This January...

Like many people the New Year provokes me into thinking about the year ahead and what could be different. As I hinted in my catch-up post for walking East Stoke’s lanes, I’ve been thinking about this space here and more specifically how infrequently I’ve showed up here over the past year, and how I can change that.

One of the ways is to ‘rediscover the joy’ in writing posts which all sounds very grand. You know how much I love a plan, well so far I’ve mostly stuck to it too, as I have a lot of stuff stored up to share. I’ve also realised that I’ve not been so good at those ‘life update type’ posts, and so this new series of monthly posts aims to change that, as there is always something going on. It may not be big (and quite often it definitely won’t be clever) but it is life, and very real.

I’m hoping that it won’t sink into the minutiae of detail, nor be deathly dull - but I guess you’ll be the judge of that!

January has been January-ing

It’s been a month that’s been full of coughs and colds (yes, still) with both MOH and I suffering throughout the month, which made planned appointments with the dentist and hygienist fun though thankfully we managed to navigate with said lurgies, and remarkably each of our appointments taking place when we were probably at our healthiest.

It’s not been all bad though as we’ve had a fair bit of Christmas goodies to munch through; we finished the Christmas cake after a short delay, and the last of the mince pies disappeared this week. It’s been a month for getting things done that we’ve been meaning to for a while, and a new griddle pan was part of that - we were going to replace it when we moved in eighteen months ago, but didn’t.

But it’s also been a month when venturing outside has been minimal - understandable really - though we did make it to our favourite restaurant in Newark for pie night - but after all the effort (and it really was an effort) to get the Christmas decorations down on time, they haven’t yet made it back out to the garage.

Around the house all the components for my craft room mini-revamp arrived and are now in place - I’m already loving it - it’s such a simple change to extend my desk space, but so effective.

We’ve had a couple of issues with our new build and the developers have been back to make progress on those. We’ve had a leak in our lounge, which typically only leaks when there’s really bad weather, and the developers are hopeful that they’ve solved this on their most recent visit - let’s hope so. It’s not a big leak, but of course it’s not ideal.

We’re also expecting a replacement for a failed window sealed unit in our front door, and hopefully a resolution to the main thermostat issue. The heating still works fine as we are able to control the temperature in each room downstairs individually, and separately the whole of the upstairs which has its own thermostat, but it needs fixing.

Inspired by many quilts

I’ve also been more inspired than normal by quilts this month. I spent two days at the Newark Quilt Show and consequently took way too many pictures, which I’ve not even started to edit or share yet - but I will. This year I even went armed with a ‘wish list’ and was pretty good at sticking to it too, though as ever my craft to do list is already growing!

I finished the Noughts and Crosses charity quilt, and have already started on my next one - I’m hooked (again!) This one started with these cute little houses from Sherri’s January mystery block of the month quilt over at A Quilting Life, and there’s plenty more to come, but aren’t they fab?

Impulsively I also booked myself onto a quilting workshop entitled ‘Floral Fancy’ and then spent the time leading up to it wondering if I had the skills to do it justice, and making sure I had the things listed on the requirements for the workshop. Despite being advised not to be intimidated by the long list, I was intimidated by the long list - but as it turned out I didn’t need to be at all.

It was a fabulously creative and inspiring day, and needless to say this workshop left me with even more on my craft to do list, as me being me I’m not content with just finishing the panel I started on the day, and am working out how I can extend it in my own way.

As a teaser, here’s a shot of how it started…

We definitely watch much less TV since we moved here, but this month we’ve subscribed to SkySports mainly to watch Luke Littler in the darts, but the bonus has been a fair few football games too. We won’t keep the subscription indefinitely but it’s been good to have this month, and I can see us keeping it for the winter months (especially as the deal was good).

We’ve been watching Celebrity Hunted (despite not knowing who most of the celebrities are!) and have been looking forward to the CheeseFest which is The Apprentice starting. We’re definitely not loving the upcoming changes to Discovery which results in the loss of Eurosport, which is prime viewing for MOH and the various cycling races, which to continue to watch these the option is to subscribe to TNT Sports at a much inflated price. We’ll see.

Snug as a hibernating bug

There’s been little exploring this month, though we did manage a day-late (thanks to the weather) New Year’s Day walk, but apart from a wander around Newark to see how high the Trent was by the Castle (while MOH was at the dentist) that’s been about it. Unless you count a car trip to a new part of Nottingham, and a cross-city navigation from Beeston to the Meadows for a stop in at my nearest Hobbycraft.

THE RIVER TRENT VIEWED FROM NEWARK CASTLE. USUALLY THE RIVER PATH IS BEHIND THE BARGE.

To be honest I’ve been happy enough being as snug as a hibernating bug and watching the frosts and weather from inside, though MOH less so.

I’ve a day trip to London booked for next month, which I managed to snaffle train tickets for in LNER’s sale. I’ve already got a full day planned in Islington before meeting up with MOH in the West End for dinner, and I’ve even planned in an essential stop in Liberty’s too - just me though, I’ll go before I meet up with MOH!

Let’s hope that February is healthier!

Walking East Stoke's lanes: November and December 2024

Somehow my last post in this series was the October update in which I bragged about it being ‘almost on schedule’ - well, that didn’t bode so well did it? I’ve also realised that there was little joy for me writing these posts so long after the walks, and so having given in some thought over Christmas and the New Year I thought I’d change that. For my 2025 posts my intention is to post them much earlier in the month on the first (or at times second) Wednesday of each month.

But before I can do that I need to catch up with my 2024 posts, and so that’s what I’ll do now.

In mid-November we woke to snow, not a huge amount thankfully, but enough for me to double down on my hibernation tendencies. MOH though has very few of these, and so he ventured out sharing with me a photo or two of his expedition, which he was probably also daft enough to do on his bike, or at least consider in any case.

MOOR LANE

Either way his pictures did nothing to persuade me outside, and confirmed I should stay snug and warm indoors. A week later though it was a different story and I was pleased to get out for an approaching sunset walk, also along Moor Lane.

FOSSE ROAD

It always strikes me as odd when we have snow before all of the autumn leaves have dropped - but then again our weather seems more crazily mixed up as the days go on so I really shouldn’t be that surprised. But what a different a week makes, hey?

And even though it was way colder than it looked, the glorious light more than made up for that.

We reached our usual ‘turn back’ point of the bridge and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it look quite so picturesque - though I’m sure it has, I’ve just not been there to see or capture it. I also noticed ahead of us on Moor Lane the sheep in the right hand field - while this might not strike you as odd, as obviously that’s where sheep should be, it’s the first time we’d spotted them here.

Heading back and it almost looked as if the hedgerows were aflame with the sun - the picture here only does part of the justice, in real life they were flaming beautiful.

We get some brilliant sunsets here, and often my pictures are from our upstairs windows - but not this time, this one was an out in the open natural beauty capture.

In December I only ventured out on foot once, and that was on Christmas Day. We’d booked lunch at the pub in Elston and our plan was always to walk there and back, whatever the weather. We were lucky as when the day arrived, it was another one with blue skies and also unseasonably warm - much better than our worst case scenario of driving rain.

These pictures are from that walk, heading out around 1pm and heading back much, much fuller a good few hours later!

FOSSE ROAD

LOOKING OVER THE A46

Given that it was peak lunchtime on Christmas Day you wouldn’t expect much traffic, but it was a joy to see the A46 this empty.

We turned onto the path towards Elston, and so the A46 was on our left, but you’d never know it (and especially that day) given our view. I think this photo is one of my favourites so far.

Even though we were heading off for our Christmas lunch I still had a couple of photo stops along the way. I mean, catkins and lichen - I was never going to walk straight past now was I?

And then much later, and much fuller, we headed back along the path complete with bright torch and accompanied part of the way by the Christmas lights which were magical - and the first time we’d seen these as they are definitely off the usual routes through the village.

Thanks for joining me for this update, if you enjoyed this post you may also like to see all of the posts in this series or some previous series where I revisit the same place - there’s my year in Greenwich Park and remember that time when I followed a tree?

If all goes to plan, then January’s update will be here sooner than you know it!

My garden in December

As is the way there’s not a lot of activity in my garden this month, but I do have a few photos to share. The month started with a new addition - another rose - this one also from MOH and for no particular reason either. It’s a lovely rose with gloriously pale petals, and really sweet of him, but where to put it!?

I know that it’s longer term home will be against the brick wall - which is already potentially getting quite full what with the Gertrude Jekyll rose and the homegrown peach tree, but for a shorter term solution I was stumped. It has been temporarily lodging in the trellis enclosure, which has hopefully given it some protection from the worst of the winter weather and when I’ve shaken off this cold (and on a fine day) my plan is to get it into a larger pot. I didn’t rush to pot it on as it seemed happy enough in its current pot, and if MOH hadn’t bought it then it would still most likely be in that pot, but it probably needs something more as soon as I can.

It’s going to look great against the old brick wall in years to come isn’t it?

As I was out in the garden finding the best spot for my latest rose I also spotted some early growth on my tulip pots - the pots are squashed from where I squeezed them into some terracotta pots on the patio with probably too many other pots, but it did the job. Given that we have a lot less demand for pots in this garden, at some point the tulips may be designated their own pot - but clearly not for the upcoming flowering season.

The euphorbias which I brought from our old garden continue to do well, and I’m still loathed to let them loose in the flower beds as I’m pretty sure they’ll go rampant - but this photo has reminded me how good they looked with the tulips last year, so I’m thinking they could be future bed (or pot) fellows.

I’d been keeping an eye on the weather - the wind in particular - and our garden furniture cover, which seems way too large for what we need. After a first blow off failure we’d added some webbed straps to keep things tighter and less like a billowing mushroom. Storm Darragh though was also on the way, and that proved a gust too far.

We’d adjusted the straps earlier in the afternoon as I’d noticed they’d slipped a bit, and all seemed well. That was a false alarm, as when I looked again the whole table and chairs had been lifted and dumped onto the grass. We were very lucky that Darragh dumped them that way and not onto the patio, as I’m not sure the ceramic glass top would have survived if that were the case.

Admitting defeat we hastily moved the furniture into the garage, where it has stayed. I say hastily, but I mean as hastily as MOH could, while I continued to hold onto the still billowing mushroom. Goodness only knows what the neighbours must have thought if they spotted us! But it is safe and in one piece, and now is rearranged more compactly in the garage too - MOH is keen to move it out again, but I’m more in the let’s wait camp.

It was more pleasing to see the signs of new life on the small peach tree - while all the leaves have dropped, you can just about see new buds forming on the ends of its branches. I wonder if we’ll manage to harvest more than two fruits this year, who knows?

One sunny afternoon I spied the most hidden of our mahonias and it’s glorious russet leaves - I’m not sure if the colour change is ahead of the other two because of its position, or for any other reason but I know it’s most welcome.

Taking a closer look around the garden it was good to see the cream hellebore preparing to flower - this was one of the plants that came with the garden, and it’s another one that I’m really happy about. I potted the dark maroon hellebore that we brought with us further along from this one, and hadn’t seen much sign of it, which was ok as they really come into their own in the early months of the year. Looking for that now though, it was good to see a couple of new burgundy stems shooting up through the bark (and weeds!), so it seems happy enough with its new home.

So there’s actually more going on in my garden than I thought, though clearly not as much as the summer months. Next month if I’m lucky I’m hoping to see the snowdrops we planted, and hopefully followed not that long after with flowers on the wallflower planted at the same time. I’m sure there’ll be more too, so I look forward to you joining me again for that update.