Welcome to 2026, Everyone!

 I'm back in work, the year 2026 now appearing as my blog date, and I still haven't quite shaken off this wretched bloody cold that I feel like I've had for 6 weeks. Then to cap it all off, snow and ice arrive as I go back to work on my bicycle. 

Always a joyful experience that. 

What is rather more joyful, is the early appearance of some of our winter flowers. Just away from the Great Plain Tree of Friary Gardens, beautiful aconite has come into flower, little blonde choristers wearing their green choral robes up on what was once a medieval earthwork. 

In the cemetery, I even saw crocuses blooming in December, and even more shocking was the sight of a buff tailed bumblebee queen grazing noisily off mahonia next to the main road. 

I worry that spring will be over by the end of February at this rate! 

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 07.01.26 

Snowdrops. In November.

 My idea of Spring is perhaps different from others; I consider it to be the season when the ground starts erupting with new growth and flowers, new colour among the green and browns. 

That being said, the idea that Spring stars before Autumn has finished is a bit of a reach. Yet here we are, snowdrops are out in the cemetery. 

Si

All text and images are copyright CreamCrackeredNature 01.12.25 

Back Out on the Trails

 Running day today, a bitterly cold one and it is only going to get colder. 

The birds knew it was new year, you know. Since then, there is so much more song and noise in the dawn. I have local robins and blackbirds singing to greet me as I open the door in the morning. Birds are getting territorial, alarm calls chacking out from the blackbirds, and robins aggro-strutting in the old oak wood at the park.

On the water the mallard drakes are in full breeding colours, bottle green heads glowing in sunlight. Goosander are on the two lakes, the pieballed battleships of the duck world. 

On the ground, snowdrops and aconite are out in flower, cowslips too in the library gardens. It is my favourite few months of the year now, as the cemetery changes colour every month as I run through it. I'm loving running again, when my body will stand it.

I'm trying to rediscover the joy in moving through nature. 

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 15.01.24

Winter Walks

 As I said in my last post, ankle or not I need to be getting mobile again without getting too crazy and hurting myself. The weather just is not condusive to pleasure cycling - now that the temperatures have dropped again cycling to work is quite enough thank you! - and I've really missed just walking around listening to Radio 4.

So, as "Counterpoint" with Paul Gambaccini gently quizzing away in my ears, I've wandered the cemetery and the park, photographing flowers, trying to get a photo of the Blue Lake goosander that doesn't make them look like little black dots, and remembering the therapeutic power of walking in nature. 

I intend to continue as the days lengthen. 

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 18.01.23

Who is First to Bloom in 2023?

 At the weekend, I took myself out on my bike and on foot  - if it wasn't far! - to see if anything was in bloom, especially after that brutal spell of cold weather that although hadn't dropped any snow on the ground, there had been some very hard frosts. 

Of course, there's one location that always seems to have the first flowers emerging, and when I rode off down there on my bike, in the same little patch of ground as ever, snowdrops were out. 

I swear it's always the same bulb that comes up first every year, the first of the little white flowers always seems to be in exactly the same place by the Polish Air Bridge memorial in the cemetery.

I wonder how many years this has been the case - I'm sure I've been finding them in that spot for over ten years or more!

The other place I like to look is in The Friary Gardens, where the aconite grows. I've been down a couple of times, and haven't spotted any little yellow spots of colour under the trees yet. However, they've been beaten into flower by red dead nettle. 

I think it might be a bit early for them yet. 

At work, we have some rather sorry looking daises poking up, but the most vivid sight is not a flower at all. It is the vivid pink coral berries, where a mere couple of months ago there were bees feeding off the bright coral berry flowers 

I will keep you posted - we also seem to be a bit ahead of the rest of you here!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 06.01.23