If you enjoy this blog, you may well be interested in a Writing East Anglia workshop at Writers’ Centre Norwich, with Jeremy Page, an author steeped in the local landscape. He writes sad, soulful books about loss, which seems to be the only appropriate form for the hardness of the fens. But perhaps other, more [...]
Entries Tagged as 'countryside'
Blue skies
February 10th, 2010 1 Comment
East Anglia has been under a cloud the last week or two – endless, unremitting grey skies and drizzle ranging to snow. There was only one sunny weekend day recently and I dropped everything to get outside. It was so beautiful I have to share.
The morning sun shone right through the flint church at Whaddon.
The [...]
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PD James
December 27th, 2009 3 Comments
“East Anglia has a particular attraction for detective novelists; the remoteness of the east coast, the dangerous encroaching North Sea, the bird-loud marshes, the emptiness, the great skies, the magnificent churches and the sense of being in a place alien, mysterious and slightly sinister, where it is possible to stand under friable cliffs eaten away [...]
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Snow!
December 18th, 2009 4 Comments
My relatives in Colorado and Vermont will snigger, but I’m excited. We had nearly four inches of snow fall overnight, I got stuck on a train in a blizzard for several hours, and this morning I did the obligatory running round the garden in pyjamas and wellies, photographing the snow.
Unfortunately it was too cold to [...]
Tags: snow
Winter
December 12th, 2009 No Comments
Back home, and picking up the pieces after the end of a big project – pottering in the garden, which is too wet to do anything with, tidying my desk, watching the birds whose feeder I’ve only been able to refill late at night by torchlight up til now.
Cambridgeshire is cold and damp right now [...]
Tags: winter
Hiding from the weather
November 14th, 2009 1 Comment
I dreamed of sailing last night – the gale raged around the house all night and still hasn’t blown itself out. Rain is battering the windows and the bright yellow leaves of my cherry tree are all over the garden. I just saw three young persons with enormous rucksacks trudge wearily past – not the [...]
Tags: cam valley orchards · food · quinces
Foraging in the hedgerows – Hips and Haws
October 11th, 2009 1 Comment
Spending a too-short weekend at home before going back to the city, loving the crisp autumn weather. I’ve spent as much time outside as possible, preparing the garden for winter, painting the arch that leads to the vegetable garden and going for a long walk today. The hedgerows are groaning under berries this year – [...]
Tags: foraging in hedgerows · hawthorn berries · homemade jellies · rosehips
Homesick
September 23rd, 2009 3 Comments
I’ve been working away for the past few weeks and staying somewhere with no internet, which is why the unbroken quiet on the blog front – apologies. I have a couple of good posts lined up for when I can get some time with an internet connection, but last night I walked back through the [...]
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Justin Partyka in Norwich
August 28th, 2009 No Comments
On Tuesday the Justin Partyka show opens at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts. I’ve written about him on here before and I do think it’ll be a show worth going to see – there will be more than fifty of his images of the East Anglian countryside and its people. It’ll be on til [...]
Tags: countryside · exhibition · Justin Partyka · photography
Walking towards the Wash
August 19th, 2009 2 Comments
I didn’t want to leave the North of East Anglia without getting to the sea, and so I drove into the lanes near Kings Lynn and found a place to park and walk in the direction of the sea.
To be honest, I never found it. But it was a wonderful walk anyway.
The hedgerows are fecund [...]
Tags: the fens