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RHS Rosemoor - the formal gardens
Jun. 19th, 2025 11:10 am
On my journey into North Devon, I detoured to take in a garden, of course...
( A rather grand floral interlude )
On my journey into North Devon, I detoured to take in a garden, of course...
( A rather grand floral interlude )
Watersmeet
Jun. 18th, 2025 06:14 pm
I have been away, over the border in Devon for a few days, staying on Exmoor. The hills are higher and wider and wilder in Devon, and the valleys and the streams rockier. One day I followed the Coleridge Way long distance footpath from Rockford to Watersmeet.
( An improbable number of pictures )
Half-seen things
Jun. 15th, 2025 01:19 pm
Followed the path beside the River Frome down to Swineham, through the reedbeds, where the breeze sets the whole landscape in motion, and you walk in a world of half-seen things and unseen things. The rattle of dragonfly flight, and a glint of sunlight on wings. The endless pent-up grumbling ("And another thing...") song of Reed Warblers. A black-capped Reed Bunting clinging to a reed as it sways back and forth in the wind - now you see it, now you don't.
( Don't get your hopes up. It's hard to photograph half-seen things... )
Roses in the rain
Jun. 5th, 2025 02:17 pm
Celebrated the return of the British summer - grey sky, rain and gales, at last! - and the acquisition of a new macro lens, by visiting the Secret Garden at Carey. Strangely, I had the rose garden entirely to myself. Just me, with my umbrella occasionally blowing inside out, and the roses uncomplaining in the wind and rain.
( Perhaps too many photographs of roses )
On Gussage Down
May. 29th, 2025 07:01 pm
Wind and cloud. I am grateful. I've missed having proper weather during our recent spell of nothing-but-sunshine. Followed the ancient Roman road from Gussage All Saints up onto Gussage Down, to visit the much more ancient Neolithic long barrows.
( Long rambling post with many pictures )
On Flower's Barrow
May. 25th, 2025 01:54 pm
The paths across the Army Ranges are open for the half term holidays, so I walked up to Flower's Barrow Iron Age hillfort on a fresh blustery morning.
( Cliffs & flowers )
Holme Gardens in May
May. 22nd, 2025 02:34 pm
Aquilegia longissima.
Another warm morning. The gardens at Holme looked lovely in the sunshine, but this harsh light is horrible for flower photography. My camera just couldn't cope with the light/shadow contrast, and none of my pictures came out well.
( Read more... )
Orchid season
May. 18th, 2025 12:30 pm
A walk through the streamside meadows near S. Farm, with the cuckoos calling. The wind full of down from the willow trees.
( Read more... )
Holloways & Hills
May. 17th, 2025 11:17 am
'Holloway' comes from the Anglo-Saxon 'hol weg', and refers to a sunken path that has been grooved into the earth over the centuries by the passage of feet, wheels and weather...
'The Old Ways' Robert Macfarlane
( A resolutely uncircular walk )
A day spent exploring West Dorset holloways, and remote paths across the hills, some of which weren't where they were meant to be. (The paths, not the hills. Though possibly the hills as well. "Who moved the hills?") Got very lost and tired and hot. Will post more photos another day.
Green Man Festival 2025
May. 12th, 2025 08:02 pm
Dancers and stalls at the Green Man Festival, Bradford on Avon. I don't remember the festival being quite this busy and crowded last year. Perhaps because the festival was being co-run by the town council this year, and the pound signs lit up in their eyes at the prospect of renting street stall spaces to as many sellers as possible?
The atmosphere was still wonderful - a little like being at a medieval great fair - but I did struggle a bit with the crowds.
( A few snatched photos )
