Being Mrs C

An insight into the things in life that make me smile

Sunny Sunday

Yesterday was one of those days that was just perfect for being outside. Lucky really as that's what I did pretty much all day. Down at our local nature reserve we had a day's hedge laying tuition where a group of volunteers were learning how to lay a hedge, and practicing on one of our ones on the site. Meanwhile a regular monthly working party was also taking place, along with a willow weaving workshop. Workers always need feeding though - so that was my role. Tea and cake breaks for the workers, plus a BBQ lunch for everyone involved.  It was all hard work, and boy did I ache ... read more

November snow

Snow in November in the South East of England is rare, but it's what we woke up to this morning. No where near as much as what they have further north, but still. There's at least a cm out there and it's the sort of snow which sticks to tree branches giving things a wonderful wintery look. Little Miss C is fascinated by it all. Her breakfast was significantly slowed down today as she was far more interested in looking out of the window than eating her porridge. ... read more

Autumn colours

Another blogging break, but this time due to a family holiday to Northumberland and Little Miss C's first holiday. A lovely trip where we were fortunate enough to have amazing weather for this time of year. The thing that stunned us most though was the autumn colours that we were delighted to see wherever we went. Even the trees along the sides of the A1 were beautiful! Nature's autumn show may not last long, but whilst it did it was stunning. The trip itself provided a lovely opportunity to catch up with my whole family and to spend some precious moments with them. LMC also had her ... read more

RSPB Dungeness

Another of the visits that Mr C and I made whilst away was to the RSPB reserve at Dungeness. This shingle filled reserve almost looks lunar as you approach in the car, but I'm pleased to say that it gave us one of the best days of birdwatching that we've ever had. Mr C's been keeping some good records of what we saw, especially photographic ones, and if you pop over to UK Nature Blog he's included a complete list as well as a couple of posts on specific sightings of the meadow pipet, Great crested grebe and the rarer Slavonian grebe.A quick stop-off at the Rye Harbour ... read more

Big Garden Birdwatch – Part 2

 Whilst the physical location for my second stint at the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch wasn't quite as comfortable as my kitchen there did seem to be plenty more birds on display down at the WWA today.Whilst others took part in the main working party activity the bird spotting team managed to see the following: Bullfinch Redwing Great spotted woodpecker Blackbird (2) Collared dove (14) Greenfinch Robin (2) Blue tit (3) Dunnock (3) House sparrow Song thrush (2) Jackdaw (20) Chaffinch (5) Goldfinch (1) Long tailed tit (5) Wood pigeon (6) Great tit (2) Magpie (2) Wren Mallard (6) Coot ... read more

RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch

 Quite a nice way to start the day. Cup of tea to hand. Seat looking out over the snow covered garden. Binoculars and bird book ready. Cue lots of birds. Or not, as the case may be. The morning I spent an hour taking part in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. Compared to when we first moved in here we certainly seem to have attracted more birdlife to the garden. Our results weren't spectacular with eleven different species in total (blackbird, black headed gull, blue tit, carrion crow, coal tit, dunnock, great tit, house sparrow, mapgie, robin and woodpigeon) but I was still more ... read more

Birds, cake, nappies and gardening

It's been one of those weekends where loads seems to have happened if you know what I mean. As it had seemed like such a long time since Mr C and I had had a day out anywhere we planed to make the most of the dry weather and lack of snow and headed up the A1 to the RSPB reserve at Sandy. We've been RSPB members for a while now, but often don't seem to make enough use of our membership and this trip was an attempt to turn that around.     I was amazed at how large the reserve site was as it provided several different walking routes around through a mix of heathland, ... read more

First snow of the year

The garden's looking even whiter this morning and the snow's still coming down! The good news is that after a very late night I did manage to sleep in my own bed after a wonderful night at the top of the Gherkin (more about that later). Walking through snow does mean that you use a whole different set of leg muscles to normal and boy am I feeling that today! It's stil that lovely wet snow that clings to everything at the moment so everywhere's looking very picturesque. Not sure how much longer some of the branches will be able to take the weight though. Our new little ... read more

A cold snap

There's no doubt about it, it's pretty damn cold out there right now. This is how the garden looked yesterday morning as the sun came up. It didn't look much different by the time the sun went down yesterday afternoon! A couple of bit of grass had ben in the sun and therefore returned to green, but come this morning and all is white again.We've not yet had more snow here, but I understand that this is highly likely to change in the next 24 hours. In fact, most of the country is likely to be white over by tomorrow morning. Even London is likely to be covered. Of course this has ... read more

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