain across the Bay

We saw the Apes, well you couldn't avoid them!   They knew tourists fed them (although we were asked not to!) and were all over the mini-coaches before the driver had even got the brakes on!

The caves were enormous, big enough for a concert hall inside!   I didn't go inside, but Mr.G did.

And it was very hot there.   We needed a restorative sit-down and cold drink!   (No, that's not us over there!)

I was going to add Lisbon jottings, but it would make this post too long, so you will have to wait until next time!