Stig of the Recycling Centre and a slodge around Snuff Mills

The trouble with cold, wet days in February is that jobs still have to be done and dogs have to dog (and take their owners with them). Thursday started with a trip to the tip with Son the Elder, where we saw this fox, who clearly has their paws under the table as far as snacks are concerned ... 

 

... and has done for a while, if this picture, taken by my friend Colin two years ago, is anything to go by. 

 

It was even wetter in the afternoon, but dogs - especially collies - need walking regardless, so Son the Younger and I decided to take Cwtch to Snuff Mills, where there are lots of trees to shelter under.

The River Frome running high and fast after all the rain

As usual at this time of year, beauty was in the detail rather than the overall loveliness of the place.

As the river was so full and the path very wet, we diverted up to Vassalls Park, but the going was no easier up there, the grass being pretty waterlogged ...

 

 

... so we dropped back down to the river alongside Stead's Stream, the brook that feeds it.

The Frome has burst its banks at this point. Cwtch took the high road ...

... while Son the Younger and I, who'd been so busy remembering to pay for our no-longer-free-parking when we arrived that we'd omitted to put our wellies on, picked our way along the side of the flooded walkway.

The river was still running fiercely, and it was interesting - and somewhat nerve-racking - to see how Cwtch's dislike of water was in direct conflict with her need to herd ducks.

 

 

Meanwhile the hazels still had one muddy foot in winter, one in spring - a bit like us, really. 

 

Travels with My Cousin

The last time my cousin, Sandra, came over from her home in New Jersey to visit was a staggering fourteen years ago, and we had a fantastic time. I think it was the Easter holidays, so I wasn't working fixed days, and we went on a road trip to Leeds, which included visits to Little Moreton Hall in Cheshire, Mr Straw's House in Worksop and Eyam in Derbyshire. And then a volcano in Iceland called Eyjafjallajökull erupted and all the planes between the UK and the US were grounded and we squeezed two extra jaunts out of her forced stay, visiting Isle Abbots and Shepton Beauchamp in Somerset, where our uncle lived, before walking from Langport to Muchelney and back, followed by a third trip to Kilve and East Quantoxhead. It was great. 

And funnily enough - although not for the poor folk of Grindavik - another Icelandic volcano erupted during this visit, but not causing enough air pollution to ground her flight this time. So she had just a week here, at a much less pleasant time of year, and during term time. Nevertheless, we still managed to meet up a couple of times, for which I'm grateful, and who knows, hopefully I'll get over to visit her in America sometime too. 

The photo below was taken by her at Easter Compton farm shop, where we had breakfast before my Auntie Mollie's 90th birthday party, the main reason for the timing of the visit. There are few photos of the Northerner and me together, so I'm really pleased to have this one.

With my cousin Joy, Sandra's sister, and her family

My late mother's six surviving brothers and sisters (from a total of eleven)

With as many of my cousins as could get to the party - we number 24 in all

my boys

Thursday was the day I had Sandra to myself, except of course there were still people who wanted to see her before she went back, so it was largely a matter of balancing everyone's needs, coupled with a truly gruesome weather forecast. In the end we booked a table at the Little Harp in Clevedon, where for a few years at the end of their lives, I took my parents on my mother's birthday. First, though, Son the Younger drove us to Portishead, where we spent a couple of hours with my friend, Liz, who knows Sandra well, and her husband, Paul. 

Clevedon was drizzly, as promised, but when we emerged from the pub, fortified by our lunch and the company of our cousin, Sarah, who lives in Clevedon, her dog Foxy, and the friend formerly known as 'Er-over-the-Road (who's really called Cathy and who knows Sandra well from previous visits), there was a window of drier weather so we made our way along the front to the pier. 

Looking in the opposite direction, we could see an interesting little coronet of cloud over Flat Holm, which is probably impossible to make out in this photo and which dissipated very quickly.

Of course, there had to be a photo call. Here's Cathy and Sandra ... 

... me and Sandra ... 

... Cwtch, Son the Younger, me and Sandra ... 

... me, Sandra, Cwtch and Cathy ... 

... and Cathy, Sandra, Cwtch, me, Sarah and Foxy.

Sarah pointed out the house where our grandfather, Jack Hill, lived before his family moved to Bristol, property prices being comparatively much cheaper in those days.

Clevedon Pier

Me, Cathy, Cwtch doing dressage, Sarah and Foxy

Mist on the Severn estuary at Sand Point, Flat Holm and Worlebury Hill 

And then the week, and Sandra's visit, was over. Thank goodness for keeping in touch on social media. 

Nameless Wood and Sheep Wood (again)

On the map it looks as if it's possible to walk from the top end of Pen Park Road in Southmead the four miles to Penpole Point on the Kingsweston Estate, overlooking Avonmouth, through woods, with only a few A and B roads to cross, and one day I'll do it, but this walk was mainly about seeing how navigable the stretch of woodland that runs between Charlton Road and Knole Lane is.

Son the Younger, Cwtch and I parked off Pen Park Road and crossed the green space adjoining it, which looks to have an old hedgerow across it that I'd like to inspect once it starts leafing in spring. We then cut down between houses, where there was a good view over to Cribbs Causeway and Spaniorum Hill ...

... and followed the concrete path until it turned into the wood, which doesn't appear to have a name, and which I'll therefore call Nameless Wood for the purpose of this account.

This, apparently, is where Mr Sanders lives

First celandine on the first of February

At the far end of the wood we emerged onto Brentry Hill, where I'd never been before. The Georgian pile above was designed by Humphry Repton and completed in 1802. By the end of the century it was a reformatory for inebriates, then an asylum for the mentally ill, before becoming part of Brentry Hospital. It's now divided into posh apartments for the rich. 

There was a view of the Severn to the west, though it wasn't clear enough to be visible in photos (though directly above the roof of the mock Tudor property, you might be able to make out the new Severn Bridge). 

We might have turned back at this point, but I was still full of my visit, the previous week, to Sheep Wood, so we continued our walk. 

On the opposite side of Passage Road, a stone dated 1908 marking the then city boundary

We then entered Sheep Wood and made our way to the original facade of the Lord Mayor's Chapel. 

It was still hugely impressive, and just as incongruous, the second time around.

jelly ear fungus

There were more snowdrops on display than the previous week ... 

... and rhododendrons. (I have to admit, although I hate rhododendrons in native woodland, the siting of the Chapel wall is so implausible, the nasty, ground-gobbling, native plant-swamping plant with flowers like crumpled red serviettes and creepy leathery leaves doesn't seem as misplaced as it might.)

On the way back I began to rue my enthusiastic continuing of our walk, as I was wearing wellies and they began to blister the balls of my feet. Any distance, and walking shoes or boots are essential. 

The fallen tree has rotted away, the ivy is still flourishing and bearing berries

Can spring be far behind?