Cotswold clouds

The other evening, Andy returned from work and immediately whisked me off on the motorbike (I just had time to grab my camera and helmet). Apparently the views up on the Shipton Downs, a five minute drive away at the top of a long, wide hill, were spectacular. And so they were. Here we had a 180 degree panoramic view of the Cotswolds and the amazing cloud spectacle on display.

This next picture is not very remarkable, but if you look right through to the back, you can see a faraway sunlight hill with deep shadowed runnels. This is the Uffington White Horse in the next county, Wiltshire, which I mentioned in my previous post.

I pushed my zoom as far it it would go, to see if I could pick up the white horse itself. I just about managed it, though the picture quality is poor. It is that little pale wormy thing scriggling down the hillside, just above the two fence posts in the foreground. It is actually about 23 miles away, so to be able to see it with the naked eye (or at least, a camera) is credit to our ancient ancestors who created it.

Back to breathtaking views - and clouds.

This is the crossroads we stand at, when we want to survey our kingdom. The bench is a recent addition, to the memory of a local man.

All around us we could see isolated cloudbursts, this one looked particularly heavy, a white stream plunging down into the land.

On the way home, we found another side of it. Here we were standing in bright, hot evening sunshine and somewhere over there, no doubt other people were wondering if it was monsoon season.

One final gorgeous scene, harvest stacks and, somewhere flying low to the horizon, three crows.