Silence, deep silence . . .

. . . in my Winter

Wonder . . .

LAND.

I think that silence is probably the main thing that those of us who live in the country are looking for -- or rather, listening for. I am lucky. I get a lot of it. And even when Concorde used to go over, that was something to rush out for and look up for (too late usually) and to tell the time by. Then one would just go on looking at that extraordinary thing up there called the sky.

What fabulous snow we had on Thursday. The world went silent and the lambs looked a lovely dull yellow against the snow; that is, the white ones did.

Our lambs are in pairs: one black one white. Can't think what their mothers were getting up to.

This picture is from the Wiltshire BBC site -- a listeners' picture from Mary and Philip Ashbee-Dobbins from Cricklade. Thanks for it so much, you two. It's just what it was like. I took a whole lot myself, but with my good old camera, not my crap new digital, so you will have to wait -- or rather I will have to wait, as no one is looking at my blog but me! Extraordinary how this doesn't bother me; blogging is, I am finding out, one of these nice lone activities that one can enjoy perfectly well for oneself. It's a commonplace book, of course.

I have one Fieldfare that comes to my old Bramley tree every year. This lets me know that Fieldfares live at least five years. He's a nasty piece of work and chases off any other bird coming near with all the signs that you could read about under the heading

'Aggressive Bird Behaviour'. He lifts his wings and tail and goes for the little darlings.

Does anyone else know of a semi-permanent lone Fieldfare? Of all the birds in the world, the Fieldfare is known for hanging out in flocks. And the flock is there, anyway, on and off, just in the next field.

It's raining tonight. All I have left of the snow is my snowman, and, on the grass at his feet, his hat, sc

arf, pipe, carrot, head and bits of coal.