Wednesday morning was unusually warm so I thought I'd take Nugget for an early run. At ten to seven I was suprised to find the sky was light already! Finally, a sign that we are on the downhill side of winter, days are getting longer! It has been a chilly winter of grey skies and muddy ground, broken by the occasional peak of sunshine or dump of crisp snow. It seems such a long time since we have felt warm and dry and quite honestly, it has been a dreary few weeks. The arrival of the first two calves this week has been another sign that spring is on its way, and the green tips of daffodils popping up are exciting beyond words!
A Rotherham winter is a completely different creature to a Marlborough winter; where a -8 morning was cold in Marlborough, we have just had two weeks of temperatures from -12 down to almost -20! Marlborough tends to have beautiful, mild, sunny days and we are missing those terribly with day after day of grey skies and frosts that never melt. But to every down there is an up, and the fine days here are stunning. The sun glistening on the ring of snow covered mountains surrounding us is breathtaking. From Mt Lyford, towards Hanmer, beyond Culverden and circling back up the Hurunui River towards Waiau, there is nothing more beautiful than the burning red sunrises and sunsets echoing off the snowy ranges that surround us.
The children are planning for spring and summer already, and Alex has weeded all the back gardens, digging out all the rocks for a fire pit to cook over! Phineas has discovered the joys of feeding scraps to the waxeyes and loves watching them scoff everything he throws for them. He has also discovered the calves and loves trying to touch their spongy wet noses! So, from the halfway point, we are all healthy and happy and all eagerly awaiting the real arrival of spring and warm days!
