Happy Place.....

As many of you are probably aware it was the RSPB's big garden birdwatch last weekend. I've never actually done it but really wanted to and not having a garden didn't help. So on Sunday afternoon I went down the park, all by myself  and went bird spotting. To be honest it was totally the wrong time of day and I hardly saw anything but I did thoroughly enjoy the peace and quiet and the blue skies.

The snowdrops were starting to come through and the snow had all but gone , it was hard to imagine that just days before everywhere was white and freezing cold.

Anyway, because I knew that the park is normally full of birds it made me all the more determined to go back and just see for myself what I had missed on the Sunday .

 This morning armed with feed and fat balls I set off, I knew roughly which area of the park I wanted to be in but when I got there it was too quiet , all the birds were singing but in other places and this was when I found it.

In the photo below if you look passed the odd shaped plant with lots of seed heads you can see a patch of what looks like old trees and undergrowth.  I somehow managed to get myself in amongst it all and found a clearing . In all my years of coming here , hundreds and hundreds of visits I have never ever been in this particular place and I can't believe I never took any photo's either.

I hung up my bits and pieces and took a few steps back standing perfectly still against an old tree trunk. Within minutes there were birds everywhere, so close , first to come were the great and blue tits closely followed by a pair of nuthatch and a treecreeper, a dunnock was hopping around my feet and a little Jenny wren kept flitting back and forth then came the robin and a pair of squirrels chasing each other up and down the tree trunks. It was funny to see the treecreepers chasing the tits away from the hangers and hanging upside down, I didn't know where to look or which bird to watch.

I was in the middle of two paths but it seemed as though I was perfectly hidden as none of the dog walkers even looked in my direction and I think that when the leaves are back it will be a perfect hiding place, which is probably why I've never found it before. I stood for about 45 minutes or so and could have stayed much longer if it weren't for the fact that my feet were starting to go numb.
Next time and there will most definitely be a next time I'll be taking some form of seat so I can stay much longer ......... I think I've found my happy place.

Did It Snow ? .......

 

Yes it did....Sorry for the slight overload of photo's but I just couldn't choose a few as they are all so beautiful.

As you can tell it did in fact snow the other night, not a lot but it was enough to make everyone happy.

At the minute walking is quite lethal as the ' snow' which is left is solid ice and very very slippy. That's the worst part of snow in my opinion, but we are forecast for more snow supposedly starting at 2am in the morning and carrying on over the weekend..... maybe we can go sledging if it happens!

Of Mice and Snow.......

Since Friday the weatherman has been warning us that snow was on its way, lots and lots of snow. So on Saturday we watched and we waited , on Sunday we watched and waited only to find the tiniest flakes fall for about an hour and then stop... it didn't even lie.
Monday they said, it will come on Monday.

So this morning I sort of sprang out of bed, pulled the curtains back expecting to see a world of white only to see .... nothing. The world of Instagram ( which I have just entered) was full of beautiful photo's of white fields and gardens and children wearing multi coloured wellies laughing and having fun building snowmen.

Disappointed we walked to school , the sky was golden with heavy clouds and the sun looked more like the moon and we just knew .... today it would snow.  It snowed whilst I was at work so I didn't see it and once again it didn't lie but the boys saw it from their classroom windows.

I've just taken Gabe to bed and we read Brambly Hedge a Winters Story where the little mice see snow for the first time. Just before I switched out the light we checked outside one last time .

The sky is pink and the snow is gently falling , big fat flakes leaving a white blanket on the ground .

Gabe snuggled down under the blankets with a huge smile on his face hopefully to dream of snow angels and four little mice called Wilfred, Teasel, Clover and Catkin .

Making Good ........

So today I decided to make good on my New Year ' change' and get out and about with the boys. First we took Degz to work then we stopped off at the supermarket for a couple of odds and ends and then we went for a walk around the lake armed with a bagful of bread to feed the ducks.

Or swans as the case may be. There was great fun as the boys tried to get bread to land on a ducks back with great success I might add if you check out the photo below. But once all the bread had gone we needed to find a new game which wasn't too hard as it was a dull day and we were surrounded by lots of greys and browns.
The boys mission should they choose to accept it ( which they did ) was to find things with colour.

They found red berries,

green moss,

orange fungi,

white fungi,

purple ish catkins,

and one lone flower on the whole walk , a bright yellow buttercup.

The best thing we found though, which I've been saving until last was brown.... at first we thought it was a football in a tree then we thought it might be an owl but it was neither of those , it was in fact  a wasp/bees nest , I'm not sure which but it was a pretty good find.... well at least I thought it was !

January 1st .... A New Year

So here we are again at the start of another year, they seem like they are coming around faster and faster don't you think ?  I have to admit that New Years Eve is not something I'm particularly fond of. Last night saw me in bed about 10.30pm ish reading my  £5 bargain book from TK Maxx. 

At least this morning there were no sore heads so after I'd dismantled the tree and took down what was left of the decorations we managed to get out for a bracing walk around the park . I was quite surprised to see so many people out and about so early .

I feel that last year we didn't get out and about as much as we had in previous years so that is one thing I'm hoping to rectify in 2013, not a resolution as such just a small change. I'm also going to try and do a bit more knitting too and use up some of my stash that is stored around the house and drives Degz mad every once in a while .

I've already started a little something for myself ........ yep , you read that right, I'm making something for me, makes a change doesn't it ! Just a little bit of ' vanilla knitting ' , a lovely term I picked up from Julie who in turn picked it up from Annie but it did make me smile.

Oh, and fingers crossed a few more blog posts as that also lapsed a bit . Did you make any resolutions?

See you soon x