Sunday 6 December 2015

Blow, blow, thou Winter Wind

Winter floweringViburnum

Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round.
And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups,
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.....   *

Blow, blow, thou winter wind....  **
Indeed the wind blew fiercely and relentlessly for most of the week, and Beloved and I, looking out upon a scene of battle from behind the sheltering window glass, congratulated ourselves on the timely removal of the horse chestnut tree. The stiff and naked limbs of our one remaining giant, a stately, ancient beech tree, swayed heavily in the gusts coming up the valley from the West. So far, the river Clun has risen merely to within an inch of the top of its banks, any more rainfall will see the castle meadow flooded and Millie will have to paddle for her afternoon constitutional.

Inside, it’s been a very quiet week. Fearful of being blown off the road into hedges and ditches I left the car in the garage and made do with the village grocery shop for items like fresh milk and bread. Even that was a struggle, catching a lull in the rainstorms. There will be plenty more such weather, the forecasters say, to do with global warming and man-made climate change. If that is so then I will not be able to keep many appointments during winter, which take me away from the village. As it is, an afternoon meeting of German conversationalists was cancelled because nobody fancied getting trapped on flooded roads. I did, however, have a very pleasant hour long telephone conversation, in German, with a fellow blogger, another German lady living in the UK.We have only just started this contact and are still in the early stages of exchanging life stories.

So, for most days we did what the poet said: we put our feet up, drank tea, wrapped ourselves in cosyness and welcomed peaceful evening in. We had a short, two-hour power cut one night;  there was enough light from the sky for me to go outside through the nearest door, grope my way around the terrace at the back of the house and through another door into the scullery where the torches live. Armed with a torch it was easy to find candles and matches. I was almost disappointed when the lights came back on. We so rarely sit side by side, exchanging quiet thoughts and comfortable silences.



* from  The Task by W. Cowper
** from As You Like It by Shakespeare


23 comments:

  1. Time to gather by the hearth and light the candles (which I do even when there is no power failure). Hope you don't have so much rain you can't be out and about a bit, Friko. Will Millie go out and come back inside without being on a leash or must you brave the elements with her?

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  2. Things sound very damp there. You're really getting buffeted by our increasingly unrecognizable elements. Now we never know that nature is going to throw at us. I'm glad you were able to enjoy some cozy time in the middle of all that.

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  3. How cozy you make the indoors sound when the wind rages around the outer walls. Hope you aren't in the area of vast flooding I watched on the news tonight.

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  4. We have been told that we will have a bitter winter, but we are still having late fall weather. I came back to a huge box of narcissus bulbs that the company had written were out-of-stock and then when I was on travel, they sent them! It was a mild day to plant them, but I had to carry buckets of water to soak them in because the hoses have all been turned off a week ago. I still have a petunia on the back deck that seems to be doing fine!

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  5. I appreciate this reminder that inclemency out-of-doors can promote what you describe: "We so rarely sit side by side, exchanging quiet thoughts and comfortable silences." I think you've just come up with another "reason to be grateful" there. I'll do my best, also, to bear it in mind over the coming days. I've been thinking of your post about trees a lot lately. Our "absentee" neighbor up the hill has embarked on a project of what's quaintly called "tree harvesting" to make some money off her abandoned property. This means for several days, perhaps weeks, when I sit at my project table looking up into the woods, what I'll be seeing and hearing is heavy equipment making a "skid road," then downing 100+ trees and driving the felled trees out for sale. Absolutely nothing we can do about it but wait for it to be over. Comfortable silences will be hard won during this period, and all the more treasured for that.

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  6. Lovely description We are accustoming ourselves to 'cold temps' of 40's 50's and rainy skies. We too enjoy the coziness of it all. .

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  7. Our storm blew in a lot of snow but now it's melting as the temp wends its way upwards. It won't last, of course. I like your descriptions of the winter beast. I like this weather of frittatas which are always useful to clear out the fridge...

    XO
    WWW

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  8. Great quotes to go along with your post. Wild weather is sometimes not pleasant. I hope you don't get any more bad winter storms.

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  9. Wind and rain are playing tag all around our house tonight. I'm sitting beside the fire, reading blogs, alone because my husband is out of town. Your quotations are most apt. The storms and flooding in the UK have made our news today.

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  10. Our "spring in November" still persists, even one week into December. It was sunny all weekend, allowing me to go for a run on the fields on Saturday, and a walk on Sunday. We saw a couple of storks quietly picking their way through a freshly ploughed field - something you wouldn't have spotted in this part of the world in December only a few years ago; storks would always migrate to Africa for the winter then.

    Looks like you really were right on time having the horse chestnut cut down! Good to know you were safe during the rain storms, and the power cut didn't present a big problem.

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  11. Wonderful Friko - how good to know you both felt well enough to cope with the down-time and to dwell on the raging winds, and any aftermath .. with thoughts of dealing with those appointments. Companionship is such a delight to read about and with the 4 legged companion all the more so.

    I do feel for all those swamped, or damaged from the wind, let alone the torrents of rain and then splashing streams pouring down the craggy hillsides. We've had wind, some rain - but today it looks brighter ... though I see heavy sea mist rising up across the Downs.

    Take care and all the best for the coming week ... cheers Hilary

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  12. It's good to feel safe indoors when the wind howls round the house.

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  13. The one consolation of this sort of season (even if it still isn't that wintry) is cocooning. Pull the curtains, keep warm, have something toasted and buttery with a pot of tea, an intriguing detective story to read and some pleasant music on the radio.

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  14. The winds do frighten me also and the trees that surround my home give me caution during a storm. I do tempt fate with a large Willow close to my home, but I can't bear to cut it down.

    I agree with you on enjoying the quiet when Mother Nature forces that upon us. The noises of the world have grown too loud and hard on our hearts.

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  15. Apart from the power failures, I rather like those enforced quiet indoor times -- time to read without feeling guilty you should be running about, being creative with what you have in the kitchen... as long as no one has an emergency, sometimes those are the very best. (That said, enough can be enough!)

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  16. We could use some wind around here in New York. We still have some leaves on the trees.

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  17. This gives a good impression of your life with the winter wind. I could really imagine it! We only had a day or two down here, and thankfully no rain. I hope you're far enough from the floods to be safe, I'm so sorry for the people afflicted.

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  18. There's nothing better than being snowed in -- unless it's being fogged in, or iced in, or watered in, or.... It seems as though, when we're finally forced to acknowledge our inability to control everything in sight, we allow ourselves some true relaxation and enjoyment. It's my own, ideosyncratic view, that part of the horror of the global warming tales we're told is the simple fact that we're being reminded we are not fully in control of the world. It's a funny sort of logic, after all. If we created climate change, then we ought to be able to "do something." But if it's a natural process, outside our control? Oops. There we are: limited and contingent.

    What is true is that many people live in such a state of radical detachment from nature, they have no sense of its cycles -- and even less sense of when it's just the right thing to do, to light a candle and put the kettle on.

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  19. Yes, camping out together before the fire is wonderful. <ostly we are having warmish weather. Our "bad" months come later when winter is actually here. I notice that Britain is turning away from renewables and back to fossil fuels again. I think Germany did this a year or two ago after the disaster in Japan.

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  20. our winter weather won't start in earnest til January though we have had some early winters. today is very mild and the sun is shining. good for me since the work I'm doing today is done outside.

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  21. Your powers of description never fail to impress.

    I love a cozy time by the fire when the weather is rough and cold outside. Such a good feeling!

    =)

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  22. What perfect serendipity! You need your horse fix now and again.

    =)

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  23. How nice that you found a German to chat with:)
    I was just in UK and Germany. Seems I still speak it well .
    Hope the rain goes though.

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