Oh, so .... snowy!

Another 10 cms overnight if the hat on the lantern is anything to go by ... certainly the snow was over the boot-tops. 
And another retirement milestone passed today: the letter to say I get a Winter Fuel Allowance!


David & Felix made an igloo in the street... it was cosy inside, very quiet, and the light was more a blue colour than what has come out in this photo. For a while the gap in the wall looked like the famous photo from inside an iceberg...

igloo outside

Stanmer Street Slide

from the inside

Twingo-on-Ice

igloo doorway

Oh, so .... scary!

The QE2 Bridge, at the Dartford Crossing, 1st December at about noon... dark skies, snow at about 15 cms on the ground apart from this bit of road, which had been warmed up by lorries! A bit of a scary sandwich, but everyone was very courteous, lots of waving into lanes, etc. I lost 50p in the toll tho - can't throw accurately enough from the left-hand driver's seat of my Twingo! So, a four hour homeward trek from Essex... the M25 was like a wasteland - brownish scummy slush underwheel, a few bobbly icy bits, hardly anything on the road apart from the odd speedy 4x4. Still, that was better than the 10 hour sleeping-on-the-motorway I might have endured, thanks to my brother & sister-in-law's spare bedroom. Brighton looked better when I got back, though the hills render it as dangerous as the M25-on-Ice!

Rather different from the sunny scene the afternoon before in Lambourne End.

The Garden House Friday Group...

Retirement Project 4: Gardening Course at The Garden House... 

Even in winter smashing times are had when the sun shines and the task is enjoyable... a lovely bunch of women working and learning at the same time, preparing the garden for charity openings, and all led by the marvellous Bridge! 

Today Marion and I had to plant  a new climbing rose on a trellis, but in doing so we realised that the path to it was a bit slopey and slippery. One thing led to... 4 others! A new wooden step, backfilling and levelling the path, edging it with rustic logs. Then we saw another one was needed, outside the door, so designed and built a terracotta-tiled, brick-edged step, with gravel infills. Sooo satisfying! 

I'm looking forward to the mosaicking next week, as I've not done that before.
My Flickr set The Garden House Friday Group

Charca de la Suarez - a birthday treat

This is one of my favourite places in southern Spain. A small and hidden wetland or humedal project, very near the busy port of Motríl, and just a few kilometres from the touristy beaches of Andalucía, so you can imagine you are not on the same planet, let alone near the bright and noisy towns. The silence is profound, disturbed only by the humming of insects, rustling reeds, beating of wings and squeaks and squawks from the birds themselves. You are always reminded that you must keep quiet all the time, and the merest whisper can sometimes set a duck off its nest, or scuttling along the surface of the water.
We try to visit each time we are in the area, observing how the seasons change and the bird life comes and goes.
In spring the migratory birds drop in on their way back north. Summer has pink flamingos, herons and other waders doing their ballets in the sun. 
In early winter there were coots, coots and ... well, a gull or two, maybe that was a reed warbler.. coots... we spent half an hour watching wagtails, trying to get a photo of them either in flight or standing somewhere where they were not so well-camouflaged that it was impossible to tell the difference between a bird and a reed! (Didn't really succeed in that...)
Winter hours are 16h-18h daily, and really it is the best time to go! It was my birthday treat this year, and these photos were taken at about 5 o'clock on 3rd November, with the sun starting to drop, gilding the grass and giving deep shadows to the ripples of a coot dipping its beak in the small section not covered by the winter coating of pondweed.

The site includes a bit of the old sugar cane plantation that used to spread all along this coast, from which a local Rum was made in Motríl, and in Salobreña to the west. It's still made here, though not with homegrown cane. New planting of trees happens year-round, and they have made a feature of new parents sponsoring a tree in their baby's name, over the last 10 years. Children have grown up with their own willows and other native trees, though not at the same annual rate, one hopes! Bullrush, reeds, tall grasses and bamboos protect the edges and give homes to wildlife, and when you look up it's a bit of a shock to see the pylons and gantries of the industrial estate surrounding the site.
It's quite difficult to find an official website - the closest seems to be a Granada Province page but this Waste Magazine website (in Spanish) has the best photos and lists of flora and fauna I've found, and little videos of the coots! Some birdwatchers blogs in English are also good, Mick Richardson's Loja Wildlife and Bob Wright's Birding Axarquia.

Universal sentiments...

A feature of the Miguel Hernandez centenary celebrations in Orihuela was a 100 metre long poem space on the footpath in the parque for people to add responses to his poems, their own poems, comments, drawings and other ephemera. This is a lovely "mis-hearing" of the Bob Marley song.... it's true, there really only is one love to share, one hearth to warm ourselves at, and many, many rights to be felt...
More photos in my Flickr Set Falla de MH