A New Year post.

The first of the hyacinths are beginning to open to wish us all a Happy New Year

Hyacinth Miss Saigon

 And the amaryllis(Papillio below) is still holding on with its late Christmas cheer. It sends up two magnificent shoots and then that's it. However you try and care for it it'll only return next year with a lot of strapping leaves and no flower shoots. I guess if you're that beautiful you can get away with it.

 The white one below- Everest- is aptly named. It towers skywards, sending out several flower shoots at the same time - will repeat the whole thing and with luck - will climb again the following year.

 We had a Christmas visitor this year - Sam - who insisted on wearing his new Christmas jumper all the time. He generously let Beezle have a go because sometimes Beezle looks like a shivering sort of dog - but it was too tight under the armpits and made Beezle look a little like Noel Coward trying to walk without slipping.

 The weird thing was that Sam became obsessed with the picture of the Black Cat in the kitchen and stood in front of it for hours barking loudly and wagging his tail. He ignored the real black cat we have (Nancy) and kept returning to the tin sign.

 Pixie thought he was daft.

 Along with most of the south of England we have had rains and high winds for weeks now. Though we live on a hill and therefore unlikely to ever be flooded apart from by a burst pipe, we have become a little island. At the bottom of the roads on both sides lie enormous lakes of water, so for a while we were marooned. At one time both of these had cars floating in them. Pocket has declared it a Principality and I might build an Ark. After all we have two of most things - two horses, two dogs, two cats, two children, ......

Pocket (quarter Bengal) thinks he'll be safer in a basket should the water rise.

The river in the valley normally runs at the bottom of the field the horses are in  but now it has burst its banks and is over the top of the fence posts. The water is now flowing fast half way up their field and the swans are back again swimming around their hooves.  Fortunately the field goes uphill and they still have plenty to EAT.

With the floating fields in mind here is a small extract from Dylan Thomas's A Winter's Tale in Deaths and Entrances.

In the far ago land the door of his death glided wide,

And the bird descended.
On a bread white hill over the cupped farm
And the lakes and floating fields and the river wended
Vales where he prayed to come to the last harm
And the home of prayers and fires,  the tale ended.