The Cold season

Those who follow me elsewhere may have already picked up the news that I'm working again - out of IT - driving for a local artisan bakers Flour Water Salt - very local to us - 5 mins walk from the house. I get to drive though quiet bits of Cheshire countryside and there's frequent visits to Jodrell Bank. Today was the first really cold day, so here's a photo and a quote from T S Eliot's Little Gidding:

Midwinter spring is its own season
Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown,
Suspended in time, between pole and tropic.
When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire,
The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches,
In windless cold that is the heart’s heat,
Reflecting in a watery mirror
A glare that is blindness in the early afternoon.
And glow more intense than blaze of branch, or brazier,
Stirs the dumb spirit: no wind, but pentecostal fire
In the dark time of the year. Between melting and freezing
The soul’s sap quivers.

Being out in the countryside in this cold, clear light brings life..

View from the Bridge

Hibel Rd at Sunset - ii
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

Very close to our house there's a pedestrian bridge over a local small piece of dual carriageway. When I was walking over it this evening I noticed the clouds and dashed home for a camera and took this - and another picture also on flickr. I should have stayed for longer to see the light fade and the moon appear - which is now fairly close to the sun in the sky. Still I rather like this - maybe I should trim it to remove the car lights?

Jack enjoys a new bird feeding table

Jack enjoys a new bird feeding table
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

Here's Sue setting up a new table for feeding the birds. As you see her cat, Jack, is already positioned ready to inspect the diners. Later in the afternoon birds were sitting underneath inspecting the food which had fallen. At the moment there's an almost constant procession of birds to the two tables (ours and next doors).

And you think the snow is deep!

Squirrel and snow - iii
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

The grey squirrel which lives a few gardens along (we think) has emerged from its home to decide whether a trip to the bird table was worth the risk. After a lot of slipping and nearly falling off the roof it decided it wasn't worth it - one of our cats noticed it and also decided the conditions were not suitable for a chase and went back to sleep. A few more photos of its progression are here

Trees over the Bollin

trees over the Bollin
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

It snowed this morning and I've just been down to the Bollin and taken a few photos. Beautifully quiet, unfortunately the kingfisher and heron which Beth saw yesterday weren't there today. But the snow transforms the landscape. The linked photos also have some pictures of the traffic chaos on Beech Lane which was virtually blocked, traffic is now moving there very slowly!

Preparing for the New Year

I found this prayer in a recipe book(!) - a book with hand copied out, by me, recipes with this among them:

A Winter Solstice Prayer
God of all creation,
of bare forest and low northern skies,
of paths unknown and never to be taken,
of bramble, sparrow and damp, dark earth.
We thank you for loss, for the breaking of the dimming year,
We thank you for light, even in its seeming midwinter failing,
We thank you for life, for its hope and resistance,
Like a seed dying and living.

Rachel Mann

It was on a sheet with a draft rota for December/January 2008 so I guess I must have used it last winter. I hope it fuels you too for 2010.
(A further note - I've just found the prayer in Nicola Slee and Rosie Mills' Doing December Differently - I guess that's where i copied it from!)

Winter

Terragen 2.1 is out. Extra features and speedups. Here's an appropriate seasonal image I rendered this morning with the new version (and using Linux and Wine) - as opposed to what one might want to do with Mistletoe and the other substance!

This image took about an hour, I did a similar one with fewer layers yesterday and than took 3 hours!? Maybe it was the restart or the changes I'd done up to then?

Dark morning

December morning
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

Taken yesterday, on my last early morning walk down to the station for some time - at least I guess so. I may well though head down there when it is just getting light and the mornings, like this one, are cold and clear.

Snow

(bit late now..) here's one of the sets of words I was trying to find from earlier in the month

Everyday it snows an inch or two,
Muting the music in the pines.
Old music.

Snow holds back the dawn-
an extra minute of lying here
while the self sleeps on.

again from Twichell's Snow Watcher.
And for a slightly different comment, here's Ivor Gurney's Sleep: