I’ve been Elfed!

After the long drive home from Bournemouth, 6 hours of motorway and snow, I was tired and sad without my family. I made a mug of my favourite Earl Grey and sat down to recover and to see what the Postman had brought me. And there waiting for me was my very own Elf from the lovely Ziggy Shortcrust.

Here is my Viking Elf.

Isn’t he handsome? At the start of January Ziggy decided to write a letter a day with an Elf to revive the art of letter writing. If you would like your own Elf from Ziggy then go here.

He so cheered me up I can tell you. In the meantime the snow continues to fall so I have put my Mother’s Day Daffodils from Mr J in the window and here they are for you too.

Two inches of the white stuff overnight and still falling! Doh!

Snow for the Big Garden Bird Watch!

This is the weekend for the UK’s Big Garden Bird Watch. All you have to do is spend an hour recording how many of each species of bird visits your garden (or park) at any one time, then tell  the RSPB how you did.  Simples!

Pull back the curtain on Saturday morning all set for my hours counting and what do I see- well everyone in the UK knows what I saw.. this..

MORE SNOW! Heigh ho!

This was not a good sight to behold on account of our boiler having gone kaput on Friday! Three cheers for the Mister who had got a fire going first thing so we had one warm room. And some more cheers for the man from Worcester Bosch who came and fixed said boiler on Saturday afternoon.

Not to be deterred by snow and no boiler I fed the birds and sat down to count.

And here’s what I saw

Starlings-5

Blackbirds -4

Chaffinch-4

Bullfinch-1

Blue tits-2

Sparrow-3

Crow-1

Robin-1

Great tit -1

Pheasant-1

Thrush-1

Doves-2

Pigeons-3

The tally is sad because we had 10 blackbirds ,2 Robins and 6 Blue Tits at Christmas so I am wondering if some have succumbed to the winter weather, perhaps? Or maybe they just found another bird table!

Good news- not only is boiler fixed but the snow has melted a lot today. And the grey squirrel came out of hibernation yesterday too.

Love to know if anyone else spent time this weekend feeding or counting birds!

Here’s a couple more snow pictures from our garden..

My Winter Wonderland- Pickering in the snow

This  morning I drew the curtains to see this.

The promise of sunshine, blue sky and a walk. Chores done off I went, and no apologies for a really heavy photograph post.

Called Wells Walk- no idea why, maybe there were lots of wells here once, or a family called Wells?

Through the fence

Scout hut- even this building looks pretty in the snow

Nearly into the fields

It’s not a snow day for the schools so no children on this hill now.

I love taking this shot when it snows!

Poor horses – they didn’t move at all, just looked COLD!

Past the pottery

Gate to nowhere !

Catkins!

The track to Newbridge

No trains today!

Path to the castle- I just love the fence with its snowy caps!

The castle in snow

Over the rooftops!

My favourite shot- the Gate  to Nowhere. Which is yours? And where do you like to walk on a snowy day? Love tp hear from you…