Silver Morning Frost, Closure of Local Post-office, Cakes Galore, Fire-wood Supplies

A glorious hoar-frosted morning with the sun shining and the valley full of mist. Mist in the valley usually indicates that we are going to have a beautiful day with blue skies and golden light, once it has lifted. Often we are above the mist and look down onto a sea of silver-grey hiding the valley bottom and as it lifts the view expands and the surrounding hillsides are revealed once more.

In the last week or so our little local post office has closed, sadly. This is not due to any government cutbacks but to the retirement of our postmistress who has run a tiny post-office from the front room of her house for forty years. What she doesn't know about the neighbourhood is not worth knowing.
With her retirement it means that we will now have to drive about 4 miles to get to a post office instead of the pleasant walk of about a mile, to buy stamps and have parcels weighed. It is unlikely that anyone else in the village will want to open a new post-office in their front room , or that they would even be allowed to, I suspect. Another link in the rural community gone.

The other day I was asked to do huge baking session for a coffee-morning being held in a local village hall and the Farmer has insisted that I put a photograph of  our cake-laden kitchen table into the blog. He loves cake and I do seem to spend a lot of time baking, though rarely in these quantities, thank goodness.


Elder Son & KT are settling back into normal life after their journeyings and are finding it very cold after the heat of Sydney. They have brought back 1,000 photographs (which will be edited down to a more digestible number) and they clearly had a marvellous time.
Elder Son has quickly got back into the routine of milking again and he and the Farmer have begun work on putting up new fencing on the edge of a wood and moving some large trees that were felled. They will be taken to the saw-mill that we have here on the farm, to be planked and stacked up for future furniture- making projects and the stores of fire-wood will be replenished. It a deeply satisfying sight, stacks of logs drying in readiness for the next couple of years requirements. We are very fortunate in being able to keep ahead of our firewood needs and having well-seasoned wood to burn.