the sun through the trees - part two

There are some things that feel a little better though, like when the sun breaks from behind the grey clouds, you manage to catch the setting sun in the woods, there is a pinecone in your pocket and some twigs in your hair and everything feels alright again. Sometimes it's really good to get out and get dirty, to cake your boots in mood and run through the frozen over puddles on the ground, feeling the ice crack beneath your unsuitable trainers. You forget what date it is, when the sun gets in your eyes and you feel hot for the first time all day; and on the walk home, the bulbs your mother and father planted are poking out of the ground in the garden, there is a red kite crying, somewhere above your head; you can take a deep breath and say that you'll get through it, because you always do.

part one

the sun through the trees - part one

I find winter a hard time - despite my adoration for the all the things I dream of in a winter, like crisp frosty mornings and brisk weekend walks in the sunshine, it always turns out differently. The crisp frosty mornings are less beautiful when walking to work in the dark at 8AM or scraping the ice from your car until your fingers are blue. The sunny Saturday strolls are few and far between in January and you spend a lot more time indoors, looking out at the rain falling, with the wind trying to get in through the cracks in the house than I do out walking in the sunshine. At times like these it's hard to push through without the lure of Christmas to cheer you on, your only hope is that the solstice has passed and that the days are getting longer again, the sun is lingering that little bit more and that soon it will be spring.

part two tomorrow...

swimdog

My friend Amy's dog is a bit... dappy, I like to call him - I don't know why but he really makes me laugh. I know dogs like to swim but he seems to go mad whenever Amy takes him to the local ford. We did it a little while ago and he somehow caught a fish (we're still not convinced whether it was alive when he caught it, but...). I don't know, it just makes me really want a puppy of my own - they make me so happy - I'm such a loser! We also saw this birdbox - I think it's for an owl or something, anyone have any clues?

very merry berry picking - take two

It's that time of year again.. blackberry picking! I don't really know why I enjoy it so much, but there is something weirdly enjoyable about getting attacked by brambles, ripping holes in my leggings in my quest to get the best berries, and getting bruised looking fingertips.. Last year I went with my mum, and I'm sure we'll go again later in the year, but I was feeling restless yesterday afternoon and needed something to occupy myself. It was super quiet today up the airfield and I just felt very content. I came back with a boxful of blackberries, a handful of crabapples, and a bunch of cow parsley to decorate my room with.. A good day, all in all.

rainy day inspiration

I've had these photos sitting in my drafts for a while now, and I told myself I was saving them for a 'rainy day'. Because I do love autumn and winter, but sometimes you need to be reminded that it will end and the sun will come out. Today is that day. 

My dissertation is due in tomorrow... there is nothing I can do now, but wish me luck!

very merry berry picking

I had some other blog posts lined up for this week.. but they have been shunted in favour of these photos! As I went back to uni this week, me and my mum decided to have a few afternoons together before I left, and we decided to go for a walk and see if we could find any sloes and blackberries. We used to go blackberry picking every year when I was little, but we've stopped as we got older, but it's a memory I will always hold onto, just because it's one of those weird, idyllic memories of eating all the blackberries from my mum and dad's pots..

Anyway, we did not find any sloes, unfortunately. I really wanted to make some sloe gin, sadly that will have to wait a couple of weeks because they weren't ripe. Anyway, we did find an awful lot of blackberries, enough to make two big blackberry pies, at least, even though I dropped about half a pot at one point... I took a bunch of photos, because, hey, that's what I do, there are few more but I think I'll save them for a rainy day. The top photos are elderflower berries, so you need to look out for these if you want to get the flowers to make elderflower cordial and such, I thought they looked pretty, though.

And yes, I did eat most of them whilst we were picking them, to my mum's annoyance, hence the stained hands..!

Have you ever done this, or do you grow any of your own fruit? I joked on twitter that I'm turning into a middle-aged woman, because I came home, cooked dinner with my mum and sat on the sofa to do some knitting afterwards... I'm basically dead. 

(The post title is awful, I can't even judge whats good anymore.)

silent pool's & witches caves, oh my

I wanted to show you some photos of my day out this week - we found some really amazing places and I took a few pictures that I took. The first place doesn't look that remarkable in my pictures, I'll be honest! It's called the Silent Pool and it's on the edge of the North Downs near Guildford. It's a strange thing, but the water is completely clear, because the water comes from a natural springs nearby. You can see right down to the bottom of the pool, and see all the plants on the bottom. In the pictures you can see that it just sort of looks like there is dirt and grass, covered in a bit of water - more like a puddle than a pond, there is only a bit of algae on top in certain places, and because of the natural spring water,  it looks sort of blueish-green. It's all very awesome, if you're ever in the area, I suggest you go and check it out! There is a car-park nearby, and it's a very short walk (about 5 minutes, if that) from there. Unfortunately, it was bit wet, but we're going to go back when it gets a bit sunnier and maybe have a dip in the pool, because it's so clear!
The second place was a lot more tricky to find, it's called Mother Ludlam's Cave near Farnham. We ended up going down several dead ends, but its near Moor Park house in Farnham, and it looks like a private house, but there is a little public trail down the side of it. There's limited parking, and the actual cave is about a mile along this path following the River Wey, but along the way there are several of these little WW2 pilboxes, one of which we were too scared to go into because it was very dark and cramped, but the other was much larger and you could stand up and walk around in. The cave itself is much bigger than I was expecting, but it's all gated up so you can't go in, which I found quite disappointing. Apparently there are bats in there too, but I couldn't see any sleeping ones.
So that was our day out! I wanted to go and see Waverley Abbey too, but it was getting late, we were quite tired and it was rather rainy so we called it a day and went and got dinner instead, but it was very lovely! It's weird, I take living in a small countryside uni-town for granted a bit, forgetting that there is a lot of interesting history here, but oh well! Have you been anywhere interesting recently?  

PS - The last picture is my favourite because theres a gate hidden under all that foliage, and it reminded me of the Secret Garden, which is one of my favourite films!