Flood Defences

It's been a wet winter.

Due to climate warming? Maybe. Some say so.

Due to human-caused climate change? Maybe. Maybe not.

Has it rained before in winter? Yep
Have the rivers flooded before? Yes
Have they flooded to such extremes before? Yes.

New Toy

I've been such a good girl this year the man in the red coat rewarded me with a new Ipad with a camera.

Luckily for us this means we can now have pictures and videos instantly up on our blog. You will know the moment anything happens in Garden65. This is going to be cutting edge journalism: breaking news, livefeeds, realtime commentary, the works. Shame nothing actually happens in the garden, but still, we must keep up with the times.

So here is a short clip of the wind in the park, and a hazy picture of some ducks. Both have been edited, themed and app-ed to the limit of my current expertise. And then uploaded on the actual Ipad. What a palaver.

Low Winter Sun

The view from my kitchen window when I'm washing up the breakfast things.

At this time of year, if I time the washing up right, I can have a short moment with my hands in hot water and the sun shining brightly into my face. I close my eyes and enjoy the contrast between my warm hands and cold feet, while the sun, like a miracle, beams out comfortable pleasure.

It doesn't last long. It's surprising how low the sun travels across the sky in winter. These images were taken about quarter past 10. Look how the sun is just about to slide behind the neighbour's house. Poor Garden65 is doomed to shade for the rest of the day. No wonder gnats swarm over a mossy lawn.

However, to be generous there is a spare kind of beauty to the scene. A bit Stanley Spencery, if you see what I mean - twisting tree limbs, an over-white sky with dramatic clouds, cold, and wind, and red bricked houses. There is a whiff of Auden and Larkin; not quite Orwell (being in Didsbury we're cushioned from real poverty) but with a definite early 20th century air about the place. I'm picking up a kitchen sink drama vibe: This Sporting Life, A Taste of Honey, Look Back in Anger, Saturday Night Sunday Morning.

 

 

 

It's something to do with the quality of light that makes things a little starker. And why, perhaps, we like to blot it out with the excess of Christmas.


And here's my Christmas pressie for you - Richard Harris in This Sporting Life  ;-)

Winter Gnats, or Christmas Angels?

Have you ever tried photographing gnats? Impossible!

The swarms of little flies dancing over your lawn at this time of year are the aptly named Winter Gnats (of the Trichoceridae family).

The swarms are made of male gnats stretching their wings, having some fun with the boys, before they pair up with a female and sneak away from the group to mate.

Luckily for me, as I stood around trying to photograph the little blighters, the males don't bite. It's the females who suck your blood, because they need the extra energy for egg laying.

The eggs are laid on decaying wood and the larvae feed on decaying matter - Ha! plenty of that in Garden65. It's worth noting (if you're at all interested in garden invertebrates) that the wiggly larvae in ponds are mosquito larvae.

Here's a short spooky film I've cobbled together:


The music is from John Dowland's 'Lachrimae', composed in 1604. I guess 'lachrimae' has something to do with tears (lachrymose).

And though the title doth promise teares, unfit guests in these ioyfull times, yet no doubt pleasant are the teares which Musicke weepes, neither are teares shed alwayes in sorrow, but sometime in ioy and gladnesse.

Happy Christmas Everyone   Jx