Turkey

Observation:

It is alleged that animals cannot digest turkey and yet humans insist on eating it on High days and Holidays!

Icicle invasion

After hour upon hour of snowflakes falling and settling with precision on every surface that they could cling to, we awoke today to a landscape of icicles. They had formed in rows creating lumpy bumpy patterns. Longer and longer they kept on growing forming icicle families, grouping themselves like football supporters along anything and everything. The pictures of the icicles have been taken from 20th December with the last one at the very bottom taken on Christmas Day, 25th December. We had cleared off as many of the icicles as we could but within a short space of time new ones began to form. It became so cold that one froze at the moment it was about to drip and the last picture in the line below shows the drip frozen in time – a magical picture!

A frozen drip still attached to a newly formed icicle – picture taken on Christmas Day

Snow white

I wonder if this year will be forever known as the ‘year of the snow?’ The snow began in November followed by icy cold snaps then more snow and ice and now here we are once more and the sky has flushed its payload once again; and everywhere is snow white.

The snow covered pond!

Buried bird table in the snow white landscape

The back garden snow covered landscape taken through the back window

Table of snow

Fir trees with the local blackbird surveying his territory …

 

Hide

Anyone who has any knowledge about cats will know that you can never make a cat do anything it doesn’t wish to do …

 

 

… and so when the cat was presented with a present of a cat hide none of us thought at the back of our minds that she would ever enter it, jump on top of it, let alone use it!

Miracle

Man has created a miracle. He has invented a drug that encourages longevity; protects against the onset and recurrence of many cancers, guards and assists against heart disease and stroke; cures aches and pains … in fact we are still finding out the wonders of one of the oldest drugs known to man Aspirin. Used since the dawn of time in its more natural form of willow leaf and bark it was eventually synthesized in the 1800’s. Several forms were tried out until in 1899 it eventually went on sale as the little white tablet that many of us have taken for varieties of complaints and ailments over the years.

It was cast aside by many in the medical world because of its blood thinning properties which in some people led to major bleeds in the stomach, gut and sometimes brain. There are a few new facts that have recently been released regarding Aspirin – firstly, there is now another drug that can be given alongside aspirin that protects the body from bleeding, secondly, only tiny doses of the drug are needed to obtain the long term benefits or protection against cancer and aid against stroke and heart disease, thirdly, taking the drug for just a few years (approximately four) will enable it to carry on its medicinal protection for over twenty years.

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Urgent Notice

When taking Aspirin – it is safest taken on a full stomach after main meals with half a tumbler of cold/tepid water.

Always consult your own doctor before self-medicating on a daily basis.

Never use a dose for this purpose that is higher than 75 mg.

This drug costs less than £0.02 per day – in fact, it is just over a penny in purchase cost.

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Hoarfrost

Worcestershire has shed most of its snow but as temperatures plunged to even colder depths we have been coated in a thick white hoarfrost that has tumbled over everything like strands of desiccated coconut. The sun came out for a short while this afternoon so I ran outside with my camera. Here are a few pictures that I have taken in my garden of some New Zealand Flax dried dead flowers and spiky leaves; a fir tree; a single white rose; some bamboo; garden plants in the border.