Martin's Mag.

Walking along the beach near Burnham-on-Sea, we noticed a slightly ominous-looking Hinkley Point nuclear power station several miles away in the mist across the bay on the North Somerset coast.

Hinkley Point Power Station across Bridgewater Bay.

A combination of weather conditions – the “beast from the east” and Storm Emma – has resulted in us being plunged back into Winter, ironically on the first day of meteorological Spring. We were under a Yellow Snow Warning (a term crying out for a hyphen) then Amber, but as at 3:00pm today, the condition is now RED! Hatches are battened and the wine uncorked. Bring it on..!

The view from our window at 4:00pm today.

Lucy has been joining me on runs with the Bristol Hash. She’s not keen on other dogs, preferring to chase sticks if anyone will throw them, but she is sort of making friends with a few regulars. Here we are (second from left) with some of the other highly-tuned athletes, all anxious to get back to the pub (this week The Beaufort Arms, Hawkesbury Upton).


Pictures by © Doctor Z.

Despite a cold night, frog spawn in our pond! Hurrah! Not long now. The little fellas stand a better chance this year as Lucy is doing a reasonably good job keeping the garden free of cats.

A cold day in deep mid-Winter. The Severn Railway Bridge used to cross the Sharpness canal then the River Severn, ending on the west bank at Lydney, before it was damaged by a shipping accident in 1960 and dismantled a few years later (but not before Sal and her family sailed under it on one of their earlier boating holidays). This pier column is one of the few remains, standing between the canal and the river.

There is a “Ships’ Graveyard” here, on the east bank of the Severn near Purton, where the hulls of over sixty former working boats were scuppered, mostly in the 1960s. More details here.

A happy new year to all my readers! As this is a publically-accessible site, I have no idea how many or, more accurately I’m sure, how few you are. But, it’s not all about you! It’s about ME!

Christmas passed pleasantly and, happily, fairly uneventfully. It’s the way we like it. Saw Miles and Flo and various Wheelers, and a few friends. January is now well on it’s way and – one of my favourite quotes – “if Winter comes can Spring be far behind?” I’d assumed for years that this was Shakespearean, only recently discovering it was that Percy Bysshe Shelley bloke. So much for A-level English. And thank you, Google.

Winter views in Portishead…

A sad day. We have finally parted company with our faithful old camper van. We have had Freda for over eleven years, during which time she has carried us, uncomplainingly, to Spain twice (as far as Valencia and, later, Cadiz), Italy, Switzerland, France many times, Belgium and Netherlands many times, and all over the UK. Considering she was twenty-two years old she would still eat up the miles on a motorway. She has, though, gone to a good local home, so we may still see the old girl chugging around North Somerset.