Monday, 8 March 2010 - New neighbours and other stuff

Whether we like them or not, more and more windmills like these below are appearing in our countryside.  The windmills here are about 2 miles from me and I see them often as I drive back home - they arrived as new neighbours last summer and there are four in this row.  Less than a mile away there are even more and I know some people just hate them.  I feel sort of ambivalent.  I appreciate the reason that they are there and love the idea of harnessing the wind to provide power and as they are not within my view from my home I don't have to look at them all the time.  I find them fascinating when I am driving past them, but might not like to have them in my face permanently, and do worry a little about bird injury from the large arms.

Still unable to go and walk about because of tendonitis in my left ankle Achilles, I was happy to notice the sun coming through my west window this evening and catching the Chinese lanterns which I picked last year.  Orange isn't my favourite colour, but they just look so beautiful.

One of my lovely neighbours brought me this primrose.  They weren't here for Christmas this year and didn't give me a card, but brought this to welcome in Spring, which I thought was a lovely idea.

At the end of the village is a bridge over the stream which feeds the mill pond.  

Unfortunately the mill is no longer used, but the water still rushes through and the stream is in full spate at the moment with all the rain we've had in the last months.  Sometimes I think the ground will never dry up again the ground is so sodden.

I had four cordes of wood delivered today.  A friend bought some trees from a neighbour and then cut the trees down, sawed the wood into 45cm logs and split them.  They are oak and beech and because they were cut before the sap was rising, they should be fine to burn in a few months.  In fact, I put a beech log on the fire this afternoon and it burnt really well.  The people at the house with the old mill have had some logs cut and stacked in their garden and you don't have to look far to see where they've come from!

Going back to new neighbours, something rather strange in the village just over the road from the calvaire, a clearing has been made in the scrubby land there and a heap of discarded headstones from graves have arrived. I believe that the chap who owns the land also crafts the stones and that these must be ones which have been replaced, perhaps when someone else needed to be added to the stone and there wasn't enough room. I'm guessing, but I can't think of any other reason for them to be there.

   

Three Beautiful Things for today:

LOGS, SUNSET AND ROAST CHICKEN

1. Looking out of my west kitchen window and seeing the five cordes of wood which have just been cut, split and delivered to season through the year in my garden ready for next winter’s woodburner fires.

2. Watching the sun tinting the clouds a delicate then deeper coral pink as it sets behind the neighbourhood woods.

3. Coming home from shopping to my supper of chicken which has been roasting in the oven and the mouth-watering aromas which immediately reach my nostrils as I open the door.