Another bright day

Yet another bright morning. That’s three in a row.

It occurred to me the land should have dried a bit. I thought I’d cut the rosebuds & the pinks for the house.

The ground was frozen solid – no question of sinking into the wet soil. The white rosebuds were tinged with brown. The frost & earlier rain has clearly damaged them. I moved on to the pinks. They had a speckled look, also past their best.

I came in with no flowers. Mind you I’m bemused there should even be roses & pinks around at this time of the year, especially when it is as cold as it is at the moment. The thermometer had got to -8C.

Still the crystal clear sky is enough to cheer us up at the moment. Hopefully the steak pie I’m making for this evening will be just the thing to warm us up on a cold night as I’m sure tonight will be. Ths steak filling is plopping away even as I write.

A wonderful winter's day

What a wonderful day yesterday was. The light was crystal bright. Not a sign of rain, just the odd fluffy white cotton wool cloud. It was bitterly cold. You could feel the Arctic air. I much prefer winter mornings like this. You can wrap up against the cold but there is nothing you can do to offset the grey & wet. We even drove home about 4.30pm & it was still light – it’s been dark long before 4pm of late.

We decided to go into Lancaster in the afternoon. We’re hunting for some new mobile phones. Our present ones are over 15 years old. They both seem to have given up – we think transmission for these old phones has been cut off – certainly we get no reception. It is almost overwhelming the choice. We’re just looking for a simple phone for the bedside in case I fall out of bed & need to ring the Fox for help. The other one we fancy having a camera. We so often have been out & seen wonderful things we would have liked to take a snap of but not had our camera with us. This is the more used phone as it is the one we carry when we are out of the house, important for ringing for help if the car breaks down. We haven’t bought yet but we have had our eyes opened to some of the considerations to bear in mind.

While we were there we bumped into our old gardener Al. He’s now retired, had a knee replaced, is waiting for a second one. He’s got himself involved with training guide dogs for the blind & loving it.

We then went on to the golf club. As the evening drew on & the sun began to set, the trees & fells were suffused with a golden glow – one of those occasions when we would have appreciated a camera in the phone. It was truly glorious. Altogether it was a lovely day rounded off with a turkey risotto dinner.

Preparing for the storm

The meat is in its marinade for this evening. It will just need a quick grill this evening.

I was surprised yesterday when our gardener turned up despite the showers. She’d apparently looked up the weather forecasts & seen that today we’re supposed to be having a tremendous amount of rain. Sunday, at least, was only supposed to be a day of showers, one of the drier days this week.

For once I didn’t join her & chat. It was too cold & too wet. She decided to leave a little earlier than usual. Even for her the rain was getting too heavy. She assured me that next time she would stay a bit longer to make up for it.

I happily paid her. She’s a hard worker with a kind soul. I feel I can trust her not to diddle me. I’m confident if I had a problem, even not a gardening one, she or her husband would be round to the rescue. They are good people. There are few enough of them around.

So far there’s no sign of the watery deluge. Admittedly it’s another grey day, like so many we have had of late. Maybe the deluge is yet to come. Certainly the wind is getting up. I hear the rattle & squeal of the side gate though so far the banshees are not yet whistling down the chimney.