Remember This?

It now looks more like this

Better late than never

(sorry about the phone quality snaps. Guess whose camera waited until the extended warranty had expired to finally and definitively give up the ghost. How do they know?)

Any Colour you Like, as Long as it’s Green

I’ll say something for a damp spring and an all-pervasive grey sky: it certainly makes all the spring greenery pop. My new-to-me phone camera doesn’t really do it justice but although the wind is icy and the sun is elusive, the greens are GREEN. Every blade of grass catches the light and shimmers in the wind and the fields just seem to glow with lush growth. The hedgerow flowers haven’t really started yet, and the bluebell woods are yet to come, but if you want verdure, we’ve got it.

Spring has Sprung. A Leak, that is

It’s never a good sign when you’re warming your hands over the toaster while waiting for your toast to pop up…

There was a brief moment – Tuesday, to be exact – when it was positively warm out there. We took the bikes and did the suicide papershop run, past the when-I-win-the-lottery ruined mill which is has tantalisingly been for sale for ages now, down through the beech woods with the first fuzz of green just furring the branches of the trees. Not only did I have to relinquish the merino, I was even too warm in my lighter summer trousers, although I drew the line at shorts (we’re trying to eschew the hi-vis round here, which rules out my legs). We sat in the sun and ate ice creams and then pedalled back at a leisurely pace with the wind at our backs and there wasn’t anywhere on earth that we would rather have been. Since then the rain has returned and we’ve been suffering the consequences of rashly not getting the Rayburn relit and it’s been back to not just the thermal baselayer, but two jumpers and the sneaking feeling that, ridiculous though it would be in May, it would be more comfortable to keep my fleece on indoors…

However. We also noticed yesterday that suddenly green is everywhere, the hedgerows are starting to blossom (no sign of the May yet, of course), the birds are most definitely singing and the bindweed has started to emerge. The latter means the soil has definitely warmed up – and also means that I am, as ever, behind in my gardening.

I shall just have to catch up when this is over. Ten more days…

Snug as a Bug in a Rug

The landlords spent this morning topping up the insulation in our loft which is exciting – at this rate, we may even get the roof fixed and the window in our bedroom replaced which has been jammed slightly open since before the worst of the snow. Apparently the new window will actually be double glazed when it arrives, which has left me looking thoughtfully at all the other windows. It would, of course, be terrible if any more of them were to suffer accidental damage at the hands of a careless tenant…

Naturally all this has happened on the warmest day of the year to date – could it be that spring has actually sprung? Moderate clout casting (I know, reckless or what) has even taken place: I am down to just the one jumper and have put the lobster gloves away although not very far. I’m still firmly sewn into my merino baselayers though. There’s reckless and there’s downright foolhardy and if last summer was anything to go by I’ll still be wearing my thermals in July…

Bit Windy

It’s never a good sign when you’re checking in for a ferry and unwarily opening the car door results in it being almost snatched off its hinges by the wind… I have to admit that we sat in the queue to drive on to the Belfast Ferry with some trepidation, not helped by the excellent fried lunch (and extra cake) courtesy of the Tea Pot* on the way.

Fortunately, although the winds were gale force – and the waves were crashing right over the front of the ferry in an alarming way – ferry technology has moved on since I was a kid and the Irish crossings used to be completely awash with vomit. Hard concentration on the horizon meant we got across with our lunch intact. And although it’s been raining on and off since we arrived, it’s also been sunny at the same time which counts as a win in my book, albeit on points and after extra time. I could do without the town’s awesome bi-directional headwinds though: cycling or walking, whichever way you go, it’s always blowing a gale right in your face. How do they do that?

* Highly recommended. It’s basically a shed on the A75 as you drive to Stranraer where they do good if basic nosh plus stupendous home made cakes at below average prices in direct contrast to the depressing lowest common denominator at whatever they think they can get away with that the ferries serve up. Especially now the ferry terminal is out in the middle of nowhere so you’re stuck with their nasty coffee and the substance known as ‘tastes like fresh milk’ which I have objected to before and will object to again every time I encounter it.

Gale Force

‘Is it not a bit windy for biking?’ Chatty Man asked as I blew past him this morning.

‘Not at all, it’s excellent,’ I replied, although as I was going with the wind he may not have heard me. And even had I wanted to, I could not have slowed down…

I was telling no more than the truth, too. As I mentioned yesterday, we’ve got our South Westerlies back – and with a vengeance. This means a headwind out and a tailwind home when heading for Papershop Village, which is best way round. And even on the way out, although it was hard work, there’s something so exhilarating about cycling in a gale – especially when it’s dry and sunny at the same time – that I didn’t mind and my main concern was my glasses blowing off my face, my hat having long since been confined to my bag. There’s a moment when you pick up a tailwind where you seem to drop into your own private pocket of calm – and then there are moments when the wind picks you up and urges you on so that hills disappear beneath your wheels and downhill sections become white knuckle rides where you alternate between ‘help, not sure I can stop if I need to’ and nothing more coherent than ‘wheee!’. There were some corners where I thought I might actually lose connection with the road but the bike stayed rubber side down and that’s about all that counts on a day like today.

I may also have invented a new game, postman teasing. Our normal postie is laid back to the point of horizontality, but occasionally we get a younger substitute who’s in more of a hurry and this morning he made a bit of a meal of passing me (in fairness I was going at about 2mph and probably not in much of a straight line) before pulling in at the next cottage to deliver the post. As I was coming downhill and speeding up, he caught sight of me and sprinted back to his van to get away before I got ahead again.* As there were then 3 more farms and cottages in close succession he then had to sprint in and out of the van at each one if he was going to beat the bike with me doing every impression of a cyclist attempting to overtake him while laughing like a drain until finally he got to an uphill stretch with no houses and was able to get away. Given that he spends most of the morning sat in his wee van, I thought he might like the chance of a bit of exercise for a change on his round… I shall have to see if I can time my ride right again the next time he’s on and see if we can play again.

He may have the last laugh tomorrow though as we’re off to Norn Iron on the ferry. Cycling in a gale is one thing … crossing the Irish Sea is quite another.

*I actually had no intention of passing him but I wasn’t going to let him know that

Many Happy Returns

Well, the weekend brought the return of our south westerly winds, which meant a relief from the recent cold weather, but (into every life a little rain must fall) came at the price of actually quite a lot of rain – there was a good foot and a half of water raging over the ford yesterday afternoon, thanks for asking. Given that we’ve had, amazingly, practically no rain at all since the epic snows, this has come as a bit of a blow. We were getting quite used to the idea of being able to walk around in something other than wellies, but more fool us.

The milder mornings had also brought another old friend, the wakey wakey bird, to be cheery outside my window at oh God do you really have to o’clock but – although twitter has been full of people announcing the arrival of theirs – no sign of any swallows. Until this morning when, peering out the window to see if it had stopped raining yet, the other half announced that he had seen one flying out of the window of the swallow shed. And there it was whizzing around in the sky, hopefully hoovering up the first of many beakfuls of midgies…

April Fool

There was a moment this afternoon when we got out of the wind briefly and the sun was shining and it almost – *almost* – felt like April.

Which is good because my seed order has arrived.* Being permanently behind with the gardening starts here…

*Alert readers with long memories will notice that I’m going to try and do something about the cobbles this year – a bare couple of years since I first had the idea which is practically instantaneous for me

Melting…

Both the bike and I were a tad overdressed on our run down to the papershop this morning – it with its ice tyres rattling over bone-dry tarmac, and me having to discard buff and unzip my jacket, at least until I turned for home and back into the biting east wind. It’s nice to remember what it’s like to be too warm, but a bit bizarre as I’m still cycling down through a narrow carved canyon of snow in places

The hillsides have taken on a rather piebald aspect, depending on where the snow was blown away or where it gathered behind sheltered walls. Or was just piled up in dirty great piles, dirty being the operative word…

And somewhere under these waves of snow our bluebells lurk. Maybe in a month or two, we’ll see them…

Meanwhile, we’re just happy to have glimpsed the sun.

Winter Gardening

First find your leeks…

Actually, scratch that – first find your basket…

In the interests of strict accuracy these pictures were taken a couple of days back, and today we’ve had actual sunshine and, if not warmth, at least the return of sensation to our fingers and toes. The snow is also gradually melting, although I expect the big piles along the roadsides will be with us for a while.

I had hoped that the snow would offer me one benefit – I might find out who or what has been eating my kale, which has basically been reduced to sticks. Yesterday, the other half reported pheasant footprints around the kale bed in the snow, so I went up this afternoon to get documentary proof only to discover this:

The miscreant has obviously been watching CSI:Bigtown and has decided to cover its tracks. As this would make it some kind of garden criminal mastermind, I think we can pretty well eliminate pheasants from our enquiries…

Update

I wish a certain grey furry miscreant would learn the same trick