Those precious late summer/early autumn days when there is faint tang in the air, yet it is still hot during the day.
Now that the cricket season is over, our days off can be spent rediscovering old and much loved tramping grounds.
These are all snaps of the stunning scenery around the Salperton Estate. There are decent footpaths running around it and they lead one through majestic, bosomy fields and valleys.
Above, our halfway stop, the picnic view.
Our walk is a good four and a half miles and as it nears the end, so too the afternoon begins losing heat and the air starts to feel moist and chilly.
We finish our ramble in the estate proper, the frigidly grand Salperton House pretends that we commoners are not there. It keeps a proper and dignified distance.
Today, January the first, seemed a fitting start to the New Year to get my cycling legs back. I haven't been out for a ride since breaking my arm back at the start of October and felt a bit nervous about my first outing. It was a cold, dank afternoon, with a hint of mizzle, but the snow is almost gone at last. Despite the gloomy weather, Marjorie and I were exuberant to be out again, rediscovering the freedom of the road. There was barely a soul around. I stopped to say hello to the little Shetland pony who seemed warm but bored. Stopping again to look at the thaw water swelling the stream.
This is our version of 'Downton Abbey', cunningly hidden by judiciously planted trees; this is as much as a commoner will see from the road, when winter has stripped the branches. Time to head back to the village and home, feeling properly hungry for the first time in weeks. Fresh air and exercise - can't be beat.
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.
Sadly my last blog post was also the last time we managed to get out for a good long ramble. Since then, work has taken over again and I've been back in my studio. One thing I do try to do every day though - if only to stop myself going completely potty - is to get out for an hour or so every day. I need to feel space around me, to escape everything and everyone. There are several footpaths round our village and although some might find doing the same walk day in day out rather repetitive, there are always new things to see, if you keep your eyes open. At one corner of a field there are usually hares to be spotted - if one is stealthy. Or a birds nest tumbled from a tree, to be examined. Moss, pheasant feathers, horse hairs and grass...the softest, warmest bed for vulnerable little chicks. Look, a tiny blue feather - Fancy suggests that it may be a peacock feather, as there is a peacock in a village across the way - though I did wonder if it was a swallow breast feather. I usually to do my walk in the morning, but sometimes I prefer to spend the day working and treat myself to an evening stroll. The light is different and if the weather is fine, a warm, golden balm coats the countryside... ...and the Moon rises to say a quick hello to the Sun before he sinks below the horizon. There she is, just above the trees, almost hidden in all that blue sky. The horse chestnut avenue is looking spectacularly pretty, but already the 'candles' are dying back, revealing embryonic conkers - a reminder that this exquisite spring, my favourite season, is all too fleeting. There are many small miracles to stop this daily walk becoming dull - but mostly it is enough to be out in the fresh air with the open sky above me.
With the worst of my deadlines over, we celebrated with a good, long ramble around one of our favourite valleys. This walk takes longer than most as there are always so many things to look at and wonder over. It begins with an unspoilt meadow full of unusual grasses and at this time of the year, cowslips. Cowslips used to be a common spring flower, but, like most of our native wild flowers, suffered a massive decline in the 20th century. due to 'agricultural improvements'. They seem to be recovering a little, and this field was happily covered in them. Our start point looks down into the valley bottom which we will end up in; remember that large copse to the left and the yellow rapeseed field; they reappear towards the end. It was to be a proper treasure hunt.
Early orchids. Not particularly rare, but uncommon enough to be wondered at. The weather was overcast and a cool wind blow through the apple blossom as I looked backwards down the path - what happiness, to be out in the open after weeks of being cooped up. Lambs are still being born - there were some very tiny ones scampering about and we watched in amazement as 15 or so buzzards circled overhead. I had always thought the stories of buzzards taking new lambs was an old farmer's tale, but with so many obviously watching the flock, we did wonder. A Cotswold drystone wall carefully repaired - - beautifully integrated with the older stones. Waste not, want not. No cement or mortar used here. And another mend, further on, the wall dipping delicously with the contour of the land. We stopped for a little picnic - hand made pork pies from our local Wychwood Deli, handmade here in Gloucestershire by the Cotswold Pudding Company. They were just the right size and unlike any mass produced pie I've ever had. Full of pie we strolled on, but stopped in our tracks when we saw, some way away, a ewe who had apparently just lambed. My zoom lens picked up the afterbirth still dangling from the birth canal and the lambs themselves were wobbling about, with no farmer's mark on them. We realised that many other ewes were lambless (but large) and the lambs tottering about were, like the earlier ones, very small and new. So (ignorant as we largely are over these matters) we had to assume that they were quite capable of sorting themselves out, as indeed, this mother was. It also cleared up the 'mystery' of the massed buzzards. Probably on the lookout for afterbirth and any sickly or dead lambs - I still don't believe they would go for healthy ones. We stood quietly watching, some distance away and I took this little film of what must have been the first hour or so of their lives. In the background, apart from the wind, you can hear a skylark and a bumble buzzing past.
Further on, in an opposite meadow, the fathers taking a well earned rest after all that reproduction. Now we began to descend to the valley bottom. Where, in the scrubby woodlands, we found our first badger skull and a few other boney delights which went into my bag. I'm not overkeen on this part of the walk; despite the bluebells and the cowslips, it has a slightly murky, unwholesome atmosphere as if something bad happened here a long time ago.
But at last we emerged on the wide track of the valley bottom - last seen in my earlier photos and the copse of trees which looked so bunchy and comfortable from our viewpoint. And the once-distant-now-near rapeseed field. Time to head home and a scramble up the slope to the left. Finding on our way some small flowers which I've never seen before - another indication of how rich this patch is in variety and how generally sparse our flora has become. This tiny blue chap is Chalk Milkwort - - and this funny, scruffy thing is Glaucous Sedge - not really a flower, botanically speaking, but a grass. Best of all and in sad, solitary splendour - two wild Pasque Flowers, incredibly pretty, rather rare and growing only on a few selected chalklands in Britain. A day of treasures - some to store in the memory chest and others...
