I have been propagating comfrey as both a plant for pollinators and a liquid fertiliser tea plant. However, I've had to net it against the chooks to get the babies growing so no use to pollinators at the mo, tho I do have a packet of phacelia seeds to sow which should help redress the balance next spring and summer.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
It was a Beast from the East - strong winds in from Siberia - that froze Britain solid for three months. The sea froze in Essex. The Thames froze. The canals froze. Most docks froze. Most of the country had no rubbish collection for weeks. The South West was worst hit. Train crashes. Motorways and railways shut. Avalanches. It killed half of the UK bird population. 12 people died in the Boxing Day blizzard. Water, coal and electricity rationing. Pretty much all sport was cancelled. It was compared to the Blitz. The arguments about spending money on proper snow plough supply and rock salt, were going on then too.
I was fascinated that in 1963 Glasgow had the first white Christmas for over 20 years. I thought it might be might be more common there.
I remember it well, @Fire. Saw the programme too, which brought it all back... my main memory, living in rural Hertfordshire, was snow over the tops of my wellies, and following the coal lorry down the road with a basket, "gleaning" lumps of coal which were accidentally dropped. My primary school remained open throughout, to my disappointment.
Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.
Wow - an essential watch. I was alive at the time but can't remember much of it. They also kept on mentioning 1940 & 1947. How much more people had to suffer during the blitz and post-war rationing!
Clay soil - Cheshire/Derbyshire border. I play with plants and soil and sometimes it's successful
We had a very elderly neighbour in Todmorden in the early 1980s, who told us about the winter of 1947 in the area (Calderdale, West Yorkshire pennines). Italian POWs who were in a camp in Calderdale were helping to dig out cars stuck in snowdrifts on the steep road up to Heptonstall, the village above Hebden Bridge. They freed a car, then heard a "clang" from their shovels, and found there was a double decker bus buried below the car.
It sounds a pretty tall tale but in the time we lived there, we experienced snow which drifted between the stone walls bordering a road high up the valley, filling it completely to about 5 feet depth. This was in a "normal" winter, so I guess the 1947 story might just be believable...
Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.
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I was fascinated that in 1963 Glasgow had the first white Christmas for over 20 years. I thought it might be might be more common there.
I play with plants and soil and sometimes it's successful
My dear late Mother certainly had fun .
It sounds a pretty tall tale but in the time we lived there, we experienced snow which drifted between the stone walls bordering a road high up the valley, filling it completely to about 5 feet depth. This was in a "normal" winter, so I guess the 1947 story might just be believable...