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January: A Walk Through A Year In The English Countryside

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January

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Crow was right, the storm did come and then it just kept on coming.  Since the end of last month and for many weeks now harsh weather conditions have re-written this island’s coastlines. Rainfall, the likes of which have not been seen for more than a century, leaves the countryside drowning and submerged in its deluge.


Swollen rivers burst their banks and advance across the land engulfing everything in their path, time and time again with the rising tides.  A brief respite, then the tide turns and the waters rise once more, such is the ebb and flow of life.
Coastlines changed forever as once famous landmarks are beaten down, swallowed up and swept away by the sea, lost for all time.
Animals taken by surprise as the swirling waters lap at their feet and they turn to run, but many are trapped by the relentless rising floods waiting for rescue by farmers and friends.
The Isle of Avalon returns and we catch a glimpse of Arthurian Somerset once more revealed and the Lakes and the scenes are set as they once were. Perhaps then, all is not just legend and fantasy.
My mind returns to the scenery around my own village and I notice how the pattern is repeated here.  Where once there were fields, filled with sheep and horses, swans and ducks now swim.  Seagulls perch upon fence posts jutting out above the sunken landscape, stretched across the scenery like a string of luminescent pearls.  Yet in all this wet and coldness a glimmer of hope and warmth for those who see. 
Rich, sumptuous colours of red and green and gold, beam like a beacon of hope from the plumage of a male pheasant as he is lit by the light of early morning sun.

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Ivy vines proudly display their plump clusters of black berries like an Aunty’s brooch. The silver birch tree stands proud and tall, her bare branches draping elegantly like delicate curtains opening to reveal curling bark peeling back to reveal shiny white new growth.
Tiny green shoots of the first spring bulbs begin to appear amongst the hedgerow and in gardens and the very first signs of new buds show themselves on the twigs of bushes and trees.

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Wildlife tentatively re-appears, slowly awakening from the winter slumber as if deciding whether it is time to start the cycle of life once more, or do they return to their cosy, warm nests for a little longer ?  Warm indeed it has been, unusually mild for winter, but oh so very wet.
The rains come and the floods keep coming, land is washed away from beneath our very feet de-stabilising our very existence.  Foundations crumble and buildings tumble, communities rally, Nature speaks to us all; let us listen.

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Previous years dry weather left river beds dry and cracked and reservoirs very low, we were in drought. Nature is simply addressing the balance, balance in all things and all around me birds tweet and chirrup and sing beautifully and  all is well. 



Blessed Be.


A Kindle Edition of Blessed Be is now available to buy or loan.

Blessed Be has been fully formatted for your Kindle and includes full colour illustrations from this blog along with an additional set of remedies and recipes for each month.

Please follow this link to buy or borrow Blessed Be for your Kindle.

For more information about this writer – please contact sarah@sarahnet.com
or visit us at www.sarahnet.co.uk. © 2014 sarahNet Ltd

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Lady May lives and works in the beautiful English Hampshire Countryside. She is a qualified herbalist and witch. She follows a way of life that that has been passed down through her family for generations. She has taken the traditional three degrees of the Craft to become a High Priestess and is still learning. Lady May knows she has been Blessed and greatly honoured at having been taught and mentored by some of the country’s oldest, wisest Elders and followers of the Craft: Witchcraft in its truest sense as it has been practised for thousands of years, with the greatest respect for all living things.

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