This isn’t – I hope – the best image that I’ll ever produce. Nor is it even one that tugs most at my heartstrings. It’s a bit of pure serendipity. Early one winter’s morning I was nipping out to get the paper, just as the sun was rising. Unusually, I had my phone with me. My bargain-basement-bottom-of-the-range smartphone. Well, here was a scene that demanded to be recorded. So I did. And I like it. It reminds me how lucky we are to live in this quiet spot, where scenes like this are part of our everyday.
A few weeks later, I joined our local photo club. And a few weeks after that, we were all invited to submit two photos to an annual event: the photographic exhibition held as part of Masham’s Sheep Fair. No subject specified – just two photos. The public are invited to cast three votes – first, second and third – for their favourites. And the winner gets the honour and glory: though not a lot else. Reader – I won. Even though we have some pretty good photographers who can be relied upon to deliver wonderful images of the natural world; landscapes; action shots; street images … you name it. But the Great Masham Public decided on this occasion that Early Morning in Sleningford was what they liked. Even more embarrassingly, I took second prize too.
We were in York with the grandchildren on Monday. Its annual Viking Festival has begun.
Norsemen from Scandinavia went looking for places to settle, often in England and Ireland from about CE 800 to CE 1000. Like the Romans before them, many settled in the fertile lands round York. We came to find out more. We looked at demonstrations of working with wool. We attended a Brassica Massacre, where no hapless human was harmed as a doughty ‘Viking’ explained the ways to win in hand-to-hand fighting, by killing a cabbage impaled on a spike. And we chatted to a ‘Viking’ potter, as he worked away in freezing conditions to throw a simple pot.
Later, we were chuffed to bits to discover that the same master who had enslaved a willing William for twenty minutes or so last year was back again. This time Zoë couldn’t wait to have a go, and The Boss thought that if she came from the same stock as her brother, he couldn’t turn her down. After she’d swept the floor (inadequately), he set her onto a spot of woodturning – with his help. Many hands make light work.
Then he set about making Zoë a wooden medallion to thank her – and enlisted her help again. He was a good-humoured and generous master.
We had an excellent time. But we were pleased to retreat afterwards in our cosy modern clothing to a cosy house, and the comforts of 21st century living.
The header photograph shows hand-to-hand fighting in York – last year.
Jude, of Travel Words fame, is encouraging us to post pictures of benches on Sundays. To celebrate being back home, and while it’s still winter, I’m going for a snowy view from the window I’m currently staring through. It’s not snowing today. Just bitterly cold. I’d ventured out one crisp February (yes, February!) day to snap the featured photo.
By the way. We are going to be entirely internet-free most of this coming week. I doubt if I’ll be able to read , post, or anything else internet-related during that time.
Look what I spotted while strolling through the village yesterday. And us int’ Frozzen North an’ all.
Silent Sunday.
PS. I’m aware that on mobile phones (certainly Android ones anyway) the featured photo never displays to readers. Is there a way of fixing this? Either as a poster, who would prefer their photo to be visible, or as a reader of the posts of others? I’ve tried to research this, with no success.
Our local Nature Reserves tend to be chilly in December. Especially when, as today, the wind is making its presence felt. Best to rush round the bulrushes and hurry home for a mug of hot chocolate. Sunny days, though, are available, for a gentler amble. My header photo is from Nosterfield on a sunny day. A wintry trip to Staveley was distinctly nippy,
Those yarn bombers in Thirsk always have something new to show us. And now of course, it’s time to celebrate the Christmas season. So Happy Christmas from me too. I may or may not post next week, so I’ll get the good wishes in early.
Where words fail, music speaks: so said Hans Christian Anderson. And when Leanne invited me to host Monochrome Madness for One Week Only, I thought Music might be a good theme. We bloggers come from all over the world. Though many of us, in many nations, have English as our first language, there are dozens of different ones in the WordPress melting pot. But we can all enjoy music together, whether singing, playing instruments, or dancing, Or all of the above at once. Let’s do it.
My header image was taken at the neighbourhood Festa Major in Gràcia, Barcelona. It’s out of focus, and I don’t care. It captures I think the verve and enjoyment of those performing drummers.
Here are some dancers in neighbourhood festivals: in Catalonia; and in England – Morris Men.
Instrument players now. The drummer accompanying the Morris dancers; drummers celebrating Chusak in South Korea, and brass players marching in London in those heady optimistic days when some of us still thought Brexit might not happen.
Of course some instrumentalists out in the street are trying to earn a living. Here are buskers in Ripon and Bath.
And a harpist playing at a friend’s wedding in the grounds of the ruined Abbey at Jervaulx ….
Here are singers in Seville, relying simply on the beauty of their voices; and a singer-instrumentalist, heavily dependent on a supply of electricity to produce a sound.
Of course, first you have to have your instrument. Here’s a music shop in Málaga.
This thrush is a musician from the natural world. He commandeers a high branch here, spring after spring, and simply sings his heart out from early morning to early evening, almost without stopping. I wish you could hear him.
And while we’re in the Great Outdoors, is there anything more musical than a tinkling and plashing stream, tumbling tunefully over rocks?
Please do join in with your own musical offerings. And link back both to this post, and to Leanne’s site too, here.
I am sitting at the kitchen table and looking out of the window. This is where I measure the changes of season; decide on what the day’s weather will bring; enjoy the fuchsia, pink and grey tones of the winter sunrise and examine the spiders’ webs that lace our small window panes at this time of year.
A frequent sight in October – or other times of year too.
In the middle distance is a line of trees. Now they’re newly stark for winter. A few weeks ago we observed them daily as the leaves turned first yellow, then tawny, chestnut and rust. Slowly the leaves started to fall. Then as November raged in, the wind snatched at them until finally last week, a storm bad-temperedly tore at the final tatters and flung them to the ground.
The view – sometimes – in January.
In Spring, it will all be reversed. At first, perhaps in earliest April, a citric haze on the trees will tell us that the buds are bursting, and will change daily, as the once-visible twigs and branches gradually leaf up, and disappear from view.
During that time though, while the branches are still visible, there’s plenty of action. Birds are home-hunting, prospecting for that perfect spot for a nest. Then there’s frenetic activity in the still-bareish trees as crows and wood pigeons flap back and forth, bringing twigs, feathers, moss, constructing untidy structures that despite their appearance are obviously sturdy enough – they’re still there now, high in the top branches. The smaller birds are more discreet, and though they build in the bushes and foliage nearer the house, we rarely see their nests. No, not even those of the sparrows, who cheep frenetically in the ivy below the window from the first moment they choose a site there, until the last fledgling has flown the nest.
The view in May
Nearer is the brick wall of our landlord’s walled garden. This is where a line of pear trees grows, with, in early summer, pink clematis scrambling through.
The clematis atop the wall one early evening in May.
Next to them are three lilac trees. One is purple, one mauve, and the third one white. For two weeks only – in May – they flower, riotously, casting bloom after scented bloom skywards. After that they die sulkily, and look quite ugly for weeks. It doesn’t pay to be away in May and return in June.
Glancing upwards, there are often skeins of geese on flying missions between one neighbourhood lake and another, or in the summer (though less and less frequently these days), swooping and shrieking patrols of swifts.
I can show you neither geese nor swifts, but I can show you a cheeky squirrel who commandeered the window ledge one afternoon in September
So many sights and sounds to enjoy, so much action in the scenes just beyond our window panes. Never a week goes by without one of us saying to the other ‘Aren’t we lucky to be here? How could we ever move away?’
This week is perhaps the first one in which winter trees came into their own here in North Yorkshire. Recent high winds have snatched the very last scraggy leaves from their boughs, and now their austere skeletons are revealed in all their – often handsome – characterfulness. Here’s a small selection for Leanne’s Monochrome Madness. The header image, taken in Horniman Gardens, Forest Hill is not a true monochrome, but I’ve left it just as it is, to remind us that winter days – in London especially – can be black and white indeed. It’s the only image here not from North Yorkshire, or as we might call it today, The Frozen North.
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
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