Willows

It turned cold and starry last night and today has been chilly but sunny. After the endless miserable weather I was itching to get outside all morning, but with both J's PAs absent this week, I was busy giving her breakfast, supporting her with her online art talk (on the theme of dance in painting today, with a wide variety of interesting works selected by the participants), then giving her lunch. Meals take a very long time. Around three I could see the willows at the bottom of the orchard glowing orange in the low afternoon sun and knew the light would soon fade, so I dragged her away (temporarily) from her remaining leek and potato soup, wrapped her up and took her out to the deck. Millie cat sat on her lap while I walked down the garden and into the orchard. 

I think I've blipped the willow thicket before. When we moved here in 2013 we had a group of tall willows, but just before our first Christmas here we were very sad when a violent storm uprooted them all. We expected to clear them and use the wood, but by spring it was clear that the trees were still alive, lying horizontally but putting up lots of new, vertical growth. Now we have a large thicket, with thick undergrowth giving cover to all kinds of life. 

Millie is my first extra of the year. She likes being J's lap cat, especially when it's raining, but after a while she followed me into the orchard, where she bounced and skipped around, then raced back to the house before the door closed behind us. 

I didn't post yesterday's entry till after lunch today, when I miraculously retrieved it after my computer behaved unreasonably with it late last night; so if you haven't seen my small dove, flick back if you have a moment. Also, today's landscape looks much clearer if you have time to view it large.