Strangely enough, I haven't done much walking since we moved out here. I was never much of a one for just going for a walk, but I used to walk several miles a day, back and forth to work, into town, to friends' houses, to the shops. Here, the nearest shop is two miles away, work is almost 30 miles, and most of my travelling is in the car. I don't like it. I'm going to be mostly working at home for the next few months, so I won't even be walking to and from wherever I've parked the car near work. So I've started making more of an effort to go for a wander each day. Not far, just a mile or two, out to the road and back across the fields, or up the track to the top of the hill. This week the weather has been eventful, with a flurry of snow at the start of the week, followed swiftly by ethereal mists. I love wandering about in the snow, especially this sort of minimal snow that doesn't really cause much disruption but lets you see the tracks of the animals that have been roaming around overnight. The sun came out later in the week, and on Thursday after lunch it was had to believe that two days earlier everything had been covered in snow. I didn't make it out at all today, partly because yesterday I got carried away and stayed out for over an hour in the middle of the afternoon when I should have been working. It's difficult to make yourself come back inside sometimes.
But I think the distraction of a walk will help me over the next few months when I'm working at home most days, staring at a screen, with no colleagues to have a cup of tea with. Peter is here of course, working on his own projects, and we regularly nip out to a cafe for tea and a scone, but I do need to make myself stand up and go outside each day. The challenge will be timing. At the minute, it's dark by 4.30, so if I want to walk I have to do it during the working day, and then there's a risk I'll find myself half way up a hill somewhere thinking about trees when I should be typing. As always, I'm sure there's a balance - I'm just not sure I've found it yet.
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It started snowing yesterday afternoon, and we woke up this morning to the first proper snowfall of the winter. The chickens were not impressed. Hermione was brave - first out of the house and after breakfast headed off into a field, but the were a bit more cautious. I had to dig a path from the door of the chicken run before Maud and Luna would come out at all. Eventually they learned to walk on the snow, and finally, after about four hours, Maud realised she could scrape the snow off the grass with her feet. They found a sheltered patch behind the shed and stayed there for most of the rest of the day. I went for a bit of a walk to see what the road was like. I walked back from the road across our fields, a route I'm ashamed to say I've not taken before. It was quite foggy, and it took me a while to find the stile. We put the chickens back in their run and popped into town for supplies. When we got back, I opened their door again but they refused to come out, and I don't blame them. Cold, damp and foggy - not good weather for a chicken.
Much better for both humans and chickens to get cosy inside (not in the same house) and look at the view. So, here we are in 2019! And a 24th of the way through the year already I suppose, although it's best not to think of such things. One of the things we're noticing about living out here, something that I love and Peter isn't quite so sure about, is the seasonal nature of it. We have far more outside space here than in our old house, and we got rather used to being outside in the summer, but now it's cold (or raining, or snowing), it's less easy to do that. And it goes dark so early! The same time as in the city, of course, but with no street lights directly outside the window, the world feels cut off when it's dark in a way that it never did before. I like the opportunity to get cosy with a good book, but I can't deny it does feel a little confined sometimes. I'm trying to turn the problem (not that it's really a problem) into a positive by focusing on the seasons as they come around. I've never really had a nature table before, but I've made a little corner of a living room windowsill into a seasonal display that I'll change as the seasons change. And I'm trying to notice the light more as it moves around the house. We're in a funny old situation here at the minute. We've removed a wall to combine the kitchen with what was the snug, and we acquired this eight foot long solid oak table from a lovely lady recently through Freegle. I love it - but I can't deny it looks quite bizarre in our unfinished, unplastered room. Rather medieval I think. The house faces south, and the table is flooded with light at lunchtime, which is lovely. Those bricks at the head of the table are going to be a window at some point, so I hope this room will eventually be less 'cave' and more 'light and airy'. At the minute the whole place has a rather Bond villain air, as we have an extremely odd rubble feature in the floor where the chimney used to be. I find myself remarkably unbothered by the chaos. In the old house, the DIY drove me a little mad, but that's because we were wanting to leave and couldn't until everything was finished. Here, it can take as long as it takes. It won't surprise you to know we're doing a lot of it ourselves (so it might take a while). In the meantime, as usual, we're spending quite a lot of time in local cafes. We're casting round for a new favourite cafe at the minute, as the one we spent a lot of last year in closed just before Christmas, which we were most distressed about, especially as our favourite cafe in Sheffield has closed down too.
The one above does an excellent scone, but is far too busy unless we get there when it first opens (which we often do). This is the problem with living in a tourist hotspot I suppose.... In other news, the chickens have found the back door to the house, and are taking every opportunity to sneak in while our backs are turned. It's not too bad now as the door is mostly closed, but come the summer we may have to be more vigilant. Goodness me, a lot happened in 2018. I've found myself quite overwhelmed with the thought of looking back. However, I've done summaries of the year on my blogs for several years now, and I didn't want to have a missing year, so here goes. I started 2018 on my old blog, with a look back at 2017 - a year of DIY and bureaucracy as we finished decorating, sold our old house, and waited for the paperwork wheels to turn. I went for a nice snowy walk in the woods, and visited some local nature reserves. I made my own lip balm (which I'm still using, that stuff lasts a long time), contemplated learning how to identify trees in winter (something I've still not done), and started running again (for probably the 100th time). February was exciting, although it mostly didn't feel like it at the time. I started a series of trail races with my sister, and took her for a walk past our new house (which we still didn't own at that point, and which I was starting to feel quite daunted by). I cocked up and then rescued a knitting project (no change there then), and pondered what I'd been reading lately (I'd forgotten I used to do that). Finally, in the middle of the month, we exchanged contracts on the new house, and celebrated with an almond croissant in our favourite cafe (which has since closed down, sob). We finally moved on Monday 26th Feb, and by Tuesday 27th we were snowed in for several days. March was a flurry of snow and moving boxes, and also moving blogs. I started this blog off by rambling about how we'd got here, then did a tour of our (rather soggy) fields, and our dilapidated outbuildings. It snowed again, and we got stuck in the city for a couple of days. I fell into a pattern of getting up early, and started trying to fix some of our tumbling down old dry stone walls. And we sneaked off and got married without telling anyone. April started with yet more snow (yawn), a little bit more running, and some rather soggy cycling. I built a plastic greenhouse, which then blew down, so I rebuilt it in a different place. I had a surprisingly crafty episode, knitting dishcloths and making my own shampoo bars. I went on a dry stone walling course, and finally the sun came out and it started to feel a little bit like spring (we also started our mouse-eviction-programme) which lasted most of the month, fortunately with no casualties. In May, the sun shone again (on a bank holiday no less!) and I acquired a push-along lawnmower and spent quite a bit of time lying on the newly mown grass. We got a good view of a hare, and I bought a scythe and started making space in a field for growing squash. Big excitement at the end of the month as the neighbouring cows arrived to hang out in our fields for a few months. June was a month of flowers. I could barely keep up with the growth in one greenhouse, and started to build another. I had a minor celebration as the second greenhouse went up, and I finally finished fixing one of the walls that had fallen down. I went on a very flowery bike ride, and the garden was abundant and beautiful. I ignored my blog for the first couple of weeks of July while we had visitors, day trips, and started demolishing walls. I started running again and entered an ultra marathon. We had a lizard in the living room, and visited a local fair. July in the garden was super hot, and we let the cows into our final field as they were running out of grass elsewhere. In August, we picked bilberries in the local lanes, and went for a day out to our nearest Wildlife Trust reserve. I recapped half a year of living in our new house, and took a fortnight off work, during which it rained rather a lot. The garden was lush and abundant. In September, the chickens arrived! So very exciting. A cow got into the runner bean patch, we harvested a lot of courgettes, and nearly finished the outdoor chicken run. As usual, I went through a phase of getting out of the routine of posting here. In October, I visited Biddulph Grange, pondered what on earth we were doing out here, and pottered around in the autumn sunshine. The chickens marauded round the garden as I laid compost ready for an edible windbreak. Work got rather busy, and I spent two weeks here on my own while Peter jetted off to the other side of the world, although I don't seem to have mentioned that here. In November, I waffled a lot about chickens. I met a friend for lunch in the botanical gardens, and had a little trip to the seaside. I spent quite a lot of time outside, some of it in my pyjamas. It felt like it was foggy a lot. In December, I lost track of time again, and caught up with myself by waffling on about the chickens (again). I finally finished a crocheted blanket I'd started in the summer, and we had an exciting day of freezing rain. I ended the year feeling rather poorly, but festive. What an eventful year! It feels like it's flown past in a flash, and yet I also feel like we've lived here forever. So many things have happened that I haven't written about here too, and I've got a stack of photographs I've not shared.
There's no chance of me catching up now - here we are more than half of the way through January, I've not posted here at all, and the Christmas tree is still up. Oh well. I'm planning a rather less eventful and more settled 2019. Right now the snow is falling, and I'm settling down to a bit of knitting (which I hope to finish before the summer). A friend is due to arrive tomorrow, but given the snow she might not make it. We'll see. |
Hello!Sit down and make yourself comfortable. I'm Jenni, and I write here about our new foray into country living, which includes growing food, knitting, baking, wandering around the fields, and seeing which local cafe serves the best cake. Categories
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