This year the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness is fulfilling its promise in abundance. Many mornings have seen the mistiness that leaves tree tops severed from their trunks. Back in early September I blogged about windfalls from a crab apple t... Read more

Talk about a windfall these days and people probably think of financial gain yet for many country people in particular a windfall offered easy pickings for fruit as the wind had done the picking job for them.   In the past week we have see... Read more

Just a short while ago everywhere you looked the verges and gardens were filled with golden yellow from daffodils and primroses to celandines and dandelions and many other lesser known species too. Last Thursday, in pursuit of a bluebell wood to... Read more

I know the weather had to break sometime but the sunshine of the past week has really lifted the spirits and the change in the countryside has been almost visible in its speed. I always think of the predominant colour as being yellow or golden a... Read more

Yesterday we were back at Blenheim enjoying a brisk walk in the grounds. As this has become a regular occurrence I am sometimes challenged to find new things to photograph (and afford myself a brief rest following the steep parts of the wal... Read more

Like thousands of others around the country we have been counting the birds in our garden for RSPB annual garden bird count this weekend. This is something we have been involved in for many years and it serves to highlight the changes happening in th... Read more

We shopped in a town twenty miles away yesterday as we had ordered our turkey from a local butcher - along with half the county it would seem as we queued out the door to collect our order. This was the first time we had been able to get out of ... Read more

We have had heavy falls of snow over the weekend, as bad as we had back in January, and it has severely curtailed activity as we can't get out of the village again. Sadly it meant we missed our annual Santa Steam Railway trip with the grnadchildren b... Read more

No doubt when the various bodies involved in the conservation of historic sites set about their task the consideration of the natural world is not a high priority yet we are acutely aware on our travels that these sites are often the best for ... Read more

We are used to losing flowers from the runner beans to the local sparrow population but had been puzzled keep finding full leaves from plants scattered around the garden away from their source. This morning the mystery was solved when we watched a st... Read more