Spring is nearly here!

[pollygog]

Walking our dog down by the river Elwy in St Asaph this morning I was looking apprehensively at the river raging through again under the stone road bridge carrying the A525. The water was pouring over the protective concrete apron on the upriver side of bridge, at about a foot high over the concrete which means anything carried down on the flood water will slam into the stone bridge arch instead of the concrete apron.
The normal winter river level is about two feet below concrete apron.
That's worrying! see pic below: this pic was taken earlier this year in winter just as the river was fining down after a big flood. There have been some much larger tree trunks than this left behind after floods. Particularly so two years ago when DEFRA cleared the banks of large trees upstream.

It was good to see our resident pair of Goosanders flying along upstream this morning, the male gleaming white in the low watery winter sun. Despite the river in spate, they reappeared half an hour later, as they hurtled past on the river near The Roe diving alternatively and disappearing downstream at a rate of knots.
We haven't seen the Sika deer on the Old Denbigh Rd since the heavy frosts around the start of this month.
A male and a female Blackcap are still appearing at our feeders and the pheasant still calls twice a day to top up.

[roselanekoi]

We've certainly had a lot or rain recently. I was walking up Moel Famau with the dog this morning and I could see in the distance that the river Clwyd had overflowed its banks in several of places near Denbigh. A lot of the fields were flooded although this is not a rare occurrence as these fields were also flooded a couple of months ago.

[pollygog]

The tree huggers, the druids, the flat earth society, the paganista and the great unwashed were at Stonehenge this morning to welcome the new year from the old on the shortest day of the winter this morning.
It does me good to see my fellow nutters, other barmy buggers and kindred spirits still keeping up our time honoured but slightly suspect traditions alive.

We know it's miniscule, measured in minutes rather than hours but, from tonight it gets to be lighter!

It couldn't get much better either as Liverpool FC. are now officially champions of the world from last night and Manchester City beat Leicester to drop them 3 points. We play them on Boxing Day but we are still 10 points ahead in the Premier League. Yes: a very nice Christmas present.

I had a surprise this week in my greenhouse too, I grew spuds in tubs earlier in year and stacked up the compost filled tubs at the back of my greenhouse after I removed mature spuds.
I found several green stalks had sprouted up at back of greenhouse this week and discovered a good few new potatoes had developed in bottom tub. Another Christmas present!

[roselanekoi]

I went for a walk with the dog up Moel Famau this morning and could see that the Black Grouse have once again put up the decorations on their Christmas Tree.

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[pollygog]

Where the Black Grouse actually seen putting these decorations up?
There are Red Grouse (Grice?) too up there on the moors, and they are reputedly far jollier birds and regular whiskey drinkers too apparently. They are far more likely to be responsible for decorating the tree: whilst inebriated!
Just a thought Colin.

[pollygog]

Sorry for long delay in posting but a long winter sunshine break then the terminal decline of my computer prevented me from any postings.
Finally, all is well now as the nice friendly troglodytes in the Tweedmill rebuilt my computer for me so it's catch-up time.

Storm Ciara raging through today is a good opportunity to sit warm and snug in our conservatory watching the torrential rain fill up my pond and the gale force winds howling through the loud protesting firs and ash trees in the woods at the back, bouncing and bending them.
The cock pheasant was up for his breakfast late today, 9:30am and never hung around long, he was very nervous of the wind and was gone in half an hour.
Plenty of Goldfinches and long tailed tits again, flitting about feeders between torrents, they came out top in the RSPB bird count this year.
Frogs are back earlier than ever! I have been fishing coupled frogs from my pond and filter since 18th January (when I got back home)

11:00 pm on a very mild wet night in late January I found and photographed a Great Crested Newt with a caterpillar? in it's mouth on our back doorstep! -see pic below, how amazing is that -!!!!!
It's been so mild I have actually fed my fish a couple of times in January this year and my outside apricot is opening its flowers this week.

[pollygog]

Here we go again!!!
Despite spending millions of pounds on very elaborate flood defences, the Elwy is still untamed and rampaged through again yesterday, wrecking homes and property at will.
The flood defences did work, very effectively deflecting the worst of the floods away from the city's lower portion but the sheer volume and speed of the flood affected the upper reaches beyond the limits of the flood defence walls, see pic's below.
On the second pic of caravan you can see where the water level had risen to an hour or so before when it stopped raining. Flotsam is strung along the fence to the right and water stains are clearly visible on garage doors and fence posts.
On the first pic the new flood defence wall is just visible, it continues on to the left running along and up the other side of the pub.
Looking across to St Asaph cathedral, just to the right and below on the lower river level are the football pitches, completely flooded again.
The police had closed the road going past the New Inn at the junction with the Lower Denbigh Road so we couldn't see if the pub was flooded.

[roselanekoi]

Sad to see St Asaph has been flooded once again. Raising the river bank in one area and then high spring tides and heavy rain usually means the flood waters have to back up and overflow the bank further upstream. I could see on the news that Llanwrst also had severe flooding problems.

Living on a hill some 150m above sea level means flooding is never a problem at home although it can be very windy. Fortunately storm Ciara didn't effect us too much with the wind being no worse than it is ½ dozen or so other times a year.

[roselanekoi]

It's not just St Asaph that gets flooded. I had to cut short this morning's walk with the dog as the foot bridge over the ditch on my usual walk was flooded.

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The picture is a bit blurred as it was blowing a gale which made holding the phone steady a bit difficult.

[pollygog]

I had a trip down to Aberystwyth on Tuesday and despite the almost continuous rain of late was pleasantly surprised by a lovely sunny day, all day.
Another pleasant surprise was seeing the mountains around Cadair Idris capped with snow, dazzling pure white in the spring sunshine, a pretty uplifting view particularly with hundreds of daffodils out in flower around Brithdir!
Another surprise was on the BBC Wales breakfast news at 8:00am it was announced that the A487 between Machynlleth and Aberystwyth was closed for a few days for repair due to flood damage and there was a 60 mile detour through Newtown. With this in mind, I left earlier than planned and when I got to Machynlleth the road was open!
Just the road surface had been planed off for about a mile between the stone clock tower and Ysgol Bro Dyfi, it was really rough with lots of cones; but open?
Another bonus to end the day, at my B&B near the castle, I got a free upgrade from a single room/bed with shared toilet facilities to a double with en-suite. This was caused by cancellations due to Coronavirus!