curiouswombat: (notes from a small island)
[personal profile] curiouswombat
Just a few pictures today - some of the farm that our Christmas goose comes from and a couple of attempts to show brambles, so that Julia and I can compare the versions found here and in Washington State.

There are definitely signs of spring around - I had thought to go out with the camera this afternoon - but it is grey and wet today, so I didn't bother!



This is a very typical Manx whitewashed stone farmhouse. This particular one is Ballakilley (Church farm in English) in the village of Bride. I see it every time I go to Mum's - it is about 30 or 40 yards from her bungalow. And it is the farm where she buys the annual goose for us for Boxing Day.

Ballakilley Farm, Bride 2

Slightly closer so you get more house and daffodils and less trees -

Ballakilley Farm, Bride

You can certainly see that spring is springing.

These two pictures are just of a bit of boggy ground a couple of miles from the village - I just liked these -

Corner Thurot Cottage Road 2

Corner Thurot Cottage Road 1

Although I had actually parked the car there to try and take a picture of some of the brambles. It is difficult to really get the idea, but our brambles mainly grow as hedges - they are then cut back on both sides to keep them in some sort of order. This picture shows from about my head height up to a point about 10ft above the road that I'm standing on. The brambles grow in amongst the ivy and up onto the top of the sod hedge.

Corner Thurot Cottage Road; Brambles

This is taken a bit further along, showing how close I am to the road - and how the bramble branches are heading up towards the bushes and small trees on the top of the sod hedge -

Corner Thurot Cottage Road Brambles and gorse

You can see why, when I was a child, my granny always insisted on taking a stout walking stick when we went to pick blackberries because, of course, the best berries, what she always called the smeir grianey (sun blackberries), grew above easy reach.

A long time till blackberrying season though -let's not wish our lives away.

And a final sign of spring - the first MotoGP of the season is on TV - hurrah!
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