...winter and rough weather

Sunrise on the winter solstice !

The winter solstice was a washout. Sunrise over the sea looked like matt paint shade card...for shades of blue- grey.

The view to the horizon looked like Rothko painting

 There was a full moon on Christmas Eve and Aurora Borealis on Hogmanay but apart from these highlights it has been an unremittingly dreich month.

Luckily the downpours held off for the New year's day dip in the sea, a custom inaugurated by a few of us some years..come to think of it, some decades... ago which has grown in popularity.

Flooding hasn't been the problem here possibly because the winds have been from the south west. It is when the wind is easterly that the sea unleashes its full fury on the sea wall

The harbour was filled with foamy spume which covered boats and gear and blew over the quayside.

The relatively mild winter has kept the more unusual visitors away from the bird feeder, the woodpecker and nuthatch have only paid the briefest of visits and the long-tailed tits, goldfinches and black-caps haven't been seen. We are hoping it is the availability of food in the countryside that is allowing them to stay away. They only visit in severe weather giving the garden birds, the tits, sparrows, robins and wrens the run of the feeders when they can find food else where. The blackies have pecked their way through all the windfall apples from the eating varieties and are now started on the cookers. Presumably, they prefer the former for the higher sugar content but they obviously have a sweet tooth just like us or at least a sweet beak. One shouldn't attribute such characteristics to wild creatures but they do always go for the eaters first!

Strange weather, seasons out of kilter, makes for odd happenings. The daffodils we planted along the verges to make a golden gateway to the village are starting to bloom, The aconites are in flower at the same time as the Lenten roses. The pot marigolds are showing their sunny faces alongside the winter flowering jasmine...the only sun we've see this year.

The world seems topsy-turvy and that's without the elections and referenda to come this year.

2016 looks to be an interesting year.

There is an old curse... May you live in interesting times !

We shall see.