end of the rainbow

Showers and strong sunlight make for vivid rainbows, and provide a fitting photo to mark a break in Spot's blog, at least for the time being, unless we see anything visually interesting over autumn and winter. There are over 1500 pages on this blog, and more photos, to trawl through if you should happen on the blog and be interested in our home area. Use the labels, or blog search facility to find the things you are interested in

rainbow martins

after a very very wet day, the sun came out this evening to add a little background colour to the aerobatics

a brown time

one of the stranger consequences of this long cold dry period is that everything has turned a light brown. Normally at this time of year (and all year) Cornwall is a rich vivid green. But no grass is growing yet, and the landscape looks as if Nature has taken to painting in watercolours. The sun is still quite low in the sky and in the morning and evening the world around us has taken on a novel hue.

For the last couple of weeks a pair of jackdaws have taken to sitting in a fir tree overlooking our garden. One of them is making a sound like a creaking branch or a very rough purr. I can't find any reference to this call but I assume it is a love poem. They are very interesting birds.

at the end of the road

by some happy chance there was gold at the end of the lane this evening.

snow drops and snowdrops

some pictures from our walk today. The snowdrops are very nearly out, and the snow was falling once again.

icefall

the water in Kit Hill quarry has frozen solid but no dogs were allowed to try it out given recent tragic events. It is so cold that an icefall has formed on the quarry face. (OK, the blue is cheating)

the fields of gold

another strange day with a golden sunset across freezing fog creating an eerie and magical world of soft suffused light; it reminded me for some reason of the song, but fields of miscanthus not barley.

squall over Dartmoor

and still it rains, the ewes must be soaked. Dartmoor is on the far horizon, Hingston Down to the right.

four new things

one female chaffinch, slightly stunned, the perfect English rose, clematis, and the head of borage about to flower, the leaves of which with Pimms, strawberries and tennis minus rain will go to make a perfect English summer.

more snow from Cornwall

"OK," you can hear the lamb saying, "the joke is over". Above are pictures of Rezare, and Sharp Tor/Bodmin moor in the distance.

rooks nest

I think the rooks cannot nest much higher without leaving the trees (especially the nests in the trees to the left of the bungalow). This is a much vaunted sign of fair weather but is it true? I will search the archives for earlier views of these nests and let you know

back to normality

the UFO has disappeared, one can understand why. This is the view from the bridge today.

UFO over Pensilva

a strange yellow object has appeared in the sky, low on the horizon. It has made no effort to contact us yet but we can feel the heat from its fusion engine. It casts so strong a light it is possible to take photographs without a flash light. What is it? Who should we inform? Should we be panic buying at Tescos? Has anyone else seen it?

Hingston island

when Kit Hill is surrounded by fog it creates the pleasing illusion of some ancient inland sea bathed in tropical sun. And by some strange coincidence it was very similar this time last year (see 21/12/05 by clicking on Kit Hill label)

fog

just after sunrise this morning, on the way to Kit Hill, ice making it lethal underfoot, looking towards Heathrow.

fog

the view today from Kit Hill is somewhat different. Freezing fog is filling the valley. And one for sorrow.

rainbows and serendipity

sometimes one is rewarded simply for carrying a camera. Although the rain makes the background blurred, Stoke Climsland is sitting under the middle of this beautiful, double rainbow.

I stitched together two photographs, both of which are spectacular in their own right. Please do not put coffee mugs on my photographs.

Cornish lanes

the boss insisted on just one more snowy lane picture, he thinks the sinuous curves rest easy on the eye. Cornish lanes seem very rounded when you stop and look, maybe it's the way the hedgerows are trimmed (like this earlier post http://tamar-valley-life.blogspot.com/2005/11/cornish-lanes-near-my-house.html ) and more to come.

Who would live anywhere else? It's not exactly a dog's life here.

and today

and today it looks like this, Stoke Climsland drowns in snow, England grinds to halt. Only yesterday it was thus http://tamar-valley-life.blogspot.com/2005/11/stoke-climsland.html

twigs

the boss says lurchers aren't bright enough to twig this, barking mad I say.











and the BBC showed this picture! the boss is v pleased, see
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4472970.stm