28th Feb 2010

Well it’s the last day of February. I had a walk to the garden with Robbie. He’s a clever dog and walking really well. Keeps the pace and doesn’t weave all over the place. I am amazed at how quick he is learning all these new things. He’s a ratter of a dog though and jumps and pounces and chews with a relish that could be construed as disturbing.

It’s been a grey day and I thought perhaps there was the threat of snow in the air but it never materialised. Perhaps today was the last gasp of winter before spring. The garden has the last vestiges of snow in cool, hidden corners and it is now covered with a thin skein of black speckles now. How different from the pure white when it fell.

The garden has fared reasonably well over the cold weather but the tenders have been well and truly tenderised by the hard frosts. The pond is still frozen and cheeky chappie ran over the ice; so lucky that it was. I figured I was going to get cold feet. I also had to pull him out by his backside from a rabbit hole under the fir tree. Ah, you’ve got to watch them all the time.

Yesterday finally went to see Avatar at the IMAX with Nick...I loved it from start to finish. So stunning, desperately sad and yet, sometimes so beautifully moving and always, always enchantingly hauntingly inspiring. It is probably the best film I have ever watched in my life and if you haven’t seen it yet, please go and see how a world could be so differently imagined. James Cameron must be so proud of his achievement.

Hope you’ve had a good weekend.

You might have to think about this

An attorney arrived home late, after a very tough day trying to get a stay of execution. His last minute plea for clemency to the governor had failed and he was feeling worn out and depressed. As soon as he walked through the door at home, his wife started on him about, 'What time of night to be getting home is this? Where have you been? Dinner is cold and I'm not reheating it'. And on and on and on........

Too shattered to play his usual role in this familiar ritual, he poured himself a shot of whiskey and headed off for a long hot soak in the bathtub, pursued by the predictable sarcastic remarks as he dragged himself up the stairs. While he was in the bath, the phone rang. The wife answered and was told that her husband's client, James Wright, had been granted a stay of
execution after all. Wright would not be hanged tonight. Finally realizing what a terrible day he must have had, she decided to go up stairs and give him the good news.

As she opened the bathroom door, she was greeted by the sight of her husband, bent over naked, drying his legs and feet.
They're not hanging Wright tonight,' she said.

He whirled around and screamed,

“FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WOMAN, DON'T YOU EVER STOP?!”

LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION


Trevor Adams, my assistant programmer, can always be found

hard at work in his cubicle. Trevor works independently, without

wasting company time talking to colleagues. Trevor never

thinks twice about assisting fellow employees, and he always

finishes given assignments on time. Often he takes extended

measures to complete his work, sometimes skipping coffee

breaks. Trevor is a dedicated individual who has absolutely no

vanity in spite of his high accomplishments and profound

knowledge in his field.. I firmly believe that Trevor can be

classed as a high-calibre employee, the type that cannot be

dispensed with. Consequently, I truly recommend that Trevor be

promoted to executive management, and a proposal will be

executed as soon as possible.

Addendum......

The idiot was standing over my shoulder while I wrote this report.

Kindly re-read only the odd numbered lines.

A posh northern superstore

Soft falls the snow tonight as the world dims into dusk. It hugs my warmth like suicide as it slowly fades and leaves this moment and becomes something else. Its passing takes something from me; though I do not know what? Perhaps the solitude of winter, or my eagerness for spring. Warmth is escaping me in this snowstorm as the cold passes through my clothing, but cold hands at last fall upon warm fur and loving canine dances. I am home and just as the snow is leaving have you come to fill days with your innocent wonder. For what the world takes and changes, we must wait to see, but always it replaces a sorrow for a joy.

Swift roads leading to home carry shadows of spring. They lengthen from birth each day and on a faintly remembered breeze, blow our forgotten dreams.

21st Feb 2010

Wow Sunday already...haven’t had much time this week with little Robbie needing attention and lots of watching. I’m learning to be especially suspicious when he’s quiet! He’s very bright though and learns things quickly; that may or may not be a good sign. He’s also discovered the outdoor yard and has been having a whale of a time rolling around in the snow this weekend. He’s also learnt that if he does other stuff he gets lavish praise and a treat. He’s a quick learner and does most of his business outside now...that’s a relief. He can be boisterous though and scrambled up Nick’s face yesterday making a deep gash in his ear from his sharp claws. So first blood to Robbie and now if he’s chewing my big toe I think I’ll stop him.

I’ve bought a baby gate and I have been bewildered by just how much different stuff is available. I swear they’ll have puppy Pampers any day soon. It wasn’t like this when Jenny was a puppy.

It’s been snowing on and off all weekend but hasn’t reached any great depth and doesn’t look likely too. When I was walking to work the other morning the snow fell thick and fast and I was entranced watching the swirling flakes cast shadows under the streetlights. It was like a swarm of insects in a summer thermal. Almost spooky I thought. Right enough for the moment. He’s in the other room...he’s quiet and I should be worried.

Just checked...I think he’s got a grumpy look at being ignored. Hope you had a good weekend. I’ll try to do my pictures later.

Little white dog of mine

You are my new valentine

You make a joy of each day

I love the way you can play

Even if and when you’re bad

I could never for long be sad

You soft fluffy ball of warm

Never will you come to harm

16th Feb 2010

Still walking to work and for amusement this morning there were 2 drunks shouting and hollering at 6.30am on the high street. Welcome to the New Britain 2010. I think they were trying to intimidate people, but not very well and in any case probably hard when you can only just about keep upright. Still makes you think perhaps walking to work might not be as healthy as I thought.

Robbie the Westie is doing well, eager and playful with perhaps a few lessons to learn in the toilet department. I’d forgotten how much work a puppy is though! I’ll take some more pictures soon. He’s just had his last jab and is free to explore the outdoors in a week.

Mike’s mum has made an amazing recovery from major surgery. But she can’t go home yet (perhaps never will,) as she’s struggling to walk. But that’s to be expected. She’s one tough old nut that’s for sure!

Weather is cool and slightly snowy and looks set to continue for the rest of the month but the mornings and nights are getting lighter so it’s all good.

Check out this website...really good and some amazing pictures

http://www.crazyleafdesign.com/blog/

A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet

Someone as beautiful as you, I’m unlikely to meet

When I hold you tightly in my arms all emotion soars

Your love to me is sweet revelation opening all doors

So today’s a time for hearts to fly swift across the moon

My soul is yours and holding you could never be too soon

There may be the sound of tiny feet once again reverberating around the house tonight…I’ll keep you posted.

Other than that not much has been happening this week. Weather is cold but bright and continues to stay that way for the immediate future. Not like the US where Scott informs me (and sent pictures to prove it,) that the snow is up to the level of the windowsills. I’m still walking and in any case the car wouldn’t start the other day when I tried it. Needs a new battery I think. I probably need a new car but who’s going to buy a car in this economic climate. The recession is over…yes right! Does anyone actually believe that? Not I at any rate and as I still have a job and it’s now 5.30am, I better make a move. Have a great weekend.

Come moon from behind the thinning that are clouds flying westward across the infinite space above me that I know holds all the answers. I have asked all the questions, but the replies as yet evade my understanding. Moon shower your heavenly silvered light on me so that it may bathe me in the rays of enchantment for if we cannot know the answers we can at least be washed in wonder.

Now for something funny I think!

A couple were 85 years old and had been married for sixty years. Though they were far from rich, they managed to get by because they watched their pennies. Though not young, they were both in very good health, largely due to the wife's insistence on healthy foods and exercise for the last decade. One day, their good health didn't help when they went on a rare vacation and their plane crashed, sending them off to Heaven.
They reached the pearly gates and St. Peter escorted them inside. He took them to a beautiful mansion, furnished in gold and fine silks, with a fully stocked kitchen and a waterfall in the master bath. A maid could be seen hanging their favourite clothes in the closet.
They gasped in astonishment when he said, 'Welcome to Heaven. This will be your home now.'
The old man asked Peter how much all this was going to cost. 'Why, nothing,' Peter replied, 'remember, this is your reward in Heaven.'
The old man looked out the window and right there he saw a championship golf course, finer and more beautiful than any ever built on Earth.
'What are the greens fees?' grumbled the old man.
'This is heaven,' St. Peter replied. 'You can play for free, every day.'
Next they went to the clubhouse and saw the lavish buffet lunch, with every imaginable cuisine laid out before them, from seafood to steaks to exotic deserts, free flowing beverages.
'Don't even ask,' said St. Peter to the man. This is Heaven, it is all free for you to enjoy.'
The old man looked around and glanced nervously at his wife.
'Well, where are the low fat and low cholesterol foods and the decaffeinated tea?' he asked.
That's the best part,' St. Peter replied. 'You can eat and drink as much as you like of whatever you like and you will never get fat or sick. This is Heaven!'
The old man pushed, 'No gym to work out at?'
'Not unless you want to,' was the answer.
'No testing my sugar or blood pressure or...'
'Never again all you have to do here is enjoy yourself.’
The old man glared at his wife and said, 'you and your Bran Flakes. We could have been here ten years ago!'

Mike’s mum has just undergone a very long and serious operation and at 87 it is a big worry. But she’s strong and matriarch of her clan. My father is now 77 and strong and patriarch of his clan but even so, sometimes I wonder if living is worth the worry of wondering when everyone else is going to leave. I think there comes a time in everyone’s life when the balance of years lived means that those that came before us are now nearly ready to pass. Some already gone, the rest soon to follow and it is but a great well of sadness we now look down into. A hurt comes to each of us that cannot be assuaged; that we have to bear; no matter the cost. Yet how I wish, I could leave first and delude myself it might never happen. That leaving soonest would be the easiest; if selfish beyond measure. So I will wait and grieve until it is my turn and I truly hope no one grieves for me, for that is what would hurt the most of all!

Time runs and we cannot ever reach its fevered pace

For the end was written before we entered this space

Our stories unfold in a lifetime of natures great dealings

The cycle of life runs and ends but will always bring healing

I’ve walked to work nearly every day since the New Year. I haven’t walked it back so many times but I figure that 50% walking is good and much better than none at all. It’s getting easier to walk the two and a half miles and I think there are undiscovered muscles lurking in my shins...because they do ache slightly by the time I get to work. I think if I am enjoying it now then when the warmer, brighter mornings arrive I shall be having a ball strolling through the avenues of birdsong.

There are few people around at 6.30am and one soon attunes to the routine and at certain places certain people walk by like clockwork. For the moment I can survive well without the car and that’s got to be a good thing. Besides walking to work gives me time to think and also to notice how dirty the pavements actually are. Who knows what they are doing with all the tax money?

Somebody asked what I was doing up the tree. I was cutting off some branches with the chainsaw. I’m quite sure that method of pruning isn’t in the manual so don’t try it out. It’s a small battery chainsaw and quite light but in the wrong hands quite deadly...ok I’ll get rid of it!

Hope you had a good weekend

You are the radiant sun that penetrates the winter mist

On the frostiest day you are always there to warm my face

You are the breeze that takes my dreams away into the dusk

Sending them gently into the ether floating safe for eternity

I know that all of me is safe, loved by your touch on my life

I thank you for finding me in time and letting me love you

I shall never now consider my life anything but yours alone

To take comfort from, wherever you should go in the world

Though I might be far from your touch for a time, it will pass

So I shall never feel guilty for we both have waited so long

And the sweet green world will always bring us together

On a sunny day, both at the right time, in the right place

To reward at last the remainder of our days with such joy

I shall never ever let anything come between that thought

And once you look within my eyes and see my aching soul

You will know it always and almost I cannot wait but I shall

I found this prose and rewrote it for the winter. Here’s the original

Tonight the world wraps us in cool silk and softly the delicate fabric touches the soul tracing a glimpse of autumn across the senses. For the breeze whispers between heavy golden boughs bathed in a waning sun riding lower in the sky ripening tall grasses hanging bowed with buff-coloured seeds.

So we come to this time of miniature frogs clambering from warm ponds to feast upon the regal ant couples that fill the dusky balm. To ripening fruit and swelling roots that shall make us give thanks that the summer has come and still yet shall linger. For our heart would stay in the warmth a little while.

And here’s the other

Tonight the world wraps us in cool silken flakes and softly the delicate icy fabric touches the soul to melt and then trace a story across the numbed senses. For the breeze whispers to me as I walk in the cold and its voice is always inspiration.

So we come then to the cusp of a new cycle and slowly, in me, will awaken the call of the spring to come. I hear the words, but as yet my heart is empty and only golden boughs bathed in a waxing sun riding higher in the sky will assuage me. For until then my heart would stay in the cold little while more.

The rain too soon eases leaving wet plants unwarmed in the thin evening sun. Night descends and a frosted hand makes all now sparkle with endless possibilities. The moons smile gleams off crystal covered paths that shimmer and reflect light in the weak spotlight of a decaying evening sun harnessed into a cool brilliance. Night comes slowly and softly as the light dims. The last birdsong decays as feathered bodies fluff and relax into the torpor darkness brings. Our footsteps tread over the glistening paths that wind toward home. For silence rides in on the back of darkness to lull all to dreams of a bright day welcoming them into a summer dawn when each plant and flower unfolds onto a stage and every thrumming insect works the crowd along every emerald traced branch

Just once I look into the skies of autumn, shimmering with stars set upon a blackest clarity and feel the coldness reach and touch within me like an iced finger. It cools toes and fingers and sings with a cruel warning to go inside. For if we are found naked and alone within the thrall of night by the frost we shall not see the day again. Yet I shall stay a little longer and let the numbness spread through my limbs, for the cold teaches the lesson of mortality. I am not of consequence save within the thoughts of those that would care. So I gaze upon the night sky spread like an obsidian robe and ponder the world. Like an ant that would gaze up at me I cannot understand what I see and yet I would try. For it moves me to somewhere else that is magical and fearful and how I so wish I could go there. Perhaps one day I shall

The shortest days weave through the year leading to spring

Day’s cold with snow falling in white flakes amid freezing winds

And nothing will now grow that sustains a man in rapturous cuisine

For the fields lie empty and the beasts are needed for the future

All quiets in lanes and hedgerows as nature beds her children to sleep

Till the warmer days come and days lighten with the rising gold sun

Tis a lonely time when skies lie silent and the nights echo empty days

Yet for me this time is one of great hope and joy for all I hold dear

For at this time not all that long ago was the world blessed with you

A child of these shorter days and born to a cold and barren world

And yet see how the grace of a year is harvested in one such as you

I was born on the first breath of spring when sap rises in noble trees

But you are the blessed child of autumn and take hold the world

Comforting us all with your grace so we can look to spring for

Offspring of warmer more hopeful times would know nothing of the...

Calm dignity of the world without the love of children of the fall

Nick's brother is going to paint one of these as a picture for me...in case you're wondering

Making a Star on Earth

Check out the Science website (follow the link at the bottom)

The controlled fusion of atoms - creating conditions like those in our Sun - has been touted as a potentially revolutionary energy source. However, there have been doubts about the planned use of powerful lasers for fusion energy because the "plasma" they create could interrupt the fusion. The Science article showed that plasma is far less a problem than expected. The report is based on the first experiments from the National Ignition Facility in the US that used all 192 of its laser beams.

Along the way, the experiments smashed the record for the highest energy from a laser - by a factor of 20.

The goal, as its name implies, is to harness the power of the largest laser ever built to start "ignition" - effectively a carefully controlled thermonuclear explosion.

It is markedly different from current nuclear power, which operates through splitting atoms - fission - rather than squashing them together as in fusion.

Proving that such a lab-based fusion reaction can release more energy than is required to start it - rising above the so-called breakeven point - could herald a new era in large-scale energy production.

In the approach Nif takes, called inertial confinement fusion, the target is a centimetre-scale cylinder of gold called a hohlraum. Giant laser experiment powers up It contains a tiny pellet of fuel made from an isotope of hydrogen called deuterium. Inside the hohlraum is a tiny pellet containing an extremely cold, solid mixture of hydrogen isotopes. Lasers strike the hohlraum's walls, which in turn radiate X-rays. X-rays strip material from the outer shell of the fuel pellet, heating it up to millions of degrees. If the compression of the fuel is high enough and uniform enough, nuclear fusion can result

A significant potential hurdle to the process that many have suggested over 30 years of the laser fusion debate regards the "plasma" that the lasers will create in the hohlraum.

The fear has been that the plasma, a roiling soup of charged particles, would interrupt the target's ability to absorb the lasers' energy and funnel it uniformly into the fuel, compressing it and causing ignition.

Siegfried Glenzer, the Nif plasma scientist, led a team to test that theory, smashing records along the way.

"We hit it with 669 kilojoules - 20 times more than any previous laser facility," Nif's Siegfried Glenzer told BBC News.

That isn't that much total energy; it's about enough to boil a one-litre kettle twice over.

However, the beams delivered their energy in pulses lasting a little more than 10 billionths of a second.

By way of comparison, if that power could be maintained, it would boil the contents of more than 50 Olympic-sized swimming pools in a second.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8485669.stm

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/

Was it worth the climb up here to stand on the roof of our world and gaze over the view? In the distance the waves glint as I follow the great plain west and watch the undulating baize of the land give way to the silvered pool. Or face north to snow capped peaks that rise through the green gap in the near hills that are clothed in oaks. Or maybe east to the high barren ridge that separates two glacial valleys so completely they as well may be separate countries. Or look south toward the weakened winter sun that tries in vain to shine through the mists that hang in the air and yet do not obscure the view over the brown moorland.
     How magical the world seems from on high...like a god in Olympus I can look down and feel a kindred longing that the view should never change. Then I leave and take the swiftest roads to home wherever that may be.

Out of mind and bereft of surviving will, I can travel anywhere I wish. I cannot remember all the places, but ever there was a roof of stars above to lay a gilded thread for my footfall. Travelling through time, in time, I become a child of time. Everywhere and nowhere, I was floating among the wonders of the cosmos and grasping relative concepts with ease, to touch the event horizon with a single thought. See it envelop my form and pull my being into the darkness to lie in the womb of space time. How long there is inconsequential, but I emerge once again and the light rushes toward me like a revelation. And at last I awake on a sunny bower with the birds chorusing their exuberance and I know intuitively I am home.

I begin to see it all now and as the days lengthen into spring so too does my mind. Light rushes in to fill the day and knowledge invades ignorance to envelop the consciousness in wonder. I see now life was not about living at all. Living begins when there is nothing left to hold on to. When we finally see that life is indeed futile but more importantly ultimately it is transient, does our soul shake free the chains we wrap ourselves in? I no longer feel the wind or the warmth of the sun, nor taste the air, because I have become a part of all these things. I have become the essence of the world.
     So ask me now what I see? It is a world of colour. I see colour, I am colour. If I could paint you a May dawn of light and shade with a glistening dew on green grass, brown earth and a blue sky caressed by a yellow sun then you would begin to see a little of this new world. But you wouldn’t feel the warmth and the innate calm that wreaks an almost painful joy on every moment.
     I am a tall tree rushing into growth, a robin singing the new day, a rainbow in a gentle rain and scented in new mown hay, baking bread and freshly ground coffee. I have become the sum of every joyous day and yet beside the guardians I seem but a child. For each of them is the sum of a millennia of rebirth, they are pyramids of existence. I could never seek to describe them yet, for I have not gained the vision or skill, but one day.

Saturday 23rd Jan 2010

Well here we are so soon toward the end of January and like blind men reborn a little more of each day is revealed to us. It now seems hard to believe there was so much snow before so I’m so glad I took some pictures...probably be a long time before England again looks like Lapland.

Since the New Year I have been walking to and from work and have been off the wine so feeling quite healthy at the minute. I am enjoying walking to work and should have done it years ago. I’ve grown a two week old beard but it is amazing how many people are so suspicious of it...what’s that all about? It has grown really fast but if I had any doubts just how old I am getting just one look in the mirror at the grey fuzz reassure me...I look like my dad and that is always a worrying point in one’s life to reach. For the moment I am quite taken with my new look but I doubt it will reach spring.

Work is quiet at the moment and I moved into a new office yesterday (closer to the exit I feel.) I smell a rat but we’ll see. I mean I could lose my job, be given a large sum of money and have to spend spring and summer pottering around the garden...now wouldn’t that be terrible!

Hope you have a good weekend.

Long roads stretch out from home laced in shadows marked by the dying embers of the sun. Swift into dusk the tongues of flame are replaced with silver limmed shadows that flicker under light of the waking moon. Night calls to me and I set my feet to the journey. I feel the call of the trees and the wind that carries the scent of the sea. With starlight on my brow I walk into the night with only an Earthsong to guide me. Its words come from ancient memory and sung gently it take me through Beech halls with their grey columns upraised on a carpet of copper autumn leaves supporting a roof gilded in a silver wooden lattice till at last I come to an avenue of sandstone that was hewed by men. It opens up at the end into a wooded arena and I understand already that I am not alone. I sense them watching, listening to my song and in the pale moonlight they sing reply to it and step from the shadows between the trees into the waking world. Beings older than I, greater than I and yet more humble than I. As children they seem and yet are as ancient as the bones of rock that shape the world. Forms made manifest to my eyes by a deeper belief and time and see they come to greet me and awed by their song I become stardust and melt with them into the shadows as I am reborn.
     Reborn within their song of majesty, that takes each note and displays the story of creation. As the music swells I see the threads of time weaving into the weft of the present and the warp of the future. The older cloth shimmers while the newest is dull and dowdy. The fabric of the world made in song shows these beings have nurtured us from the beginning of time. We are the wards of a titanic history and as unruly upstarts we have nearly laid waste to all we have been given.
     They have no technology only an organic insight that co-exists with all other living things. They do not die; they simply take on a different form to explore the world anew. How so? Within the earth is a now waning power that is the dynamo of destiny. It is a declining force now and with each passing day a little more is lost forever. Each lost tree, each acre of woodland is a doom to the force that sustains them and so they retreat further from man and transform into something lesser than before. Yet think how mighty must they have been at the beginning to make this glorious world and maintain it as a paradise for so long.

The days at the minute are damp and strangely mild. Which is such a change from the week before. Almost like a different season in a week. I am sure it will turn cold again soon but hard to work out what the weather is doing at the minute…looks like rain for the foreseeable future and yet there is snow forecast. Well we’ll see. We’ve had the new moon and move toward the first quarter so it is pretty dark and foggy out at the minute. But the days are growing lighter once more and I look forward to being able to come home and see the light.

So take a finger and hold it aloft

Touch the sky and make a wish

Not for power, but for hope and

Set it free to ripple across the moon

Feel the gravity of the universe

Pull the entire senses heavenward

Into a night sky in January and see…

We are drawn into eternity together

Night turns to milder vistas borne on a moon suspended in depth of winter. Already to wane, she fills the foggy skies with a gentle sigh that will herald clearer starlit skies of fortune. In the cold I look toward the milky skies that hold the moon and I feel the approaching spring and know there is hope and wonder in the world.
For the moon often cries and sometimes I touch her tears as they run along the edge of the world into the sea. Despite the tragedies, the world rises ever toward new days even though we cannot see them yet and the cold feels like a benison now, for it means that there shall be nights beneath feathered layers and that…at least till spring we shall need each other to keep warm

Brrr…it was so cold this morning, but the clear sky peppered with stars and the declining moon, delivered just enough light to lay a trail of stars, to take my feet across the thawing snow to work through the night’s icy embrace.

Enjoy the pictures of the lake...completely frozen over and doesn’t that bench look spectacularly uninviting

The whole week has been like a stroll through Narnia. I almost expect to see a lamppost and a faun if I stay out long enough and I’m almost sure there’s a wicked ice queen somewhere nearby! The snow on the branches is traced along all the contours to a depth of 2 inches and although it looks frozen on the limbs, a gentle prod cascades it airily down to the ground. We have had little wind and it is incredible to see all the trees looking like this. But boy, its cold...officially colder than the south pole on a couple of days! So don’t you worry about the Emperor penguins trying to keep their eggs warm think of us poor northerners trying desperately to keep our pies warm; not easy balancing them on your feet? Which brings me to that old southerners joke? “What is a Lancashire kebab?” the answer is “2 pies on a stick!”
Not that I’m eating many at the minute as I seem to have had a touch of food poisoning which is luckily getting much better now. Not sure what caused it though but suspecting a meat pie from the pie shop near work, but who knows what is floating around at the minute in this frozen ether? I took Thursday and Friday off work

If I could...in this weather I think I should live like a hobbit in a large dwelling cut into a sandy bank overlooking a rural scene. I’d sit by the fire on these freezing days of winter toasting crumpets by a roaring log fire till spring. Ah well; I’m toasting lots of crumpets anyway (hobbit hole or no!) and trowelling on slabs of the best butter in the world. It is Normandy Sea Salted Butter and it is a salted churned butter made from fresh creamy Normandy milk with the added tang of a little rock salt. To a Frenchman, Isigny in Normandy is synonymous with fine butter. It's held in such high regard that gourmets and gastronomes have been singing the praises of Isigny butter since the 15th Century. It isn’t very healthy though so go easy. Remember ‘a little of what you fancy does you good, but a lot will kill you!’ A 10g serving provides...cal 73, fat 8.0g, sat fat 5.4g, salt 0.2g, total sugars 0.1g.

Enjoy the pictures – 1 is of the garden from a distance and I circled the rough outline. Hope you have a good weekend.

5th Jan 2010

Well the New Year has come in on icy wings that have unfolded to hurl torrents of snow downward. I left my car at home and walked to work (3 miles) this morning as I could see the day was not going to improve and it hasn’t. It took 45 minutes and it has been a long time since I walked to work, or remember snow so thick and deep, clinging to the tree branches like a shadowy silhouette in white. It is stunningly beautiful though; in the brief way that urban snow is, till the cold and the damp turn it to grey. I took some photos of the trees as I thought it might be a long time till I see them like this again. I’ll put them on the blog so enjoy the photos of the trees at my work. The heavy snow is passing south this afternoon so hopefully tomorrow everything should have returned back to normal. Mike took some photos also today and I’ll put some of them on too
Hope you are having a good start to the year and at least we can remember that the days are lengthening and soon the cold will pass and spring shall be upon us once again. All my best wishes

1st Jan 2010
Another year and also another decade begin and I wonder what shall they bring? Strangely enough as I grow older the big wishes and drams lessen and much smaller visions suffice. Just yesterday I couldn’t have known that today I would be standing in the centre of my frozen pond during a snow shower. I did have visions of it cracking under the strain but it held. One never knows what tomorrow will bring? The things we experience are not always good things but they are always challenging.

I’ve had10 days off work but it feels like only a weekend has passed. I had loads of plans and projects but they came to nothing in the end. Some because I couldn’t get motivated but all the outdoor jobs were stopped due to frozen or snow covered ground. We had a white (snowy) Christmas and New Year.

Nick got me a higher definition camera for Christmas so maybe you’ll see a difference in the pictures below. I took a picture of a wasp queen nestled in the garden shed doorway. She's got a light sprinkling of snow but I blew it off before I closed the door.

Happy New Year

Had a lovely Christmas morning which started with a walk around the lake in the snow. We have had a white Christmas this year and it was postcard perfect with crunchy white snow and blue skies. I took some pictures on my camera phone (so excuse the lower quality.) See the bacterial ice marks on the lake. We fed the ducks and geese and admired the decorated trees. We stopped for coffee and mince pies halfway round so that was in effect the Christmas day breakfast. Cooked dinner when I got back home. Nick made a delicious parsnip soup and then a lazy day was enjoyed by us watching all the not so funny comedy shows. I made a little snowman for the table but we forgot him and he sadly melted in the heat of the kitchen.

A swirl of robes red and white

To take winter dreams to flight

Santa is coming to visit us all

Young and old, large or small

As Christmas white sweeps in

The merriments can now begin

Warm hearths, food, and hearts

At last the holiday truly starts

Our eyes looking to childhood

See thoughts only ever good

We reveal our happiest faces

We are Christmas saving graces

So take this season and rejoice

Find again within; your inner voice

Friends are presents already open

Take the gift; life’s precious token

The one born this December week

To gather all, the placid the meek

He walks among us in various guises

Always in truth; there are no disguises

No matter the word a religion uses

He loves us all equally; never chooses

So think him often and ask a favour

Of our Lord Jesus Christ the saviour

The merriest of Christmas wished to you

To last another whole year through

Next week we begin yet another year

Until then rejoice, this is no time for a tear