Some More Snow pictures!

Just few piccies from our snowy Christmas time!

First for comparison the Sluice gate (See Novembers flood)

The Canal  by the church

 and in the other direction

Holly in the Churchyard

The "Green" Valley from our house

Christmas Eve

Again it snowed - and agian.  I drove home past snowman after snowman today through a landscape that was so beautiful it almost hurts the eye.   Over the last week I have said "it's snowing " uncountable times.  Now I step down from pavement to the flag stone at the bottom of the steps to our house.  It is raised up normally - it is clear of snow, the pavement is not.   

I was reflecting on the fact that no snowflake is like the next , every snow flake that has fallen on us this week is unique.  People of faith dare to believe in a God who could envisage such an amazing thing.  Christians belive that this God became part of the creation, not as some mighy and wonder supernova, a great galatic sphere, but a baby - weak and helpless - surrendering all his glory power and majesty for a food trough to sleep in.   If they are right, then surely this is a God who deserves our love?

Happy Christmas and may the peace and joy of the Christ child reach into every part of your life.

White Valley

Just a few pictures of the town and village in our now white valley, mostly from around the Church by the old school, though one is from my bedroom window.

 

and this little cutie

Martinmere

We went to Martinmere last weekend -  The WWT reserve on what was once the largest lake in Britain is a magnet for the big Wild swan of Winter and for many thousands of Pink foot geese.   We had a lovely time despite the uninspiring food - the wildlife was great.  We spent time in the Ron Barker  hide looking over the frozen scrape and saw some Blackwits in really close and feeding in the grass alongside the Wigeon.

And from time to time  flocks of pink feet would fly over

Later we moved to the swanlink hide which runs alongside the south of the big central "mere".

The pictures come from there, the noise (and the smell) have to be experienced for yourselves.  It was great!

Hi all

All  - I wonder who is reading this one day soon I will get a counter !!

Its saturday - the  frost is beginning to form on the car - I am off in the morning to Blackshaw Head to preach - it is will be the Third Sunday in advent 2009,  Time flies.  It sonly seems last week it was summer andI was walking in the Green Wood - but now we sing sing of Northern Hills rejoicing - our winter home is set in.

Tomorrow after service I might go and look for Winter swans and Pink footed geese - I may even post !

hope I look forward to that - as I might be the only one reading all this!!

Night Night - God bless
Mark

A trip out

I've just got back from the UKOUG confrence in Birmingham - an event when 2000+ database (and the res) techie types occupy the ICC in Birmigham for three days.  We get  to talk to  few old friends, Eat some good food, drink a bit , play with scalextric and attend a selection of nearly 450 seminars on our chosen subect!!

Very strange it is too. As a DBA , it is a fairly lonely position - one or two in most companies and suddenly everyone is one and we get to meet the superstars of our profession - names that echo amongst the blogospheres of the nerds!  No-one outside this little world will know their names or their significance but to us for a few days they are our stars, our heroes.  Then we come home to broken boilers and we all wake up.

More Rain

I have just been looking the pictures from Cumbria in the BBC and hearing of the tragic death of the policeman, all of which puts our little local difficulty in perspective.  Our prayers are with his family and friends . 

As I reflect on all this two thoughts come to mind, one is what Hilary Benn said , these events are liklely to be more common as the climate becomes more unstable due to the overall warming of our world, one was the weather map a few days ago this weather system cover the whole north Atlantic, truly a one in a thousand year event - until now.

The Rain

Yesterday I tried to get work - it was raining - no suprises yet then.  At the railway station, we queued up the steps staying out of the torrents.  A message was shouted accross - the Tunnel down the line was flooded - there will be no trains today.    We turn and head out - checking the buses - we get to the stop - we wait - a women passes - the Road is flooded in the other direction - the buses aren't running.  We give up.

Walking home through the deluge I catch sight of this - a little stream normally,  now a raging river attempting to leap the wall into the road.

However when I get home and nicely dry - the propect of a nice quiet day is ruined by the the children noisily returning - their school is closed!!!

Remembrance Day

I was asked to conduct the 2 Minutes silence today at work.  It is the first aniversary of the the Armistice day without the livinfg presence of those who had been combatants in that first world war.  There is no-one left now, who remembers the horrors of the trenches.  This is a good thing I think.  No-one now has to remember.  One of those three who died this year had tried to forget but as he grew older the memory returned.   What we must do is not forget - not forget that on the first day of the Somme thirty thousand died.  . We cannot forget that nearly 750,000 British soldiers died in the 4 years of fighting, not to mention the French, Germans, Belgians, Americans, Turks, Russians, Australians, Indians and many others.   Now it is news that one life is lost - rightly so. Then if the Prime minister read out the names at question time- Lloyd George would still be speaking.  We must not forget.   At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them all.

Monday morning

Another Monday morning,  I opened the curtain on the first proper cold morning of the winter - the roofs below gleamed white with the hoar frost.  As the day progressed the sun came out.  The ducks came for their snack at the canal with incredible enthusiam, launching themselves into flight accross the few yards of water between them and my stale bread (unused hot dog bread from the bonfire).   It was all gone in  few moments.  The canal by the old mill further down the valley was still , like a sheet of plate glass, mist rose from the riverside walls warning in the sun.  Why do I never have the camera when I need it?

Bonfire Night

It was the annual bonfire at the church by the old school.  The fire was still burning as I left with all the rest of the old folk ( ok one of us is younger than me).  Hundreds had come and bought Hot dogs and pie 'n' peas (thanks to Tony Pollard for the pies and peas), they watched the fire, the fireworks. The church raised loads of money and provided a free show for the village. Everyone wins.  Don't they? Yes and no - the whole village was there - loads of rubbish got burned everyone had fun - most of what burned was biomass  - no carbon footprint problem so why NO.   I don't really know - but in one bonfire - a effigy of Katie price will be burned,  in another they still burn the Pope (in effigy of course) - ours had no guy - no hate figure - so it was just part of that end of year celebration that Halloween and All Saints day are part of.  I don' t like burning figures, there is no place for the hate of Guy Fawkes - no place for burning Katie Price or Peter Andre (who ever they are :-)) or even an elderly german theologian.  The year is ended, Winter has returned, ice on the car this morning.  

Snow is coming.

The End of Autumn

A couple of days ago we visted Jerusalem Farm, a council owned Campsite and LNR near us.  It was afternoon on last nice day in October and we were looking for Fungi.   And we found them but what we found far more of were all the leaves of autumn fallen from the woodland trees.  Oak, beech, sycamore leaves carpeted the ground, the children scooped them into piles and jumped deep into them.  We found mushrooms and earth balls, strange bracket fungi and a quiet gentle light.   Like much of this Autumn, it was strangely still and warm and the river ran through the very image of  this magical season.

  Later as we left to drive home, I noticed Fieldfares and redwings in the rowan trees and driving home a startled jay fled accross the road and then the kestrel was there.  Just sitting on the wall in front of us . it looked at us , flew a little further on,  again resting on the roadside wall we crept closer and it flew off  - only then did I remember the camera!

A trip to Leighton Moss

Last week I managed to get half term off and so on the Monday, having extracted the children from their beds with a crowbar, we set off to Leighton Moss. This for those who do not know is the RSPB reserverve on Morecombe Bay - near Carnforth.  It was one of those Autumn days usually so rare (except for this year) of warmth and light.  The air was still and clear when we visted the hides on the edge of the bay as you can see from the above photo of a lapwing and redshanks, it was bright and the peace of the place crept over you.

Later we visted other parts of the reserve not seeing any great rarities, though I heard my first Cettis warbler, but we got to see birds living their lives, ignoring us humans.  Swans disputing who owned the mere, shovelor and wigeon resting, getting cleaned up.

As evening fell we found a tree of roosting egrets in the gathering gloom.  As I took the picture, my wife noticed the parties of starlings flying past us,  fifty in one, a hundred in another, more in the big flock across the valley - all flying to the other end of the reserve (of course the other end) but we could see against the western sky the thousands of tiny dots wheeling and banking, celebrating their mastery of the air - we watched a while and then came away, a good way for a nice day to end.

Hello

I signed up to Blogger to use the Calderdale Birds blog ( http://calderbirds.blogspot.com/ which I think is one of  the very best local birders website I have ever found) and left my personal blog empty - so now is the time to do it.  If anyone reads this (unlikely I know) I hope you enjoy it and get some vague pleasure out of it.
Mark