Ssssh! Did someone drop a pin?

Life has suddenly become a whole lot more peaceful in the Transit household and DH and I are heaving a big sigh of relief. This morning, five weeks after I first had problems with my hearing and three weeks after I had to postpone a doctor’s appointment because of the snow, I was finally able to get my ears spring-cleaned and the difference is well-nigh miraculous.  

Not only have I stopped cupping my ears to follow conversations and TV dialogue, but I’m now asking DH to speak more quietly, rather than begging him to speak up. Radio and TV sound levels are no longer unnaturally (and for DH almost painfully) high and I can again use the phone with ease rather than extreme difficulty. To my joy I’m noticing  a multitude of tiny sounds, which I think I may not have heard properly for a long time and even my tinnitus seems less obtrusive, now that I’m no longer straining to hear.

To add to this general sense of well-being, spring hasn't so much sprung up here as exploded. After only 3 or 4 days of warmer weather, the drab fields are covered by a mist of tender green as the grass at last begins to grow again, and the hitherto empty hedgerows are suddenly starred with primroses and celandines. Though the trees are still bare, the first leaf buds are opening on some of the bushes and I think we may even see the blackthorn blossom very soon. Our first brave daffodils have been joined by a flutter of narcissi and, as the last of the drifts rapidly melt in the sun, I think we can finally wave farewell to this long, long winter.

Image via Google

Free at last!

Two days ago, here in our Welsh fastness, there were two knocks on our kitchen door.  After nearly three weeks of isolation we'd almost forgotten what that sounds like.  The first, in the afternoon, was one of our farmer neighbours (whom we've known since he was a teenager) who said he'd been talking to our other farmer neighbour (whom we've known since he was born) and had come to see how we were coping. DH told him about the Tesco delivery and assured him we could manage until the snow disappeared. 

The other knock was at 8pm, just as I was about to dish up our meal, and it was the younger neighbour, apologising for having taken so long to get to us and telling us he'd just ploughed the lane with his lowered tractor bucket! He couldn't do it until the snow had started to thaw properly, as by the time the council had cleared the road between his house and our lane, our drifts were too deep and too frozen for him to attempt. Apparently all the minor roads around us were snowbound for at least 3 days after the snow fell, which is an unusually long time for council roads, even minor ones, to stay blocked. The last time that happened up here was the great blizzard of 1982.

So we're free at last and yesterday afternoon I was able to go out to a meeting I was sure I would miss. I love DH very much, but it was so nice to see some other faces and talk to different people for a while. Now I’m going to have to find something else to blog about……

Image via Google

S is for sky....

  

…..and of course snow.....

…..and  supplies.....

The top of the lane, where we shall meet Tesco on Tuesday. Hurray!

We shan't mention spring yet, shall we?

Oops!

First an apology, in case any of you thought I was busy sending out spam. Yesterday  afternoon, as part of my efforts to forestall the scheduled disappearance of Google Reader, I registered my blog on Bloglovin’ in order to give me another way to follow blogs and to offer my readers the same way to follow my blog. As part of the process, I was asked to publish a post to ‘claim’ my blog, the content of which inadvertently appeared as the garbled and spam-like message some of you will have seen. Unfortunately, once launched into the ether by the Blogger dashboard, no post, however short or incomprehensible, can be retrieved by the hapless blogger, hence the apology.  

Secondly I’m starting to think spring may just be starting to appear over the horizon, despite the continuing fridge-like temperatures up in these hills. A couple of days ago I took a little stroll to check on the progress (or lack of it) of the thaw in shrinking the drifts in our lane.

The view north....

....and south, with the house just visible through the trees

The view east.....

...and west. At least there's some green around.

After I’d recovered from the shock of seeing that almost all the snow still left around us is concentrated in or next to our lane, I had a wander around the back field in search of daffodils. I knew I’d seen them poking their hopeful little spears out of the grass before the snow came and then they vanished. Now they have reappeared and are even starting to show some glimpses of yellow. Who knows? We might actually have some daffodils in bloom before the end of April, and if the bench up there at the top of the slope can extricate itself from its snowdrift, somewhere to sit to enjoy them at close quarters. Hope springs eternal…..

Easter bonnets be blowed!

On the coldest Easter Day on record in Britain, I sensibly marked the day, not with a new spring hat, but with new, warm and woolly socks. J Time enough for flowery Easter bonnets when I can actually see some flowers, rather than the patchwork of green and white which still decorates these hills. 

After an unsettling and in some ways difficult Holy Week, Easter Day was lovely. The TV morning service from historic and splendid Paisley Abbey was beautiful and deeply satisfying. The sun shone for at least some of the time, and all day long snow and icicles swooshed and tinkled encouragingly onto the roof of the conservatory and the surrounding ground. This means that ten days after the bulk of the snow fell, our solar panels are at last free of their icy covering and able to generate electricity properly again.

Being unable to go shopping, on Good Friday I was forced to dig out my recipe for hot cross buns and make my own. I didn't go to all the bother of making pastry crosses or glazing them, but they were still delicious and have vanished remarkably fast over the past couple of days. After all, my dough doesn't have preservatives in it and we wouldn't have wanted them to go stale, would we?  We even had eggs for Easter – sadly not chocolate, but scrambled for lunch, but, as my mother would have reminded me, it’s the thought that counts. 

And now it’s April and summer time has started. I have a strong suspicion that spring and summer will come all of a rush this year, but at present spring is on hold up here and we just have to wait patiently for winter to relinquish its lingering grip. It’s also April Fools’ Day, so I will leave you with a link to a simply splendid spoof from the British newspaper The Guardian. Enjoy…..