The BeenThere-DoneThat Blog

Today should have been a moderately significant day. Yesterday was a public holiday so today is the first working day of the new year, not that I indulge in such things myself, and there was a solar eclipse.

The solar eclipse should have been visible as the sun came up over the horizon in the form of a crescent with the horns pointing upwards. We should have seen two separate points of light when the sun first appeared which would have slowly grown and finally merged.

It would have been all over by half-past nine.

Did you notice all the 'should's and 'would's? That's because all we saw was thick grey cloud. . 

 

We have just been on a little walk to our local 14th century church. The church did get into a parlous state in the recent past but was then taken over by our local Greek Orthodox Monastry (Yes we have one of those) who have carried out renovations and it now looks a lot better.

ADDENDUM: Photograph (taken in 2005) added at the behest of a stroppy person.

It was cloudy but dry with the temperature above freezing (but probably only just).

The map application on my Android 'phone gave me the distance mentioned in the subject.

So does that count as our first trip this year?

Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year to all our visitors.

It's Christmas Eve and there is still snow on the ground so it will be a White Christmas after all. We certainly haven't had many of those.

Only a week to the new year and we'll hope to see at least some of you sometime during 2011.

Do enjoy yourselves. :banana:)

 

Well, that's the winter solstice over! Last night should have been the longest night, although I didn't stay up to measure it, and the days now start to get longer.

Does this mean that we can start to think about next year's trips?

This country is still in the grip of Arctic style weather and we still have an overall covering of snow here albeit only a few inches. Some (many?) places have much worse.

I saw two foxes in the garden yesterday, both of them trotted past my study window, but by the time I saw them there was no point in even reaching for the camera as they were in view for only a few seconds. I'd like to get a photograph but I can see it happening only with a large slice of good luck.

The new year is only 10 days away.

 

These photographs were taken within a few minutes of each other between 7:00 and 7:30 AM this morning.

This one was while the sun was still below the horizon:

and this one just as the sun showed above the horizon:

You can see a little bit of the sun at the bottom showing as a spark in the black of the trees.

It's an interesting colour change in just a few minutes.

I do lead an exciting life don't I?

Our snow had reached a thickness of one foot by yesterday and Amanda had been putting food out on our terrace for the birds.

We had seen various birds feeding, including Robins, but yesterday, for the first time, a Grey Wagtail turned up. It turned out to be a stroppy little thing and when the next Robin arrived he tried to drive it away. Bad move! Robins are not as frail as they look and it turned into a right old punch-up with the two of them actually rolling around on the snow.

This happened two or three times during the day although no lasting harm was done but I think they parted the best of enemies.

We also had a Muntjac Deer turn up which was nothing unusual but the unusual bit was when another Muntjac appeared as well. Muntjac are solitary animals and don't go round in groups so we were interested to see what happened when they spotted each other.

When they did catch site of each other they froze, not literally you understand even though there was a lot of snow, and gave each other a frosty stare then went on their individual ways.

Muntjacs aren't as stroppy as birds then.

 

This winter looks as though it may be the same as last winter with some differences.

Last winter the cold weather started in December but this winter it's started in November. Last winter it was cold but this winter it's colder. It was below zero Fahrenheit in Wales a few days ago and the temprature in one of Amanda's greenhouses was around 22F so probably about 20F outside.

A few days ago they had 14 inches of snow overnight in Northumberland and a lot of the country has had snow in varying degrees except us.

This morning we had snow. Not enough to make it really discernable on the ground, which was already covered in frost, but snow in November nontheless. Just 10 miles north of us they had an inch of snow.

I remember that when we made our first trip to London last April it was on the first nice day we'd had for months.

What will next year bring?