It’s been another quiet week here, even Storm Isha passed over the top of the bungalow last Sunday night without any damage and the remains of it were very good for getting a load of washing dry on Monday and I didn’t see any sign of trees down on the way to swimming either so Mid Suffolk must have got away lightly compared to many parts of the country. Storm Jocelyn wasn’t noticeable here apart from yet more rain.
Our Keep Moving group had a full turn out, which was good. One more week like that and we can have a free week. We just have to cover village hall hire and coffee and biscuits, as we do everything ourselves so every now and again there’s enough in the kitty for us to have a week without paying our £1.50’s.
After reading in two different places that Brenda Blethyn said she wouldn’t be doing anymore episodes of Vera and writing that last week on the blog. I was flummoxed to hear after the last episode last Sunday the announcer say “you will be pleased to hear that Vera will be back with another series in 2025”. So I wonder why she clearly said she would do no more at her age of 77 and then changed her mind? She’s obviously not wanting to retire after all.
Somewhere in the week I mentioned ‘Following a Tree’. It’s a blog link up thing that has been running for years – although I didn’t know it was still going. I took photos of our Pink Flowered Horse Chestnut at the smallholding through some of 2014 and then never gave it another thought.
I thought I could fill a blog post by following a tree through 2024 – ten years after the original. I’ll not be linking into other blogs but just looking at the changes to this Oak tree – if I remember – at the end of each month.
I’ve picked an English Oak as it’s about as traditional as you can get. This one is the nearest up the little lane from home. As you can see it’s had a couple of branches cut off just recently. There’s been a huge tracked digger cleaning out the ditch right down the road and they’ve also put new field drains in across the field on the right and perhaps the branches were in the way of the digger.
Just in case the tree doesn’t survive the year I photographed two more further up the lane. They are all the same size so probably planted at the same time – I reckon well over 100 years ago.
I’ll do a better post about Oak trees in February. On my bookshelves is a book called ‘Treasury of Tree Lore’ which, although I’ve had it for years, has never had a mention here so it will be good to make use of it.
The weather forecast for the weekend is better here at last. It’s the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch but I see so few birds in the garden here it would be a very boring hour. It’s one of my big regrets about moving into a village. But perhaps it will be dry enough to finally clear up the fallen leaves and weed round the new fruit trees – jobs that have been waiting weeks. And perhaps I’ll pop out to collect some bags of multi purpose and seed compost so that I’m right ready to start in March plus I need a new feeder for the mealworms for the birds as the lid snapped on the one I have and the garden centre will have one.
Hope you all have a good weekend and thank you to everyone for comments yesterday.
