Live Bravely

Celebrating Solstice

 

Aglow with gold light

The shortest day has arrived -

More daylight awaits.

Club(moss)ing

Ooh, look at this beautiful clubmoss display a friend gave me - it will keep me happy throughout the white of winter, I'm sure.

Isn't this ancient, slow-growing plant gorgeous? How could such vivid greenery not boost one's mood?

The Answer

 

It's a close up of rain and streetlights on the windshield from the interior of the car, with Dale's gloves on the dashboard making mountainous 'humps' in the foreground. 

The rain splatter on the windshield made the streetlights look like fireworks

Guessing Game

What do you see in this pic - any suggestions?

Falling Gently

Snow fell so gently

That upright, mildly textured

Surfaces held it.

Nivean and Subnivean

Did you know that the word nivean means snowy (and thus nivea means snow-white - think of the white cream branded Nivea)

The nivean conditions keep me inside, but there is also a whole world that operates at the subnivean level. This is where voles, mice and other small animals live in the winter, the area that is just above the ground and just beneath the snowpack. It forms a sheltered area that insulates them, and the temperature tends to be more stable for hibernal animals.

I know that when the snowpack starts melting, the little animal trails that were hidden start to become evident. Picture foxes hunting in the snow and pouncing on a little animal making noise beneath it ... I wonder how many activities are going on beneath that snowpack, invisible to us?

Ponds and Plants

I have a project awaiting me in Wales - restoring this sad pond in our yard - it's been left to its own devices for a year (note, NOT frozen as of Dec 5). It looks like two elephant footprints after a soaking rain!

What should I plant here? Eurasian milfoil? I hope to include sundews and bladderworts ...

It's interesting that the Law Society Property Information Form includes the following question about Japanese knotweed:

I took a look around when we visited, and wasn't able to spot any - if I subsequently find any, it will be attacked with vigor!

English Oak

 I'm having to start learning about plants native to England - Quercus robur, the English oak, is a spectacularly shaped tree that is an iconic part of the English countryside.

It's a long lived tree, and boasts the 'highest biodiversity of insect herbivores of any British plant' (Wikipedia)

These large, spreading trees are also known as the pedunculate oak

I'm looking forward to learning more about the different galls produced by the various insects that depend on these beauties.

Curiosities

When looking at buying a home in England/Wales, we discovered that British code for light switches in bathrooms and kitchens (where there are water sources) is different from the US. Light switches are required to be on a pull cord as an extra precaution against electrical conduction should a person have wet hands. 

We thought it was just in old-fashioned, outdated homes, but no, it's everywhere.

I've also learned that chips in England are what we call 'steak fries' in the U.S. and fries in England are what we call 'shoestring fries' (hope I got it right). 

Dale's pub meal of pie and chips

Also, what people in the U.K. regard as frigid weather, is balmy to Mainers (spot the Maine-iac in the photo below)

Country roads are so narrow (looking more like a driveway for a single home than a public road), and constricted by hedgerows as to make one feel as if you're on a luge course, with no way out till you get to the end (or an intersection).

And, unlike the U.S., the first ingredient listed in mayonnaise is rapeseed oil, NOT SOY OIL! Ah, lovely!

Good Things

Our return trip from the UK went superbly and seamlessly, despite it being a looooong day that began at 4:30am (without any shut-eye for me), and ended at 9:00pm locally (but 2am for us). We drove our rental car to Birmingham airport along the dark and twisty rain-soaked roads, without a hitch or traffic jam. What a pleasant surprise it was to be offered a cup of coffee at the Europcar drop off.

Fortified, we made it through the day, caught all our connections timeously and had excellent service through AirFrance - Dale asked if they had red wine with his lunch selection, and they responded with "but of course, this IS AirFrance!" I requested white wine and was informed that they also had champagne, which I readily accepted. I think this was the first time I've managed to sleep on a plane, so exhausted was I after a sleepless night before our departure (or was it the glass of bubbly that did it?).

AirFrance is a great airline - it was smoothly and efficiently run, with very good stewards (so what if they didn't repeat EVERY announcement in English - was that the one telling us to evacuate the plane???)

French countryside as we approached Paris

In mid flight we got the great news that there were 2 offers on our house in MA that we've been trying to sell since September. 

The one we've accepted is underwritten, and will close as early as Jan 13, 2026! So, so happy! Check out those magic words - Under Contract ♥️

Good friends generously picked us up from the bus station, and then once home, we discovered that another Good Samaritan had thoughtfully shoveled our driveway and path to our front door (it had snowed while we were away). How lucky are we!

Aah, what a lovely, satisfying experience we had - so many good things in one day!

... now for some sleep ...

High Water

High water on the river Teme, as seen from the town of Ludlow.

The net result of all this rain means the fields and countryside are strikingly green for December (perhaps this is usual here?). It looks like spring! 

What a contrast to this arctic scenery on our return - ughh.

Textured England

Some natural, some man-made, some combined, textures in the English landscape.

Close-up of trimmed hedgerow

A mash-up of window, mortar and tile styles

Dusky Pink

A dusky pink glow -

A color and time of day

Tinged by scattered light.

Sights Along a Country Lane

What a fantastic stroll I had along a local country lane in Little Hereford.

Our Home

 I'm ecstatic!

We visited our new home, Isfryn, in Llanfyllin, Wales on Friday. The convoluted and narrow access from the town was a surprise, but everything else about it presents just as well as we saw online. It doesn't need much changing or big renovations. While I'm not a fan of wallpaper (just not my kind of style), it's in good nick and can be tackled at a later date.

The garden is large with diverse areas of opportunity, as well as magnificent views of undulating green hills. 

And the kitchen! I'm totally enamored with it - so many cabinets and counter space!

This is a view of our home from the neighbor's driveway, so they also have a nice view 🙂

Cobwebs

This is how my throat feels after an overnight flight! Raspy from the dry air, I hope 🤞

Adventuring

We're on an adventure, having skipped across the pond for a week, so I may not be as diligent as usual in keeping up with my blog.

The journey is a series of of connections, nodes and transfers that make the day long and tedious, despite there being progress.

We arrived at Logan very nice and early, so we sat and ate sandwiches while enjoying a little rest after the day's earlier pace. 

Hoped to catch some zzzz's in flight, but no luck. So little space! I don't know how Dale managed, because I was extremely uncomfortable. And he managed to lose both his shoes during the flight, with one having "migrated" a couple of seats back up the aisle from us.

And this was my first ever time in Paris, stuck in the airport - you'd think they'd at least provide a view of the Eiffel tower, but instead we have this interesting structure to admire.