Soon it Will Be Spring

It will soon be snowdrop time again. I took these pictures at Kingston Lacey three years ago. Hope we can get  to view these lovely carpets of snowdrops again this year, but I'm not sure if the National Trust allows dogs into that area of the estate.

Thinking of Summer in Winter

This morning I got up to yet another white frost outside. While I shivered I tried to think myself back to the summer, and to other summers in far away places.

Summer outside is glorious, but it's not so good when I come inside. When it's really hot here, the air indoors hangs really heavy. Once a room gets hot it takes a lot to cool it down. At night I move my office desk clip on fan upstairs to my bedside table, and spend half the night turning it on when I'm too hot and off when it has cooled me down too much, because it was so close to me.  What I could do with is a ceiling fan.

When I lived in Singapore, we had ceiling fans in every room. They kept them cool but not too cold. At night we left the fan on its lowest setting and it kept the whole room at the right temperature so we slept through with just a light sheet covering us.

If summers here are going to get hotter with global warming, I might follow the Singapore example and get some ceiling fans fitted. I found a helpful site with pages that tell you all about them. You can find out who makes the best ceiling fans here and see who makes the most efficient and environmentally friendly fans this year.

On other pages you can lean more about: the top selling Minka Aire Hugger Ceiling fans that are so easy to assemble and fix; traditional but quieter Casablanca ceiling fans with 4 speeds for maximum efficiency; the Hunter Classic Original still going strong; the more recently introduced Hunter Hotel Original with a large lamp set below the blades; and plenty of others.

I'm bookmarking the site so that, if and when I'm ready to buy my first ceiling fan, I'll be looking again at the Hansen Wholesale ceiling fans.

Cherry Tree in Autumn

I was going to post this as a Wordless Wednesday, but I got to thinking that my blog is supposed to be about how my writing life interconnects with all that I do and see.  I realised that I’ve been lazy about writing in my blog, relying so much on photos recently.  So I must post more words.

You may remember seeing a picture of the ornamental cherry tree in spring, when it was covered in blossom.  Now we are at the other end of the year and its leaves have changed to this wonderful rich orange colour.  Soon they will be leaving altogether; indeed there are many on the ground already, and hubby is bemoaning the fact that we’ll have to get out there with the leaf sucker and collect them up.  They fly into our neighbours’ garden too, so we feel we have to help collect them in their garden as well.

I hope you can see them well enough in the picture, which I took through window glass.  At the time I noticed it was a bit smeary and needs cleaning after our recent carpet laying exercise.  So that’s what I’m off to do now before it gets too dark this afternoon.

Walking Spurs the Muse

This is something I wrote early this year. I have to tell you that because if you know anything about the UK, you'll know it's not snowdrop time yet.

"I have been reading books about the writing life by Julia Cameron and Dorothea Brande. Both these authors are in tune with each other and have similarities. For instance, they both recommend early morning free writing. And they both recommend walking to get some inspiration. Ms Brande suggests trying to look at what you pass with the eyes of a stranger, and making up descriptions as you walk.

This works well with my current practice of trying to get out for a short brisk walk every day, and today I tried it out. Stupidly, I didn’t take a notebook and pen, but here are some snippets I can remember.

Tall, lean silver birch, feathery fronds bending earthwards.

Sentinel trees, standing to attention.

Fields bounded by straight-clipped, gnarled hedgerows, bare of green except where rampant ivy climbs.

Snowdrops clump on the river bank, their bright white contrasting sludgy earth and grey, running water.

Now they are written down, perhaps I’ll get to use them somehow."

Unfortunately, not yet. But perhaps I will now I've come across this again.