Apparently, spring means that the days are now officially longer than the nights but sometimes it takes some believing. However, the daffodills are out, the crocusses are in full blume and the cows are in the fields so who am I to argue the point.
Being a keen bird watcher, I expect to start and hear sky larks soon and the return of Lapwings and Osprey, followed shortly afterwards by swallow's, swifts, sandmartins and house martins. We don't really get Cukoo here as they tend to focus upon read warbler nests to invade and we don't have many reeds here. However, the Green Woodpecker, Greater & lesser Spotted Wodpecker and of plenty and bot Tawny & Barn Owl thrive quite well here. Or permanent Herron is always a guarding pest on the local pond and both Blackbird & Tit family are all starting to build nest's. We have a good population of duck here and one particular one called Macdonald will be dead very soon as Im told that the game shooter has him in his sights.
Last week was the family meet up at St Patricks day and the day as always was long and happy, pitty the English can't find a way of enjoying St Georges day. All you need is a barrell and an excuse and it's game on. Im told there is a barrell in the west country that will go down very quickly soon and it will be down for a few years to come. Im quite busy this week at Holmfirth/Huddersfield and under pressure to get organised a bit quicker by both seller and buyer.
20th March 2016.
It is officially the first day of spring and you could be forgiven for thinking it was early summer today as it was quite warm in the sun. As the skies were blue and the air was fresh, I took the opportunity to take some pictures and hense I drove up to Cannon Hall which has many features of interest when it come to photography. After a few hours of click click, I decided to pop to the office and as such drove over the back road past Emley and down the hill to Holmfirth, it was swarming with tourists today. I did find time and a swift glass of the black stuff though.
I was on my travels today and our graphic designer showed me a message with a mesage within, I thought I would share that with you below. Its quite humourous but also quite truthful in these times of hardship.
On my way across Sheffield, I passed some artwork, presumably made by the steel works as a tribute to the craftmanship they are able to produce. Ifyou look below, you will see a huge steel scorpion wich lives outside Forgemasters in Sheffield.
My friend the graphic designer game me this picture to share with the cheeky women who often write to me to support my determination. I thank them all from the bottom of my heart.
Whilst the sun was out and the skies were blue (usually a feature of winter not summer) it was a good excuse to take some pictures of Cannon Hall and the surrounding gardens.
A very common sign that spring has arrived in England is the abundence of daffodils, crocus and snowdrops, with Bluebells due in a few weeks time.
Here is whats commonly known in England as a monkey puzzle tree. I have no idea why it's called this as we have no native monkeys living in the UK and despite the suggestion that the trees are imported, History prooves this to be false as the semi precious gem stone known as "Jet" is made from pre-historic forrests of this tree and one of the most common places to find "Jet" in England is in the north east of Yorkshire in a town known as Whitby where a very vibrant industry of Jet production has been in existance for many years and the product is found locally in the ground.
This plant, "whatever it is known as", appears to thrive quite well here at Cannon Hall. It reminds me a plant I have seen growing in Argentian in the high andes but weather it is related is something I have no idea about.
As anyone who follows my Facebook account will know, I have used this sceen & view as a picture on many occasions. The colours in the background change with the variety of seasons we are lucky enough to benefit from in the UK, as it is early in spring, green is in abundance today.
