The B from the E...

As a nation we are somewhat obsessed with the weather: Oscar Wilde famously said that conversation about it was 'the last refuge of the unimaginative'.

According to recent research, 94% of Brits admit to having conversed about the weather in the past six hours. The other 12 percent said that they would rather discuss how good we all are at math(s).

 And so you won't mind me being true to type will you. 'TYPE'...there, I've done it...and that's true! You will probably already have guessed that, a.) I need nursie to  adjust my medication, and b.) I am referring to the polar vortex nicknamed "The Beast From The East". More of that in a twinkling. First, let's do as Julie Andrews does, and start at the very beginning; although I have to say here that I much prefer the song 'Do-re-mi' penned by the great Woody Guthrie, to the song of the same name from 'The Sound of Music'. However, like the Brits at the winter Olympics, I have gone off piste.

I know, I know, blog updates here for 2018 have already become as rare as...as rare as...the UK winning the Eurovision Song Contest, and I have my reasons for being AWOL but I am here now, so I had better stop bitchin' and get on with it.

A short while ago, it all seemed to be going well regards the onset of spring...

Every year I go check the crocus flowers under the plane trees that line Tenterden High Street. On a rare sunny day this year, I found them already in full flower and to my delight, the honey bees that I always think herald the coming change of season, were busily working away...

At another local haunt, I spotted an orange ladybird out and about...

I even came across a dock bug on one of my walks...

Then one, not so fine day; there appeared a few flakes of snow...

Soon there were real, 'proper' snowflakes falling from the sky...

Then, before you could say 'Taumatawhakatangihangakoayauo-

Tamateaturipukakapikimaungahoro-Nukypokaiwhenuakitanatahu' (Quantum Jump if you are interested: you know, the ones with a drummer that looked like Animal from the Muppets?), the beast from the east blew in from Siberia, and this green and pleasant land was transformed overnight into something more akin to Greenland itself. Although the pedant inside me says that Greenland actually has more ice than snow?

Bug hunting would have to be put on hold again. Not that it ever got into full swing, but there had at least been a little oscillation which had now been almost literally frozen stiff. Still, as somebody once said to me: 'for every downside, there is an upside waiting in the wings'. 

The sudden proliferation of the white stuff would at least provide me with an excuse to visit and photograph one of my very favourite little lanes in this fair county... 

A stroll down this magical lane leads eventually to my favourite local woodland. I ignored my wellington-clad, already starting to freeze, tiny toes, long enough to have a quick squiz round and grab a few pictures...

March is but a few days away and so bug-hunting and the associated blog updates should soon be underway with renewed vigor, vim and...vitality.

Meantime, who knows what this last photo is?

My latest article for The Wealden is HERE