Movement

We are in the process of moving, which involves endless trips to the new house and countless boxes of books and clothes.  Mainly books.  The upheaval unsettles me but I have never embraced change; only now do I feel that I have made decisions to get here and that the chaos is worth it!  

Snow showers today and a fine hail at the new house, driving down the valley.  

Another Winter Journey

A long run today up to Liverpool and Freshfield via Ludlow; furniture, oddments, beds.  I noticed birds everywhere, especially flocks of crows - rooks I think - that were tumbling in flight, presumably courting and re-establishing nest sites etc.  I think they call it 'whiffling', a lazy, tumbling free-fall flight; dazzling and unsettling to watch.  I also saw a red kite hunting north of Onibury, flocks of starlings, distant lines of geese. 

Some great views out onto the great Moss near Formby; a flat landscape defined by bare hedges and ditches, distant lines of bare trees.  I had forgotten how much I loved the Moss. 

A grey day, never-quite-lit, a lot of cloud.  Rain on the roads, spray, thorn hedges sprayed creamy-brown by lorries.  I tried to see the journey in terms of fields and woods and birds and not roads and vehicles; but I also found some interesting and unusual place names - Hengoed, Queen's Head, the Wolfshead roundabout.  'Wolf's head' was an old name for an outlaw.  A journey of places aimed for and never reached; Runcorn, Frodsham, Chester, Wrexham, Welshpool, Shrewsbury, Leominster, Ludlow.  

Fields and Hilltops

Another drive over the moors to Welshpool.  Thick mist here when we left and thick seas of it (with only isolated farms and hill tops above the grey) visible from the high point of the road over the hills to Knighton.  But on the moors above Felindre the road was icy and the hills were shrouded in mist - a lovely phrase.  Most of the valley bottoms however were cold and misty and most of the hilltops were open and clear.  A misty day generally, the fields between here and Hereford were empty and looked swept clean, distant hedges and trees ghostly in the mist.  The countryside looked dormant.  

Lumpen Wolf Moon

A turn around the garden before bed. Brilliant moonlight from a lumpy just-past-full moon, swollen and misshapen after the full of a night or so ago. Bright enough to cast clear shadows, and a sky full of sharp stars. A thickish mist over the drop of the hill, the low point of Byton Hand between two hills, a meeting of five roads; hence the name.

I read a story on the Bertie's Cottage blog that the first full moon of January was called a Wolf Moon by medieval people, because the winter had reached the point where the wolves were hungry enough to attack farms in the search for meat.

Raw

Another cold morning, wet and raw but brighter than recent days. I think I prefer bright cold weather to milder grey days. I spent the morning clearing boxes in the garage. lots of boxes of books and art work materials, amazing the stuff we just collect. Every now and then I looked down the valley to the Radnor hills, the western edge of the Radnor Forest. The light changed every time I looked, from clear light on what looked like frost or light snow to a thicker red light and then a soft obscuring cloud. The sunlight on the woods above the house - not on the house for another seven weeks - changed too, a reddish golden light suddenly turning clearer and more silvery. Good views from the garage of a fold in the hills, a small cwm above the valley road, now thickly planted with larch.

Observations

Heavy squalls of rain blowing down the valley, obscuring the far side, lowering the sky; a heavy thick rain-mist hanging over the hills.  The firs climb up into a daytime Alpine gloom.  When the squalls pass the landscape has a glistening, refreshed quality, the greens and browns shiny and bright.  

An armful of beech twigs blown from the tree onto the grass and brought in for kindling; dripping stems, dark blood reds and blacks, curled like claws, drying slowly and paling on the woodburner.  The immediacy of garden uses.  

A Lost Weekend

Suddenly realised I haven't blogged since Friday - where did the weekend go?!  My weekends seem taken up by many small things; stories from neighbours, conversations at the garden gate, trips to the recycling depot, walks through Presteigne.  We also managed to bake a cake.

After the sharp frosts of the fortnight after Christmas, the weather has turned wet and raw.  It is not cold but a wind has risen, a wet breeze or a breeze over wet ground, which is cold and penetrating in a way that the subzero weather was not.  Strange to see the rain; it woke us in the early hours this morning, hammering on the roof and upsetting the dog; a grey wet light through the skylight, rain pattering down the chimney.  The rain has restored the green-ness to the landscape; moss, grass, evergreen branches.