Snow Senses

Happy New Year!

In winter I like to give my senses a bit of an airing, I mean really focus on each of them, not just sight. I shut my eyes and sniff and taste and touch.  Being out in the snow is generally not an olfactory experience but if I try hard enough, there's always something to make my nostrils twitch. 

 

Sounds:  

The chacker-chack-chack of fieldfares in wind-bent hawthorn, 
the crunch of footsteps in ice-crusted snow,
the heavy kronk of a tumbling raven,
the pebble-tapping clicks of a stonechat.

Smells: 

Wood smoke from the chimneys of thick-walled miner’s cottages,
sweet, wet hay scattered for foraging sheep and ponies.

Touch: 

The prickle of gorse when I try to pull myself up a steep slope for the best coffee stop view,
the hot plastic cup from my flask warming my hands,
sticky cake crumbs on my lips,
icy wind against my cheeks.

Taste: 

Hot, sweet coffee,
chocolate cake,
a lemon-ice taste in my mouth from a gulp of mountain air.

Sights: 

 

Black raven in a blue sky, sheep splashed with either red or purple paint, one lamb or two?
Yellow gorse flowers shining on the hillside,
watery-orange sun slipping below the whale-back-mound of Moel Arthur. 
  

                                       
                        

More Slow Adventures from Home.

We had a hard choice this morning, fight our way to the shops and get mixed up in craziness or wrap up warm and head for the hills.  No contest.  And when you only live a hop, skip and a jump from an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the sky is as blue as a robin's egg and the earth is all crunchy, it's even easier to choose the hills.

We didn't take a flask and buns this time, we knew the Shepherd's Hut would be at the top car park at the start of the walk up Moel Famau in the glorious Clwydian Hills.  

The little corrugated hut was tucked into its usual corner and the chimney was smoking.  But we had to earn our treat, though it was no hardship walking up that lovely hill.  We had plenty of smiling company as quite a lot of people had chosen to walk the wide aisle to the top of the hill rather than struggle up the supermarket aisle.

In the distance, the hills of Snowdonia glistened.  We watched a kestrel looking for a meal.  He hung in the ice-blue sky like he was being dangled from invisible wire. If it snows, he'll find it very difficult to find food.  Kestrels see in ultra violet and they hunt by following the ultraviolet light reflected off the urine trails of dribbling voles!

And then a human kestrel came into view!

Back down at the welcoming Shepherd's Hut, we had thick hot chocolate with gooey marshmallows and THE most delicious little cakes.  I had lemon, Charlie had chocolate.  We were supposed to share but they were so good, we didn't. 

The wood burning stove was full on and even though we sat outside in the icy air, the lovely Hut owners had thoughtfully placed the table and chairs next to the nifty little hole in the side of the hut and we could just feel the heat from the cosy stove. I rummaged through the fabulous local products they have on sale, rubbed on some muscle and joint oil (smelled delicious), flicked through the stunning hand made cards then picked up leaflets about wilderness skills and the history of Moel Famau before leaving, with the promise to return on New Year's Eve when the hut will be twinkling and serving warm fruit punch to welcome in 2015.  Fancy joining us?



www.shepherds-hut.com

www.visitclwydianrange.co.uk

www.originaloutdoors.co.uk

 

 

 

No Place Like Home

Sometimes I need help to appreciate my own backyard.  Like Dorothy, it takes a journey over the rainbow and a few adventures before I remember ‘there’s no place like home’.

It’s good to be still after 4000 miles in the campervan.



I'm not the only one who's come home.Wading through bluebells at Coed y Felin I hear a pied fly-catcher.  I’m always startled at how they find their way from Africa to this small patch of Flintshire woodland.  A dapper male sings, 'tree-tree, once more I come to thee.' 
www.northwaleswildlifetrust.org.uk







While shopping for plants in Mold market, I hear swifts screaming overhead. Young swifts spend their first two or three years in constant flight.  I grin at them charging up and down the high street sky like a gang of teenagers. 
www.swift-conservation.org





I visit Moel Famau where
the call of a cuckoo fills the spaces between the clouds. People stop on the hill,tilt their heads to one side and smile. Skylarks sing high over acid green bilberry shrubs that promise a tongue-staining bounty in late summer. 








Drinking tea at the welcoming Shepherd's Hut, I watch small children tumble down the heathery hill as a willow warbler tumbles down the scales. 
www.shepherds-hut.com

 

At my Yoga class we do an invigorating sequence that involves firing an arrow and hurling a thunderbolt. It’s about aiming for goals and achieving them.

Right now my goal is to simply ‘BE’ and there’s no better place to be than at home in Flintshire.
Dru Yoga  www.druworldwide.com

Have a Happy and Slow New Year

January can be a difficult month.  The Christmas decorations are back in their box and rooms are no longer filled with twinkling lights and glistening glitter.  The sky’s the colour of under-the-bed-fluff and the ground squelches beneath my yellow wellies.  Spring seems a long way off.

There must be something good about January... 

Well, it’s an ideal time to be ‘slow’. 

 

Snuggle up and read, read, read. Try a bit of poetry, I love Billy Collins.

Empty your veggie draw,open those tins of butter beans and chick peas you’ve had at the back of your cupboard for ages and make vats of nourishing soup to freeze - whilst listening to warming and passionate opera arias,(try Anna Netrebko and Rolando  Villazon singing ‘O Soave Fanciulla’ – bliss, you’ll find them on YouTube).

Keep some strings of fairy lights up throughout January and February.

Light lots of candles and sit and enjoy the sound of the rain beating hard against your windows.

Get cosy in your Christmas pyjamas and listen to a talking book.  I can download them for free from my library via One Click Digital and the Flintshire.gov web page.  For some extra warmth, choose a story set in a warm climate.

Visit a spa.  My nearest one at Deeside Leisure Centre offers two people, two hours in the spa for £15. Laying on my towel in the muscle warming sauna, I could be anywhere I choose.

Write letters to friends you haven’t seen for ages, send silly things, stickers, leaves, doodles on post-it notes in the envelope.  It’s great to receive a hand written letter through the post.

Plan an adventure.  I love to unfold my maps and spread them on the living room floor. I lay down beside them and trace routes with my finger.  This year I'm looking at cycling along The Loire, walking the Welsh Coastal Path - and then there's Rannoch Moor. Have you seen the O.S.map for that area? It's well worth lying on with your magnifying glass, wow!

Watch the birds.  This morning we had 6 black birds in the garden, eating chopped apples and having minor skirmishes.  I spied a plump, pink bullfinch pecking at buds in the tree opposite my window. A circus troupe of blue-tits came swinging and leaping from feeder to fat balls and a squabble of sparrows bullied for seed space.  January 25-26 is the time to join in the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch.

 

Join an exercise class.  I love my local spinning class where we all perch on fixed bikes and pedal like the wind to disco music.  Clare's Dru Yoga class at Theatre Clwyd is wonderful on a dark and soggy January afternoon.  And there’s coffee and cake to be enjoyed afterwards in the cafe and lovely art to gaze at along the corridor galleries.

How will you make the most of this SLOW month?