A little flaky

Today’s guest picture comes from my Somerset correspondent Venetia. She saw some lambs on a recent walk. I am still waiting to see my first lamb of the year here.

After two rather cold but splendidly sunny days, we got a rather colder and definitely unsunny day here today. The wind had got up and it felt very chilly when I poked my nose out of the door after breakfast. I quickly poked it back in again, did the crossword, and made a pot of coffee ready to welcome Dropscone round. He arrived, punctual to the minute, and we enjoyed a dark roast coffee, good conversation, and excellent scones.

When he went on his way, Mrs Tootlepedal bravely went off to hug an old oak tree or two, while I wrapped up very warmly indeed and considered the composting. I have been doing quite a bit of sieving lately, so Bin D was almost empty when I looked today. I sieved what was left in it and then turned the contents of Bin C into the now empty Bin D.

From the look of the material, it won’t be too long before I can start sieving again.

I had a look round the garden to see if any crocuses had survived another sub zero night and found one or two hardy plants still flowering. The tree peony is testing the air just now and a shop bought primula is doing its best.

With the temperature hovering around 3°C and the wind getting stronger and meaner, I was happy to go back in and have hot soup and freshly made bread for lunch. Mrs Tootlepedal returned from her tree hugging outing, and was much less cold than I feared that she would be. The trees had offered her good shelter from the cruel wind.

After lunch, I looked out at the bird feeder and actually found some birds feeding. There were several sparrows about . . .

. . . along with a single chaffinch and a greenfinch.

Between them, they dropped enough seed to encourage blackbirds to come foraging.

Then we went shopping to stock up the store cupboard. In spite of forgetting to bring along the carefully considered shopping list, we only missed one item from our basket.

It didn’t feel like an inviting day for a walk, but I thought that I ought to stretch my legs a little, so I went off for a two mile ‘three bridges’ outing. The day became less attractive for walking while I was out when a thin snow began to fall. It didn’t settle, but it made me very glad that I had been on top of this hill on Tuesday . . .

. . . and this one yesterday . . .

. . .and that I was on neither of them today.

I stayed on low ground and watched oystercatchers below and above the Town Bridge . . .

. . . and saw lots of gulls at the Kilngreen today. This trio illustrated the change from winter to the spring colouring which gives the gulls their name.

They took off, and under the watchful eye of Mr Grumpy . .

. . . they put on a flying display for me. The light snow made it hard to get pictures worthy of their effort in flying up and down in front of me.

Meanwhile, a pair of goosanders tried to sneak by me, keeping their heads well down as they went past on the opposite side of the river.

Even wearing gloves, my hands soon got cold as I stood about, so I walked on over the Sawmill Brig and up one side of the river to the Duchess Bridge . . .

. . . and then back down the other side.

There were no views of hills at all available by this time . . .

. . . and I was happy to get home before my hands froze solid. The snow was persistent but it was very light and not settling. It was good to be back in the warmth of the house.

I put the chilly day to beneficial use by entering a whole week of the newspaper index into the Archive Group database and catching up on my correspondence.

I had a look out of the window a few minutes ago, and found that it was even better to be inside now than it had been in the afternoon.

It is snowing gently and the forecast suggests that it might keep doing this for a few hours. It will be interesting to find out what awaits us tomorrow morning.

Among the birds at the feeder today, a blue tit made a fleeting appearance and it is the (almost) flying bird of the day.