hayway lane...

 

Hayway Lane last week...

cheering sun, a different route, frost, scary hayway lane, snow, muffled calm, burns lunch and the forsytes, bourbony single malt

The sun shone and cheered the countryside yesterday, saturated though it is, when these photos were taken.

This week, I've been avoiding the footpaths across the fields from the village. Too muddy, even when frosty. Instead I've walked to the nearby hamlet of Weald and down along the lane through the old signals station into the valley. The paths round the fields there are less trodden.

The sky, reflected in the pools of water, and the sunlight brought them to life in ways that were so different to the gloom of the previous day. When I set off from home then, I'd expected the frost would lift the spirits but instead the landscape was mostly muted, apart from the deeply rutted Hayway Lane, which was an alarming writhe of brutally flailed hedgerow trees, fishbone tyre tracks and slices of bright light cutting through where it could.

Last night snow fell and the land was transformed again. All muffled calm, and crunchy underfoot.

I'll post some pics that show what a difference a day makes.

We had our Burns lunch yesterday because we'll be working on Monday. The Highland Park was almost gone so I bought a bottle of The Glenlivet Founder' Reserve. Matured in American oak casks, it was certainly drinkable but more like a cross between Southern Comfort and rum than a single malt. Bourbony, is perhaps more generous.

The lunch was accompanied by the Forsyte Saga on DVD (which is not at all Burns but it is a drama that we are totally gripped by). Now on disc 6 and not wanting it to end.

abandoned, snow, just me?

 

Is it just me that loves taking pictures of abandoned bits of farm machinery in the snow or mist? J thinks so!....

misty st mary's, back to work, new, (lockdown) order, wildfell, forytes

Misty evening walks. Cold, with snow forecast. Not convinced it will come.

Back at work, the University having to think through what it does in the light of the latest lockdown. No such thing as a quiet start to the year. Nothing happens in the first week back after the Christmas break, we used to say. A time to catch our breath...

Loving The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. AB is a superb technician - technique making narrative soar. A gentle build up to full flight but, of a sudden, the space she gives the reader's imagination pays off and we are in the novel's world completely.

And The Forsyte Saga is pretty amazing too. Just eleven hours to go.

2020 remembered, happy new year - 2021!

 

Oxford has kept going. Well, obviously, those involved in creating the vaccine have more than kept going! But all staff have kept their part of the University going too - and some. Very proud to be a member of such a remarkable institution.

Closer to home, during what would have been a difficult year without the pandemic, J came up with the idea of a village support network, when lockdown started, which she and others, not least our neighbour TMD, developed to wonderful effect. F & T were so proud of that: https://www.bampton-network.co.uk.

A lot of sandwich lunches at the top of the garden during lockdown. A lot of early morning cycle rides before the Teams meetings and the tapping away in the spare-bedroom office. The Arts and Crafts dining chair has proved surprisingly comfortable!

And it was lovely that I spent more time with T, dozing at my feet, than I could have ever have imagined in his last summer.

But, then, what a terrible year to have lived through. What suffering there has been so far and what suffering there will be to come. I pray that we can rebuild quickly and all help each other.

I wish we'd not left Europe. I remember how proud I was when we joined. How excited. I think Britain has been enriched beyond measure by joining Europe. In terms of Human Rights especially. 

But what's done is done and I'm looking to the future.

I'm pleased Trust: A family story is at last finished. I'm really looking forward to writing fiction again.

I'm looking forward to me and J working towards our future together.

I'm looking forward to working with colleagues as we enter a New Year!

Happy 2021!

in between christmas and new year

 

Log fires, walks cross-country, sometimes in the rain, sometimes in snow, mostly under dry grey or sun-peeking-through skies.

Beetroot soup - beetroots, and other veg, from the allotment. Spuds holding up, though we'll soon eat the last, blight having taken half.

Glasses of wine and port, bottles of winter beer. Though not pints in pubs. Miss the pubs - this season especially.

News on the radio and in the papers (on the breakfast table and online), the figures rising, the experts pressing, the politicians vacillating... The whole thing bleak.

Watching the 1960s Forsyte Saga on DVDs. Missed first time round - J because they didn't have a telly till half-way through the series, me because I wasn't allowed to (because of all the references to trusts and trying to stop relatives having access to their money, perhaps?).

Anyway, we now know what we missed. Outstanding. What a script. Witty. Moving. Compelling.

Loving my Christmas reading. Took me a while to decide. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë.

Missing T, all the time...

happy holidays!!