Dogs Just Want To Have Fun!

B Baggins is great friends with my friend P's dog Bertie and on Saturday afternoon we took them up on Blackamoor just as the snow was starting.

It was very cold and there was ice on parts of the track. I spotted this little ice bridge between the two rocks in the stream, you might need to enlarge the photo to see it.

None of the photos are very good because the dogs were way ahead, it was snowing and I was snapping as we walked. B Baggins hasn't featured much lately though so I decided to post them anyway.

There were big chunky icicles along the river bank.

The ice cold water didn't seem to bother Bertie and B Baggins, P and I skipped across the stepping stones though.

Bracken fronds encased in ice.

Heading for home! Bertie is a lurcher and very fast indeed - you can just see him disappearing round the bend in the lane:)

Boxing Day Morning

Bilbo Baggins and I went up on Blackamoor this morning, this is our usual morning walk these days. It was windy but very mild and, being early we had it entirely to ourselves.

The Blacka Dyke was dancing past the moss covered rocks about twenty feet below the path we were on, I love this part of the stream, it always seems a magical place to me.

A little further up the hill and set back from the path behind elders and silver birches is this holly bush which is still covered with berries.I left it untouched when I was gathering my holly and I suspect most people didn't even notice it:)

At the top of the hill is this beautiful weeping silver birch, it is beautiful at all seasons of the year but I love it best in winter with the delicate tracery of its branches outlined against the sky. I have better photos of it taken in different weather conditions but this is how it looked today.

B Baggins again, he's never far away from me on all my walks and I don't take his photograph as often as I should - he's pretty fit for a dog who will be nine years old in March.

This fragile looking lichen in the palest of greens is almost like a flower.

I have no idea of the age of this wonderful beech tree but I think it must be very old, it's a wonderful and huge tree with a canopy that spreads over a wide area.
I should think that what is in the photo is less than half of its full height.

There is still a surprising amount of fungi around and this little patch of warm yellow nestling at the foot of dead tree caught my eye. I have absolutely no idea what it is - any suggestions?

As I walked back up the lane to my car there was a thunder of hooves as William, Holly and Melissa galloped up the field to say 'Hello'. I was so busy talking to them that I never thought to take a photo! As I turned away and walked to my car I suddenly saw this gorse bush covered in flowers, a lovely spot of colour on what was quite a dull morning but definitely not a dull walk.

A Saturday Stroll with Bilbo Baggins

Now that the cricket season has begun Bilbo Baggins and I are usually on our own on Saturday afternoons and yesterday we went for a long walk through Ladies' Spring Wood to Beauchief Abbey. B Baggins suggested that we might show you some of the things we saw.


Yellow Archangel is a pretty but rampant wildflower which grows in moist woodland areas and is one of several plants that are ancient woodland indicators.


As the path climbs up there are fields to one side and we spotted comfrey growing at the margins between woods and fields. The country name for this wild herb is knitbone, I make an ointment from it which is wonderful for bruises, sprains, joint pains etc It should never be used on open wounds though.


Ladies' Spring Wood is ancient woodland which means that it has existed since at least 1600 since it was not until this date that landowners started planting trees to make woodland. It is on a steep slope running down to the River Sheaf and from the late 12th century until the Dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century the wood belonged to Beauchief Abbey.



Wood Sorrel, another ancient woodland indicator and associated with fairies, elves and woodland spirits. The leaves are edible and have a lemony flavour apparently though I've not tried them. It is also known as fairy bells and the fairies are said to be summoned to their moonlight revels by the ringing of these bells.



The 12th century Norman bell tower is all that remains standing of Beauchief Abbey now, in the 17th century a chapel was built on to the back of the tower and it is still in use as a church. The Abbey was founded by Robert Fitzranulph, the Sheriff of Nottingham(!) and Derbyshire, and was dedicated to St Mary and Thomas a Becket. There would have been about 12 to 15 canons living in the Abbey and running the many activities associated with it which are not the quiet, contemplative pastimes that you might expect. They were farmers which is within the scope of what you might associate with a monastery but also they had coal mines, a corn mill, water mills operating the hammers and bellows of iron forges, a tannery and a mill that was rented out for the grinding of scythes. Of course they employed lay people for the day to day running of all these industrial enterprises but nevertheless I found it very surprising that these came within the compass of an abbey.



The only other substantial part of the original abbey is a wall of the nave of the abbey church at the back of chapel. The graveyard is Victorian.



You will need to click on the photo to see the bits of wall that are all that remains of store rooms and the left hand wall of the Refectory. It's a pity that more hasn't been done to conserve what remains above ground. The house on the right of the photograph is Beauchief Abbey Farm which was built about 1700.



Considerable imagination will be required here to visualize the cloister which was where the open area of grass now stands. A visit to Derrick's blog Melrose Musings will provide you with some rather more impressive abbey ruins to look at:)



If you hadn't been driving along the lane slowly your chances of spotting this sign would have been minimal!



A lovely big patch of the herb sweet woodruff, in medieval times this it was used as a strewing herb and to stuff mattresses, there is no scent to the fresh herb but when it is dried it smells of new mown hay. It can be used in pillows to help you sleep and is an ingredient of May Wine which is drunk at Beltane - next year this is going to be part of my celebration, sweet woodruff grows in my garden so I don't have to go far for a few sprigs of it.

May Wine

bottle of white wine
bottle of champagne or sparkling wine
juice of 2-3 lemons
two lemons cut in slices
juice of 2-3 oranges
two oranges cut in slices
handful of strawberries, cut in slices
handful of whole strawberries to float in the wine

Open the bottle of white wine, insert the sprigs of woodruff, recork the wine and leave in the refrigerator overnightto allow the herb to steep and flavor the wine.Next day, in a large punchbowl, combine the woodruff-flavored white wine with the champagne or sparkling wine. Add the juice from the lemons and oranges.
Add slices of oranges and lemons, and sliced strawberries to the punchbowl.
Garnish with sprigs of woodruff and whole strawberries.



Back into Ladies' Spring Wood now much to B Baggins' relief as he had to be on his lead on the lane and in the Abbey grounds.



We found it hard to get a good photo of the bluebells as the sun was striking from the wrong direction and fading the colour. There were great sheets of them all over the wood though and every so often the wonderful scent drifted on the air.



As we dropped down nearer to the river the scent of bluebells was replaced by the scent of wild garlic or ransoms. I had no idea that they grew so prolifically round here until B Baggins' friend Bertie showed us this walk.


'Come on mum', we've been out ages and I'm ready to go home for my tea now'

Sunshine and Showers

Observe the circling year,how unperceiv'd
Her seasons change! behold! by slow degrees,
Stern winter turn'd into a ruder spring;
The ripen'd spring a milder summer glows;
Departing summer sheds Pomona's store;
And aged autumn brews the winter storm. John Armstrong 1709-1779


The last couple of days have been a real mixture of weather, Friday was lovely, a real spring day beginning with a frost then blue skies and sunshine with high cloud floating by. It didn't take me too long to decide to spend some time working in my garden:) Above are the first primroses of the year. Before that though Bilbo Baggins had to be taken out so I took one or two frost photos before it disappeared.


The remains of one of last summer's thistles covered in frost that sparkles in the sunlight.


A young thistle that will be flowering later this summer. I am quite certain of my identification as I made the mistake of touching it very lightly with my finger because it looked soft and mossy. Wrong! It really,really hurt:)


Frosted creeping buttercup leaves.


Isn't this sky a glorious blue? The bird is a song thrush who 'sings each song twice over,lest you should think he never could recapture the first fine careless rapture!
I think next month Robert Browning's lovely poem will be appearing in full on Circle of the Year. A click on the photo might make the thrush a bit clearer. It was at the top of a very high tree.


Mr Bilbo Baggins with his stick.


Gabriel's new bootees - right now both feet would fit in one of them but he's not far off 5 pounds and he's home with his mummy and daddy since Friday.


A new small cross-stitch project ready to be started - picture hidden so that the intended recipient won't see it:)


Yarn for more bootees for Gabriel, each ball of yarn makes one pair. They are so simple to knit and Hannah said that the ones I made for Kaitlyn were the best of the ones she had. They are warm and stayed put most of the time:)

Snow!

We had a little snow this morning and Bilbo Baggins thought it was wonderful - he loves playing in the snow as have all my dogs. This includes my old Scottie, MacIntosh,who usually had to be carried home because he had so many snowballs attached to his back legs that eventually he reached the point where he couldn't walk properly! Thawing him out when we got home took forever and resulted in large puddles of snow all over the kitchen floor. Bilbo has much longer legs so happily he doesn't have this problem.


Me and my stick.



Life is such fun!


I do wonder,though, what kind of idiots run the British media. The headlines this morning were all about 'heavy falls of snow' 'battling to get to work' rush hour chaos' and so on. Now I do know that we had haven't had as much snow here as other parts of the country but even so - the projected accumulation of snow was - are you ready for this in Canada and the USA! - as much as 15 CENTIMETRES in places!! Well, heavens to Murgatroyd!! It is just pathetic really, I know that my friend in New England has at least 2 or 3 feet of snow most winters and other parts of the US and Canada have as much if not more. Many European countries are usually under several feet of snow for most of the winter months too. They must be laughing themselves silly when they see the hype on British TV and in the papers. As for battling to work through 3 inches of snow! I can remember several occasions in the 1960s when I walked the 3 miles to work from our village to the nearby town through a foot or so of snow, then at the end of the day I walked the 3 miles home again. There were lots of people doing the same thing and it was quite good fun really. We walked in small groups and chatted and laughed as we went. I can also remember a few occasions in the 1980s when it snowed and all the buses stopped running and my husband walked 8 miles home fom work. He staggered in finally looking like a dying duck, it had taken him nearly 3 hours because, as he got out of the city, the snow became quite deep and hard to walk through especially in black leather business shoes. It's a long time since we had snow like that.

Oh! What a Beautiful Morning.......

Today has been absolutely glorious, blue skies, sunshine and warmth - I spent the morning working on the small border opposite my back door and I was wearing just a shirt - well, not just a shirt but you know what I mean:) The cream crocus tommasinianus above are in another little bed but had opened up in the warmth and light of the sun so I thought I'd take a picture.


These winter flowering iris are actually a much stronger lilac-y blue than they appear in the photo, normally I don't see the first flowers until late March though another garden nearby has them flowering much earlier than mine do. They may be a different variety though, these are called 'Mary Barnard'.


The results of my morning's labours! The dead looking sticks are a spring flowering clematis alpina and will look beautiful around April - maybe earlier this year!


This is the same border in mid-summer!


This afternoon J and I took the dogs up onto the moors for the first time this year, it's been too wet up to now, the moors are peat so hold the moisture and in parts even today we could feel the ground squelching and moving under our feet. Bilbo Baggins had a thoroughly good time.


Judy had another dog staying with her so there were three of them today -this is by a little moorland stream where they are having a drinks and paddling break.



Bilbo Baggins with his new friend JoJo - she's a one year old Border terrier.


This is how a lot of the moors look at this time of the year - you have to pick your path very carefully in places. Worth the effort though on a day like this.