Is that a chink of daylight I see?

The Lime Walk, Mottisfont Abbey - with a carpet of chionodoxa (Glory of the Snow)

Well... probably not.

When I started drafting this post, the answer to the above question was a fairly confident 'Yes.'

Unfortunately in the past week it has become obvious that here in the UK we are already under threat from COVID again, this time from the Indian variant which is now doubling in case numbers every day. 

I can't emphasise enough how despondent I am. For the first time in 15 months it looked like we might actually be returning to some kind of normal life - from tomorrow we are expecting to being able to have visitors to our home, dine indoors at pubs and restaurants, and actually hug people. But I fear these freedoms will be short-lived.

Some weeks ago when the danger of this variant was becoming more obvious, for political reasons the UK government chose not to include India on the 'red' list which prohibits people from certain countries from entering the UK. The government did however place neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh on the red list. The reason for India's exclusion? It's widely thought this was because the government is in the middle of negotiations for a big trade deal with India, made all the more crucial because of course we no longer have favourable trade relations with Europe. 

This course of action is unfathomable - you'd think after what the UK has been through in the past 15 months, economic rationalism would take a backseat.

OK. Enough of COVID.

National Trust property Mottisfont Abbey

In recent weeks we've been making the most of very dry and mainly sunny spring weather, taking a couple of short jaunts allowable under restrictions. 

A few years ago we visited the very lovely National Trust property Mottisfont Abbey, just under an hour's drive from us in the neighbouring county of Hampshire. Though originally a priory under the Roman Catholic Church, like many of its counterparts the land and buildings were given to a nobleman by King Henry VIII as part of the reformation's mass dissolution in the 16th century. Unusually the building was not torn down but added to, in order to turn it into a country house. 

Skip forward a few centuries and in the early 1930s Maud and Gilbert Russell took possession of Mottisfont, where they entertained a multitude of guests from the artistic world, including James Bond novelist Ian Fleming.

Mottisfont has lovely grounds, one of the most appealing features of which is the 'font' that runs through the property - it's a natural spring with beautifully clear water. We enjoyed our return visit.

A line of clipped Irish yews stand like sentinels on one side of the lawn at the rear of the house

Now that's an urn! Such pleasing curves

I can't tell you excited I become whenever I spot snakeshead fritillaries.
These amazing little beauties are meadow wildflowers that only appear for a brief time in April.
Once abundant across England, they are now sadly quite rare

The rear of the house and the knot garden at Mottisfont

This wonderful mosaic was created by Russian artist Boris Anrep in 1947, as a tribute to Maud
(they were lovers for many years)

Angel mosaic - detail

The font (spring) that runs through Mottisfont's grounds

On the first weekend in May I braved mixing with actual humans at the open-air brocante in Farnham's town centre. It was truly, truly the most wonderful feeling to be browsing antiques and bric-a-brac like we were all normal people, just with masks and mandatory squirts of anti-bac at each stand.

Sunshine and relative freedom for the first time in ages:
brocante on Farnham's West Street

All sorts of quirky, vintage items on sale at this stall

I never cease to be impressed by the creativity of some people.
This lass sells earrings, which she mounts and displays on vintage playing cards - what a great idea!

A few more random photos from little jaunts in the car we've done in the past month.

Fulling Mill, dating from the 13th century and spanning the River Alre at Alresford,
just east of Winchester in neighbouring Hampshire. It's now a private home

Forge Cottage on the Kennet and Avon Canal at Hungerford, Berkshire

A very poor quality photo - apologies! 
But do enjoy the image of this mother swan with three goslings nestling on her back

Of course spring is one of the loveliest seasons in England, as the photos below will evidence. 

'When all at once I saw a crowd, a host, of golden daffodils' 
(thank you, William Wordsworth)
- thousands of yellow heads nodding in the breeze at National Trust property Clandon Park

Tulips in bloom in our garden

This magnificent cherry stands in front of one of our neighbour's houses 

My Norwegian spruce, with vibrant green new growth and lovely pink cones

The crabapple tree we planted two years ago, alongside my little Japanese garden

Bluebells and stitchwort are in abundance throughout Surrey at the moment

Brilliant fields of gold - rapeseed provides a dazzling spectacle across the country in spring

We've had the usual feathered / furred visitors and are eagerly awaiting a new clutch of baby pheasants any day. But the highlight of recent weeks has been a tawny owl which, most unusually, visited us in broad daylight one morning and sat on the fence just outside our living room. We often hear owls at night, but have never clapped eyes on one until now.

Mr P and No. 1 Girlie - taking turns to have a drink

Mr P, with five members of his harem. Just lovely, but... the POOP they leave behind! 

Super special visitor one morning in late April - a tawny owl on our garden fence

In closing it's with great pleasure I announce that on 8 April 2021 I officially became a Pom. Yes, I now join the ranks of Australians with dual British citizenship.... Sadly, due to COVID, I was denied the celebration of a ceremony at the Kingston Civic Hall, presentation to the Mayor of Surrey and drinks and canapés laid on. Instead it was just me at the end of a Zoom call, making the affirmation of allegiance and pledge of loyalty by myself at the dining room table.

Why have I spent many (MANY) thousands of pounds and hundreds of hours of frustration pursuing firstly visas, then permanent residence, and finally citizenship? The reasons are many, but the primary factor is because I simply love this country. Bill Bryson - a fellow immigrant to this sceptred isle - in his book The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes From A Small Island, expresses it well:

Nothing, and I mean really, absolutely nothing, is more extraordinary in Britain than the beauty of the countryside. Nowhere in the world is there a landscape that has been more intensively utilised - more mined, farmed, quarried, covered with cities and clanging factories, threaded with motorways and railway lines... and yet remains so comprehensively and reliably lovely over most of its extent. It is the happiest accident in history.

In terms of natural wonders, you know, Britain is a pretty unspectacular place. It has no alpine peaks or broad rift valleys, no mighty gorges or thundering cataracts. It is built to really quite a modest scale. And yet, with a few unassuming natural endowments, a great deal of time and an unfailing instinct for improvement, the makers of Britain created the most superlatively park-like landscapes, the most orderly cities, the handsomest provincial towns, the jauntiest seaside resorts, the stateliest homes, the most dreamily-spired, cathedral-rich, castle-strewn, abbey-bedecked, folly-scattered, green-wooded, winding-laned, sheep-dotted, plumply-hedgerow'd, well tended, sublimely decorated 50,318 square miles the world has ever known, almost none of it undertaken with aesthetics in mind, but all of it adding up to something that is, quite often, perfect. What an achievement that is.

 

I couldn't have said it better myself. Every day I remind myself how fortunate I am to live in the British countryside, and I need no longer worry about being booted out of the country.  All the benefits, and the responsibilities, of citizenship are now mine.

Instagram post on the day of my virtual citizenship ceremony

Until next time,
- Maree  xo

Notes about nothing

A blazing late winter sunrise - our backyard (February 2021) 

 

Nope. Still nuthin' happening here.  

*sigh* 

I'm sorry to say this won't be a very cheery read. I had intended to just post some photos of the changing seasons from the past few months (because lord knows we have not been anywhere due to hard lockdown), but I am feeling the need to reflect on the past year.

But first, a few seconds of big, fluffy snowflakes falling on a late January morning here in Surrey...

As Britain tentatively moves towards the very gradual lifting of several months of national lockdown number three, parts of Europe are going back into lockdown for their 'third wave' - just as we emerge from our second. On Tuesday 23 March it will be the first anniversary of the start of the UK's first lockdown, and the nation will be lamenting the nearly 130,000 deaths during that period.

It's difficult to comment on this past year without quoting personal statistics. 

Making marmalade kept me busy on one Saturday in January.
Commercially made marmalade is always too sweet and too hard-set for my liking

It's more than 14 months since we attended a gig (the always wonderful Patrick  Wolf, at St Pancras Old Church in London), over 12 months since our last visit to a cinema. In August it will be two years since we last travelled abroad.

Of the five meals we have consumed outside our own home or self-contained holiday accommodation in the past year, the most recent was a full six months ago. 

My last haircut was in December, and with salons expecting to open in mid April (though this isn't guaranteed), I'll be in a queue for an appointment with my salon, as they painstakingly rebook everybody who had appointments booked during lockdown. So it's likely to be 5-6 months between cuts which I've never experienced before. My hair is LONG. Thank goodness for my mother's genes - she had nary a grey hair well into her 60s and I am lucky enough to have inherited that.

The author looking hirsute

For more than 12 months I've worked exclusively from home, with my work laptop set up on the dining table. For about half of that period Kevin has also had to work from home, in our third bedroom, teaching his students online which has been a particularly frustrating and unrewarding experience as the school made a decision (based on safeguarding) that pupils do not have their cameras on - they are just disembodied and, often, unresponsive voices.

Worst of all, we both have many work colleagues and friends who have had the virus, one of whom had 'long COVID' and was off work for nearly six months; another who tragically did not survive, passing away at the age of 51.

This year's personalised Christmas card image?
A robin searching for seed just outside our back door - January 2021

Frensham Heights looking magnificent in the snow - taken from the lawn

Built-in wine cooler on our patio set!

Our friends made an impromptu snowperson with materials to hand.
Poor Snowy only has one little rock-eye - but what personality!

Front entrance of Frensham Heights

The activities that used to punctuate and define our lives - travel, eating out, concerts, visiting galleries and museums, socialising with friends - have disappeared and it's becoming hard to even imagine life returning to how it used to be. Already we are being warned about Britain's third wave, expected in late summer / early autumn, and a fourth lockdown.

Thankfully, both Kevin and I have had our first dose of vaccine (I had Pfizer, Kevin got AstraZeneca) and we have our fingers crossed that supply issues and vaccination hysteria in other countries do not hinder our second jabs. 

After the snow came weeks of cold weather, and every body of water in the local area 
froze over. This is a pond on the school grounds - frozen solid

Great chunks of ice that kids have broken up on the edge of the pond, 
and thrown onto the frozen surface

Throughout all of this we have been acutely aware of our good fortune to live in such a beautiful place with plenty of space, and both in secure employment. We know there are, literally, millions of people here who are struggling with cramped conditions, limited access to outdoor space, views of brick walls, noisy neighbours... and so on. 

So many have lost loved ones, or been unable to visit elderly parents in care homes. People's beloved pets have been stolen to feed the demand for companion animals - and those of you who know me won't be surprised to hear that it's this particular horror that has upset me the most. It has shaken my already-fragile faith in humanity.

And now spring has arrived, which I'm always in two minds about, because it means the end of the cold weather and the inevitable decline towards summer and potential heat. But, as always, springtime in Surrey is glorious. Still early days, but the season is really about to kick off...

Snowdrops popped up all over the area during January and February...

... followed closely by great swathes of crocuses

... and finally the daffodils

One of our neighbours exercising their ponies

Buds about to burst forth

Cherry blossom already dotting the landscape

Our crabapple reviving after winter

Tulips just days away from delighting us - my favourite flower

White blossom is everywhere - hawthorn and blackthorn that grow wild in hedgerows across the countryside, as well as in people's gardens of course

Wildlife is also in abundance once again. The other day I surprised five roe deer in the field below our garden. We are regularly visited by a sparrow hawk as well as the usual group of pheasants including Mr P (formerly known as Mr Hoppy).

The badgers have resumed their nightly sorties into our garden for the snacks we leave. They don't fully hibernate over winter, however they do reduce their activity and tend to stop visiting us around late October, returning in February or March.

Visiting sparrow hawk on our garden fence, patiently waiting to secure the next meal
(ie a baby bird or two... nature is cruel)
[Apologies for the rubbish quality of the photo - this is as good a shot I'm ever going to get, using just the zoom on my iPhone]

Freshly scattered earth around a local badger sett, proof that they have emerged from winter inactivity

The badgers are back! Enjoying a treat of seeds and peanuts on our terrace

Well, that's it for now. Not much to report - hence the title of this post. However I thought I would let you know we are still alive and well, despite the lack of content for this blog.

From April we will be permitted to gather outdoors in a group of up to six people so we hope to cautiously take advantage of that, particularly as all of us have now had 'lockdown birthdays' and some will have had two such birthdays - including two people from our inner circle who turned 50 and sadly had very subdued celebrations.

Sheep grazing on lush spring grass - Pitthanger, Frensham

Hoping all our friends and family remain safe and well, as we pass Covid's first anniversary.

Until next time,

- Maree  xo