Home Sweet Home

I’ve lived down here in Herefordshire for 15 years now and I’ve been blogging since 2011. Occurs to me I’ve never shared any photos of the village I call home so a combination of circumstances allows me to correct that.

When I’m at home either working or lazing I’ve been trying to do a bike ride each day to keep fit and help with knee problems. Last week the cold weather arrived and cycling is not much fun in freezing weather. I changed approach and went for a walk around the village and took a few photos.

Madley’s most striking feature is its church. On a clear day its a very attractive photo subject and one I can see from my desk where I’m typing this

The surrounding area is a little bland, mainly muddy arable fields with distant views to the local hills and a glimpse of the Black Mountains.

Not somewhere you’d drive miles to see but seeing as I can explore without getting in the car it’s not too bad especially on a clear sunny winters day

The other point of interest is we have a major satellite installation on the outskirts. You can just make out the top of the dishes in the photo below

You can just make out the first fall off snow on the low hills below and this prompted the day out me and TJS had the following day and subject of my last post

On the Sunday morning we woke up to this!

It never snowed especially heavily but it did snow continuously for around 24 hours. We had close to a foot of lying snow once it stopped

These photos are from almost the same walk as the first one, so you can see the change!

Many paths were impassable not due to the depth of snow on the ground but the weight of the stuff on the trees and bushes

It was a weird, white and silent world to walk through. The local wildlife seemed unperturbed

This is my road and it remained white and slippery well into the week

The day after, the skies cleared dramatically and it was a glorious day. Well other than the hour I spent digging the cars out!

It would have been a great day for a mountain walk but the roads were still bad and I was supposed to be at work. I had to be content with a lunchtime walk around the village, again following the same route

It was magnificent. Snow dusted trees and fields of pristine snow

I took loads of photos. It’s the first time I’ve seen snow like this (other than mountains) for a long while

There were lots of people out enjoying the snow. Many businesses were closed as were the schools

The church looked different with its caps of snow on the roof

The trees were beginning to shed their snow in the warming sun, a couple of times on my head!

I’ve repeated the walk a couple of times since and now it’s becoming familiar. You start to notice the finer things and enjoy seeing them again as you return

The sheep in the field are like old friends (insert your own smutty jokes as required)

A final view of the church from the meadow behind the house

And a sunset from the front garden

Hope you enjoyed the tour and the snow 🙂