Earthquake? Fortunately - No

Last night there were rumours of an earthquake in Saffron Walden. However, the sequence of events was wrong for an earthquake and it was a small explosion at a sub-station in Quendon; about seven miles away from Saffron Walden and three miles from Newport. However, there have been very small earthquakes in and around Saffron Walden in the very distant past.

The First Snowdrop

There has been a lot of rain over the last few days and the pond is now even bigger than ever with more and more ducks arriving every day. The squirrel is also back and having his life made a misery by Dougal trying to capture him; some hope!

Today there is one snowdrop out in the front north end container. There may be more in the garden, but I have not been to look. When I last looked, last week, there were quite a few some way out of the ground, but not showing any white on them.

Yesterday, my husband used the ride-on mower to collect a lot of the leaves, which had accumulated and not been cleared. There are still some blowing around the garden, it was quite windy, but it looks much better.

We have a Pond!

The natural pond has been more or less dry since the summer and was still dry yesterday. During the night there was heavy rain and this morning an enormous pond has appeared. There are also a dozen or so mallards, both male and female swimming around and we will probably have moorhens and coots appearing before long; then if the past is anything to go by we will have nests and ducklings before Easter.

Partial Solar Eclipce and Quadrantid Meteor Shower

A partial solar eclipse occurred today and although much of it happened below the horizon, it was visible around 0900 hours in my garden. although my photographs are not as spectacular as some you will find on the Internet, they are not bad considering they were taken with a small Nikon Coolpix, not with specialist equipment.

Tonight there will be a Quadrantid Meteor Shower and weather and cloud cover permitting this should also be visible from my garden, although photography with my equipment is unlikely to be very successful.

Garden at New Year 2011

The garden looks very dull and boring at this time of the year with everything looking dead. There are still more leaves on the ground to be cleared, the worms will take some of them to enrich the soil; the rest must be cleared.

There are a few signs of spring, the snowdrops are showing green shoots, just one centimetre high and some polyanthus are almost in bloom, but that is all.