More of the walk and other witterings.

I am doing my most despised job today. Clearing out, tidying up, call it what you will. I have mountains of scraps of paper with family history notes, articles from the papers, things I've jotted down, recipes, all mixed up with childrens' revision notes from the Dark Ages of early Secondary School, old magazines (I still can't bring myself to part with two Dartmoor ones), user manuals for long defunct printers or scanners, even a 1999 calendar I didn't want to part with because it had wonderful photos of the British countryside. This flotsam and jetsam of my personal country living has all come to rest on the high tide mark of what I laughingly call my "office". You go into some folks' houses and they have an office with not a thing out of place. Everything neatly put away in filing cabinets, reference books on shelves. Not even any dust, for Heaven's sake. I think my office probably reflects my personality in no uncertain terms! Today I feel I am the Forlorn Hope of the Housework Brigade! Just think how good I will feel when it is all done though . . .

Just to cheer myself up and get me out of the room, here are a good few more of the photos I took yesterday.





Below is Navelwort, which I can categorically say has spread downhill in the couple of decades we have been living here. It used to be 3/4 of a mile up the road. Now it has reached the corner near our house. We had a Herbal Doctor as a neighbour years ago, and she recommended another neighbour of ours used this when he had earache. After checking it out on myself first, I successfully treated earache in my own children using several leaves of this plant, washed, and then macerated with boiled water in a pestle and mortar. The resultant green gunge was then trickled into the affected ear. It works! Mind you, if it hadn't I would never have dared to take the children to the Doctor's afterwards, can you imagine what they would have said when they checked the ear and found it was GREEN inside!




Whilst it has definitely dried up the past couple of days, there was still a steady run-off of water from the field above this bank. It pours off the sloping bank and seeps through the slate bedrock. It was a positive cascade a week or so ago.


This hedgerow has recently been cut and laid - in otherwords, the brushwood largely removed, and some small trees, and the remaining saplings cut with a chainsaw or billhook most of the way through, but with sufficient remaining to allow the tree to keep growing. As long as the saplings are laid uphill, the sap can still rise and they will put up fresh growth. Many of the hedgerows in our area are being cut and laid - so much so, I suppose there must be a grant for it . . .


Note - blue sky. Reminds me of March weather, that picture. Roll on spring.