One week Sandilands is yellow, the next white and fluffy as the dandelions go to seed. For the first time, I see a charm of goldfinch feeding on dandelion seeds on a village verge. In my own garden, pairs of them arrive taking beakfuls of sheep wool, that I leave around each year, for nesting material.
As a child the village shop sold 'pop', aka fizzy drinks, in big glass bottles. The label had Penrith Beacon on it, and flavours included dandelion and burdock. It was black. When you'd finished your pop you took the glass bottle back in exchange for 5p which was then spent on penny sweets from the rows of glass jars lining the shelves.
The blackthorn blossom is still not open, later here than in the sheltered places, as storm Kathleen’s winds are howling from the South. If you’re seeing white in hedgerows now, it’s blackthorn, white blossoms of spring against the dark wood of winter bare, holding ominous spikes, that can puncture leather. Blood cleanser, digestive aid and rheumatism easer.
A couple of weekends ago I was talking about attracting wildlife to new build gardens at PACT’s tool and seed swap day. Collecting information through a variety of sources, a neighbour mentioned that at Knepp Estate, Isabella Tree said their squadrons of goldfinches came back when they let the blackthorn grow. Birds love thickets for food and shelter. Here in my urban garden the bluetits haven’t come back to nest yet.
It's a kind of humorous poetry to be planting a windbreak in 60mph winds, straight off the fell, tearing down the fields and whipping away the warmth from our fingers. We need shelter to grow and thrive, just as the creatures of our world do too, whether it's in an open landscape or a small garden.
The snow is lying in the hollows of the hills which rest above the fields like a great backbone with their white ribs of snow. The cold tang in the air, and I'm thinking about prevailing wind direction and there isn't one. We're so close to Cross and Great Dun fell, that give us a North East blast, but then on other days there's a southwest current rippling over the valley from the lakes.
I didn't think two and a half acres was that big but now standing in the middle of a field of two and a half acres of grass on a howling winter day, it feels huge. Maybe it's because there are a few trees to create interruptions on the horizon which my eyes scan to fall on Blencathra in the West.