A Winter's Tale

It is a winter's tale
That the snow blind twilight ferries over the lakes
And floating fields from the farm in the cup of the vales,
Gliding windless through the hand folded flakes............ Dylan Thomas

Listening to the weathermen over the last couple of days, it appears that we are entering some kind of polar Armageddon this week, deep snow and Siberian winds are going to blast across the UK, especially over us softies in the south of the country. In reality, to us older generation at least, this is not likely to be much more than what we used to consider as normal winters in our youth. Winters when as young children, we still walked to school through deep snow and blizzards, snugly wearing the woollen balaclavas and gloves that our mothers had knitted for us. To be greeted in the classroom by a welcoming teacher and a warm fire in the corner, because the schools rarely closed. On returning home, our mothers, who rarely went out to work, will of made some warming and nourishing food for all of the family to tuck into, although a hot bath was normally only a weekly event.
Not so these days unfortunately, a series of mild winters will have left a lot of people both inexperienced of such winters, or prepared for how to deal with them and no doubt as I write this, panic buying of all manner of foodstuffs will be taking place in many shops. Mothers who have to be out at work all day will be praying that schools don't close, but teachers will be encouraging the opposite.
We will soon see how this week all pans out.

I often mention the Isle of Sheppey where I live in North Kent and the poor quality map below shows where we are. To the immediate north of us is the Thames Estuary, which makes it's way past the top of the Isle of Grain towards London and further out from that are the lower stretches of the North Sea. By land we are 50 miles from London. The Island is about 10 miles long by about 8 miles wide and The Swale, which you can see at the bottom of the Island is tidal and winds it's way right round it, creating the Island that it is. The Isle of Harty, which is not actually an island and the little red duck shown there, is where the nature reserve is.

The last couple of days have been beautifully cloudless and sunny but bitterly cold and I took this photo at dawn yesterday. looking towards the reserve.

The flock of 170+ White-fronted Geese and some Barnacle Geese, are still present on the reserve and here you can see a few of them with odd Greylag Geese in the early morning light.

And lastly, despite the very cold weather, the catkins on the willows alongside the reserve are starting to appear.