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| The Gite catching the morning sun 1st January 2015 |
The first of January brought another sharp frost, and clear blue skies. Beautiful but a little on the chilly side. The new bird table in the back garden has been visited by lots of different birds including blue tits, great tits, nuthatches, sparrows and robins. We think that the same birds are feeding from the bird table in the front garden too so they are having a feast. A couple of weeks ago sunflower seed, mixed bird seed and fat balls were on special offer in Jardi Leclerc and we stocked up so every morning Mark goes out with seed for each of the tables, and the birds seem to be lying in wait as they follow him on his rounds!
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| A frosty start to the New Year |
Despite the cold weather the evenings are already starting to get that little bit lighter - i'm sure we shut the curtains a good 10 minutes later yesterday. Walking round the garden today we could see the buds on the horse chestnuts, glistening with stickiness in the sun, hazel catkins, narcissus, and the occasional petrified rose flower as well as lovely frost patterns on leaves and seed heads.
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| Frosted phlomis seed heads |
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| Sage leaves covered in frosty spikes |
Father Christmas arrived with a late present yesterday - our annual delivery of muck for the roses. Two full tractor scoops and its lovely stuff, really rotted down. This year we had it dumped on the concreted area just outside the barbeque palace and now that we've finally got the tow bar fixed onto the car the plan is to fill the trailer rather than having to barrow it all.
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| Special delivery |
Once again I completely over-shopped for Christmas food and we will now be eating it until Easter at least - and we have enough boxes of chocolates to stock a corner shop! We seem to have developed a tradition of buying crackers which contain clockwork toys which you race on a card track. This year the joke slip also had a charade clue on it and this led to a combined "racing and charades" competition involving the use of a monkey sock, various musical "instruments", a crown and an angel badge with flashing lights. Anyway it was great fun even though our skills with regard to miming Christmas carols were atrocious. ( Full details and rules available on request!! ).
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| Ready to race! |
We talked about making new year resolutions this morning but that was as far as it went, however we are looking forward to another 364 days of 2015 and hope you are too.
