Jane Wheeler's Blog pool

holt lowes – a favourite place

Posted jane -->on 14th Aug 2019

a few years ago I stopped going to this place, because under the aegis of the Norfolk Wildlife Trust all the mature silver birches were grubbed up, and a lot of soil removed back to flinty ashy subsoil

in an attempt to get it back to the four thousand year old heathland it had once been.

the idea is to encourage the heathers – bell heather like this –

and ordinary like this –

and to cut the gorse back.

the trees got in the way and changed the biome.

but nature is irrepressible, and a few Dartmoor ponies put in to encourage the grass will not keep back the growth of trees. Once it was common land with rights of grazing and furze cutting for households in Holt, and presumably there were hosts of goats, cows, geese, sheep and people using the land. now it’s dog-walker territory, with some rare flora and fauna – sphagnum moss and natterjack toads, more common on Dartmoor than in Norfolk. the birch seedlings sprout everywhere.

not many people walk here either, it’s very quiet,

the ponies are fat and peaceful,

a little mischievous perhaps,

appearing and disappearing mysteriously amongst the remaining trees.

I’d thought we were going to get a wet walk but the morning warmed up,

there were gatekeepers and painted ladies flitting about,

and the regrowth of the gorse makes the paths sheltered.

one could have done with a sit down,

but Em and Bims got a paddle at least.

the flinty dry upper heath is cut in two by a damp trickle and pools – a small wetland.

this pool’s trees are full of willow warblers in early summer.

it’s the time of year for heather –

here the gorse cutter has succeeded in making it look like a heath.

it’s a place that’s good for winter walking with these dry peaty, sandy paths. of course, you can’t let dogs off the lead near the ponies – but I wouldn’t have Bims off anyway.

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woods; walking two dogs in scotland

Posted jane -->on 22nd Mar 2018

we have come up to St Andrews to dog-sit Emmett, my grand-dog.

it’s not always easy handling the two of them, the leads quickly get tangled up! Emmett is a bit of a grumpy old git, and pulls a lot.

now we are over the stress of a nine and half hour drive, which did not do either of us any good, she’s happy to have a friend to play with

we got held up by another bout of snowy weather and the car sat packed in the drive for two days before it seemed sensible to leave.

then two days of wind and sun and the snow has all disappeared, sublimated, straight from ice to vapour.

this is a beautiful place to walk. I’m sticking to the den (Scottish for a tree filled steep valley) and fields behind the house as we are better off not going anywhere in the car for a while. this old willow is one of a group of three growing on the banks of the burn before it descends down a fast rocky winding chute between the houses.

they half recline and seem to be supported by their side branches

on one side of the ravine there are graceful beeches, oaks, ash and sycamores

and two paths

the high road

and the low road which runs along side the rushing boulder-filled stream

the wood has been allowed to be its wild self for a long time. it has red squirrels as well as greys, but so far I have only seen greys

from it you can emerge into fields and walk back to the road, then find Spinkie den, or just double back as we have, to the open side of the den where there’s a surfaced path

the week before I had been into Bale wood with a friend, at home. it is quite overgrown with hollies and brambles, very different from the den wood, and so much ivy on trees too.

we discovered it has a lot of dying elms in it, many fallen

but others still standing and alive like this – impossible to tell if the heart is carved or an accident of growth

this pool is spring-fed – the highest I have ever seen it. the first time I came there it was empty and dry, full of beech leaves. then last spring the water was bubbling up through the leaf mould, making the water shiver. the wood itself is full of these pools and sumps and swampy places and a sluggish little stream running through.

compared to Lumbo den it’s almost impossible to walk through, the ways are blocked by massive fallen trees, brambles and holly. perhaps the den is clearer because it is used by walkers and runners.

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a month wiped out

Posted jane -->on 11th Feb 2017

post Tilda walks have been more thoughtful and exploratory, but far and few between as I have had a very unpleasant and recurring virus for four weeks, still haven’t got my sense of smell back. it’s really knocked the stuffing out of me and next year I will be getting the flu jab, no more cocky “I never get flu or colds”

before it really got going I had a day drawing and painting at our village hall art group

working from a December photo (usually I get enthused about a very recent image)

cropped into a small rectangle of MDF 12″ x 16″

then I missed one week and the next week was a holiday week anyway, thank goodness, so I didn’t miss anything. at this time of year, when my studio is cold, even with the woodburner, the village hall Monday group is a lifeline.

we had some very grim cold weather, but perhaps it just felt worse with a temperature and a sore head!

just over a week ago I thought “I’ve got to beat this” – the weather was really quite balmy for a couple of days; I got a hundred snowdrops “in the green” and planted them over Tilda’s grave to join the many hundreds already in my wild garden,

along with the aconites under the old plum tree.

the mistle thrush was singing every morning, and it was beginning to feel like spring.

I ventured out for a long-ish walk – in fact more or less my usual circuit, but through the wood instead of around the edge – it did turn out to be far too far for my wobbly legs, but it was worth it.

everywhere pretty wet

a roe deer slipped away, I just saw her creamy hinder end, and thick winter coat

ivy and holly keep the wood a little warmer, but the ivy is all browsed off by the deer as high as they can reach.

it was a shock to find the lower half of Cake’s lane completely flayed. it seems three times as wide as before – one side had not been done for a very long time. they cut it every three years, and it is necessary, the brambles and blackthorn would end up blocking it. and we will be able to see the primroses properly in the spring.

although a bit bald, a great subject for a painting – the white light looking through the holly tree, and the way the pale ripped stems of the hedge interact tone-wise with the dark tree and the lighter deciduous trees around it, and lots of texture. and the dark right-hand foreground trees in the hedge, all made mysterious and translucent by the hipstamatic app I use to take a lot of these photos.

the ground lattice-patterned by the tractor’s wheels too.

halfway through ….

I might just need to put a bit more lattice-y stuff into the bottom righthand corner.

yesterday I went into the woods again, not so far this time, I didn’t want the virus to come roaring back now I’m feeling so much stronger.

a grey day, but it’s a magical place

if you meet the gamekeeper it’s shooting land – but he’s been quite polite to me when I’ve run into him, even with two dogs in tow.

once the village kids played in here, and in living memory it was common land, appropriated by the local landowner to plant these oaks.

the track here is strictly “private” but I blatantly walked down here.

the old pheasant pens and feeders are this end of the wood, but I don’t see any signs of rearing birds here these days

looking out across a field to where the woods expand across to “Botany Bay”, full of roe deer and red too …

deep ditches; springs start on the gravel ridge that is the beginning of the Holt Cromer Ridge, a huge terminal moraine from the last Ice Age which gives North Norfolk its heaths and hills.

the focus of my next painting will be this entrance to the wood with its misty light and huge willow tree.

at this viewpoint it’s a black hole, but those trees are very exciting.

it will take a couple of charcoal drawings to get to grips with it I think; I’m looking forward to Monday.

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march is almost over

Posted jane -->on 23rd Mar 2015

most remarkable thing this month; the eclipse/new moon/equinox triangle.

I stood in my garden and I could see the eclipse – through cloud, so I didn’t need the unobtainable glasses. unfortunately the iphone I use as a camera could only record a very very white blob instead of the elegant crescent that was visible. at times the cloud got too thin, and I used a couple of sheets of paper with a pinhole, but a very small upside down image was pretty disappointing, compared with the cloud-veiled eclipse.

spring has been very cautious, with cold winds and a frost at night from time to time. the classic spring flowers are all out

hellebores, primroses, violets in Clip street, the japonica,

blackthorn, though the remaining bush in my garden which is covered in flower buds is in the shade, so it comes out later.

I am back in my shed too – a bisc firing last week cooked all but 2 of winter’s production.

today I’ve been washing some with iron oxide,

preparatory to slipping and glazing them, and there will be some glaze tests as well.

next I’m concentrating on bowls, mostly small

with little stem-type feet

and maybe some spoons

whilst birds and trees

and woods

get on with the spring business

secretly

but not so quietly in the case of the feathered sort

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cleaning the swimming pond

Posted jane -->on 26th Nov 2010

this trip was mostly about getting the pool ready for the winter. the rushes and the underwater plants have grown hugely; the rushes will die off and need cutting down and removing to prevent all the nutrients they have sucked out of the water being returned and the underwater plants need cutting back regularly as they reach the pool surface.

the pool vacuum cleans the gunge off the bottom, any stones get dropped into the milk churn before they get to the vacuum blades. we ran it off the generator, just as well, it forced the generator to rev as it asked for more power; that would not have done my batteries any good.

we are planning to install a solar pump in the spring, which will at last take the pressure off my solar system.

this is a very cold job, although we were lucky that the sun came out, after early rain.

this section has had the rushes cut leaving papyrus and a sedge type rush which don’t die off in the winter.

I made a huge heap of rush and pond plant, which will make fantastic compost when it rots down.

the underwater plants are cut with a scythe like a hammer head shark – a bobble at each end to protect the pond liner from the sharp blade.

no sharks in my pond, but this salamander is doing well. they are huge, can grow to 30 cm. he is Pleuredeles Waiti, a Sharp Ribbed Salamander

a line of orange warts along his ribs. in the summer he could be seen lurking on the bottom of the pond, like a little dinosaur.

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spring finca

Posted jane -->on 7th Apr 2010

back to extremadura for nine days at the end of march; sunshine and showers, house cleaning and refurbishing – some surprises, good and bad.

the pool full of blanket weed again, what a nuisance – I will have to treat this with an effective bio-weed killer – but looking beautiful because the surroundings are, the banks all covered with wildflowers. new growth in the pond has not started again yet, and still not enough sunshine to run the pump regularly.

the water is perfectly clear, and the level good, because of all the rain.

the finca has suffered from the incessant rain. a friend reckons they have had eighteen inches in the three months since I was there last.

then there was the camino, full of mini ravines, still running with water, almost impassable. the bulldozer man, Pepe, soon took care of that though, made a big ditch further up to keep the water off, and smoothed down an impressive track.

the flowers at the sides of the camino flourishing in the damp.

the nightingale ravine, a little way up from my finca, full of noisy chattering water, rushing under the culvert and down past the olive groves.

no nightingales when I was there, just a week too early. lots of cuckoos and hoopoes, competing with similar toned voices. most of the birds I see are just the usual ones, especially blue tits, great tits and blackbirds, although there are much more exotic things about to see, if you know what they look and sound like.

water running down the stones of the old moorish/roman muletrack, making it treacherous in places. five years ago, even though the winter had been dry, these places were still wet, but the dry years since have obliterated all signs until now.

water coming out of drainage holes in walls, and even over terraces in places where upkeep has been neglected.

the familiar grim fortresses of the granite peaks are decorated with carpets of yellow and pink.

it’s the season for the white broom flowers. earlier than the yellow broom, pretty and delicate.

all the tiny stone cupped meadows full of flowers

the lower walk round the bottom of the sierra to Arroyomolinos was almost one continuous stream.

I found tadpoles in about two inches of water where the brambles make this track almost impassable. I was turned back by lack of wellington boots on my first attempt.

rich grazing for this lovely red paterfamilias. his wife and child further back in the field stared at me aghast.

another stream back to life after five years drought.

this stream bed full of chamomile flowers restored to its old beauty.

sadly I was followed by three motocross riders. it is forbidden to drive quad bikes and motorbikes in these tracks, but they ignore the notices, which have been defaced.

almost like an english landscape. extremadura should be green eight months of the year. it will be interesting to see how long the green lasts this year.

the fig trees just starting to open their leaves, little green flames catching the late sun.

the house after a couple of coats of paint looking much better. the weather was nice enough at the weekend to have a late lunch sitting at this end of the porch in the sun.

on the saturday I was having a little doze on the porch in the afternoon, when I heard a whoosh and thump nearby, loud and strange enough to be startling. it turned out to be a short-toed eagle, sitting in a tousle-feathered heap under an olive tree, presumably with some reptilian prey in its talons. it flew off at the level of the olives, so I got no further views of it, but the next day it was back, wind-hovering over the finca. we saw about twelve griffon vultures as well that day, probably on some foray from the Montfrague reserve, where there are hundreds of them.

these white flowers are a little like a wild freesia, but no scent. I haven’t been able to identify them yet. they were everywhere.

lots of these pretty wild lupins, and of the tassel hyacinth, which I haven’t a photo of, another blue flower.

the finca I rent, next door, is also extremely wet, the water apparently coming from under my pool through the bottom of the wall here. clover seems to be growing really well in the wettest parts.

more of the pool. it certainly works well in the finca under these circumstances. one would hardly worry about what is growing in the pool itself, the surroundings are so gorgeous.

I’ll be going back in June, to set up for the summer and get a bit of swimming in myself.

driving to Trujillo on the way to Madrid to fly back to the UK, there were carpets of pink amongst the rocks, carpets of yellow amongst the trees. just stunning.

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scorched earth

Posted jane -->on 11th Jul 2009

back to Extremadura for a short week, via Stanstead airport and Ryanair . landing at Seville airport, at 9pm, thirty six degrees and a stiff breeze, like a fan oven blasting out. the hire car’s temperature display gradually dropped to twenty seven by the time I arrived at the finca, just before midnight, but the house was hot and stuffy, so I opened all windows and doors – it’s a good thing I have four external doors including the three metre folding door onto the porch – and let the breeze blow through.

so I slept downstairs in the studio bedroom, where it was more comfortable with the big sliding window and the door, and the inner door all open, and just the shutter across the folding porch door.� next morning it was deliciously cool as the sun started to climb over the sierra, and the light in the shade of the hill was blue and hazy.

I had promised myself a swim in the pool on arrival, but chickened out, too tired and it was too dark … in the early morning sun it reflected the sky, a circle of blue, and the first shock of chilly water� on warm skin was a refreshing wake-up.

control of the heat in full summer consists of managing the house’s insulation. all night and until about midday, throw all apertures wide open, allow the house to take in the cool. except the east facing doors and windows, which need to be shut and shaded as the sun hits them, after nine thirty or so. then as the sun and heat build up, first the shutter on the big porch door needs to be pulled across, and if its not too hot the doors themselves can be open, until there is a feeling of heat there. the studio bedroom can be kept open until four or five in the afternoon, as the breeze blows through and feels pleasant. after that the windows and door need shutting and the big curtains need to be pulled across the windows. I do keep the kitchen windows and the bathroom windows, upstairs and downstairs, open to allow a draught. then as it cools down start to open up again. we did have some slightly cooler weather last week, but the house is perfectly comfortable during the hot part of the day if this regime is followed, and even the upstairs bedroom will cool down quickly at night if the windows and doors are opened up and the air is allowed to pass around the house properly.

the finca is really dessicated now, scratchy dried grasses and wild flowers with sharp tack like seed pods which stick into the soles of your sandals, and winding ant highways, made as they take seeds to their nests. there are still a few green shrubs with yellow pea like flowers, vaguely similar to broom but more rangey and scraggy. all the rock roses have rusty brown foliage. wild carrot remains green and flowering; I love its graphic umbilifer flower heads, random variations dotted along the roadsides and around the damper parts of the finca.

this is in direct contrast to the pool, an artificial� bowl of water filled to the brim and naked to the sky, unlike the ancient stone-lined pozos and charcas which hold water naturally seeping from the rocks of the sierra, and which are usually covered with a layer of duckweed, their water levels low in the heat of summer. between 1400 and 2400 litres are pumped into my pond daily to make up for evaporation in full summer – a huge extravagance . swallows sip from it during the day, and sometimes only just manage to avoid collision with my head as I swim; bats at night.

I have found a place for the hammock, between two olives; there is not a more shady place with trees close enough together.

but here is a shady natural stone seat against the dry stone wall behind the house; it just needs a sweep and a cushion.

the waterlilies are the first plants in the pool to really take off, and they are lovely, even if a trifle exotic and colourful amongst the drab olives and browns of the sierra. the frogs like to sit on the lilypads, and they define the swimming part of the pool as opposed to the planted parts around two thirds of it.

iridescent damselflies flit around the reeds and rushes at the margins, and I hope I will have some dragon flies soon. the damsels are just the miniature version.

the water was a little green and the algae has been growing on the steps and the bench; due to the plants having been treated to some fertiliser, but it had already started to clear before I left. the carbonisation of the water through this fizzing jet is a pleasant sensation to swim through, like being in someone’s gin and tonic.

lazy days between the shuttered house and the cool pond. frogs chatter, even during the day. by the late afternoon there is shade on the pool as the sun swings round behind the knot of ilex and rocks.

one floats in clean soft water with the five peaks of the sierra hanging above, in perfect serene isolation, away from the real world.

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