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puddlesharkThe Met Office had forecast rain, so I took my back-up camera, the secondhand Pentax, with me on my expedition this morning. Without first checking that it was working. Turns out it has died.
No photos of today's expedition, then.
Along the Piddle Valley, early on a grey morning, through Piddlehinton, and Piddletrenthide, and Plush. Everything is green, except the branches of the dying Ash trees, bare as winter. The Cow Parsley is starting to flower.
The road still flooded in places, but managed to park the car in the little layby at Folly Farm, carefully, between deep puddles. Onto the farm track, a gentle uphill climb, picking a way through the mud and puddles, then onto a narrow bridleway sunken between grassy banks that climbs Lyscombe Hill. Along the way, Cowslips flowering, Early Purple Orchids in impressively tall spikes, and as the way climbs, misty watercolour views of green hills and woods, and Lyscombe and the Blackmore Vale, fading away in the distance. Blackbirds singing from the hillside woods.
On the hilltop, a path through fields of lush spring grass, ankle deep, and very wet. Leather walking boots are soon soaked through. Every so often, a snail suffers misfortune: there is a small crunch underfoot.
The topography of Lyscombe is strange - a hill that forms almost, but not quite, a complete circle around a small valley. It was evidently a significant place in prehistoric times, because a series of nine bank-and-ditch earthworks have been constructed at intervals along the hilltop.
Cross-ridge dyke at Lyscombe (photographed in 2013, with my spaniel x Hound of Faerie, Pip, for scale). Late Bronze/Early Iron Age. They are quite enigmatic earthworks, these cross dykes at Lyscombe. The usual pragmatic explanation of ranch boundary makes no sense in this location. "Probably ritual", as they say.
Took off my coat, to sit on one of the banks, and drink coffee. The wind at my back, chill but not cold, strong enough to stir the grass. A Skylark began to sing, but lost heart. A lonely place, Lyscombe. Not a soul to be seen along the skyline of the hill, not a soul to be seen down in the valley.
From the hilltop, onto the chalk track down to the tiny village of Higher Melcombe, and back into arable country. Onto a narrow weedkillered path along the field margins. Impressions of tractor tyres printed into clay.
By the lovely old Elizabethan Manor complex at Higher Melcombe: a chapel attached to the house, and a jumble of old stone barns and courtyards.
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. It's now a bed & breakfast, if you fancied a stay in a room with panelled walls.
Onto a farm track back uphill, through fields of flowering Oilseed Rape, impossibly yellow under a dull grey sky. Then a moment of clear transition from the sweet but unpleasant scent of Oilseed Rape to the pungent scent of Wild Garlic, leaving behind open fields and sky, to enter a network of ancient sunken ways, between steep banks, beneath the trees.
At the Dorsetshire Gap, where four paths meet, and every path is lined with a carpet of white stars, Wild Garlic flowering beneath the elegant Beech trees and their pale new leaves.
I sat for a while in the sunken hollow, drinking coffee, under a dead Ash tree, next to the little box that holds geocaching Mysteries. A Song Thrush singing:
Also Chiffchaffs, who don't bother with the careless rapture, but certainly have the repetition thing nailed.
After a while I heard voices, and it was time to walk on. The ancient paths are still busy. Met a couple as I was ascending a path of mud and fallen branches and large flint nodules, and they were descending, and we exchanged news of the road.
Then time to leave behind the woods carpeted in Wild Garlic and Bluebells, and to emerge onto the open downs, where the skylarks were singing, and the rain began. No landmarks here on the wide, open hilltop, only grass below and cloud above. Took out my compass in the rain, to make sure I was heading west. Through a gateway where the mud helpfully tried to remove my walking boots, then onto a narrow stone path lined with Bluebells and Greater Stitchwort and Red Campion.
Onto the farm track back down to Folly, with the scent of the Wild Garlic beating the scent of the Bluebells 4-1.
Found a convenient puddle to wash most of the mud from my boots, then drove home along the green lanes, with the rain coming and going.
No photos of today's expedition, then.
Along the Piddle Valley, early on a grey morning, through Piddlehinton, and Piddletrenthide, and Plush. Everything is green, except the branches of the dying Ash trees, bare as winter. The Cow Parsley is starting to flower.
The road still flooded in places, but managed to park the car in the little layby at Folly Farm, carefully, between deep puddles. Onto the farm track, a gentle uphill climb, picking a way through the mud and puddles, then onto a narrow bridleway sunken between grassy banks that climbs Lyscombe Hill. Along the way, Cowslips flowering, Early Purple Orchids in impressively tall spikes, and as the way climbs, misty watercolour views of green hills and woods, and Lyscombe and the Blackmore Vale, fading away in the distance. Blackbirds singing from the hillside woods.
On the hilltop, a path through fields of lush spring grass, ankle deep, and very wet. Leather walking boots are soon soaked through. Every so often, a snail suffers misfortune: there is a small crunch underfoot.
The topography of Lyscombe is strange - a hill that forms almost, but not quite, a complete circle around a small valley. It was evidently a significant place in prehistoric times, because a series of nine bank-and-ditch earthworks have been constructed at intervals along the hilltop.
Cross-ridge dyke at Lyscombe (photographed in 2013, with my spaniel x Hound of Faerie, Pip, for scale). Late Bronze/Early Iron Age. They are quite enigmatic earthworks, these cross dykes at Lyscombe. The usual pragmatic explanation of ranch boundary makes no sense in this location. "Probably ritual", as they say.
Took off my coat, to sit on one of the banks, and drink coffee. The wind at my back, chill but not cold, strong enough to stir the grass. A Skylark began to sing, but lost heart. A lonely place, Lyscombe. Not a soul to be seen along the skyline of the hill, not a soul to be seen down in the valley.
From the hilltop, onto the chalk track down to the tiny village of Higher Melcombe, and back into arable country. Onto a narrow weedkillered path along the field margins. Impressions of tractor tyres printed into clay.
By the lovely old Elizabethan Manor complex at Higher Melcombe: a chapel attached to the house, and a jumble of old stone barns and courtyards.
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. It's now a bed & breakfast, if you fancied a stay in a room with panelled walls.
Onto a farm track back uphill, through fields of flowering Oilseed Rape, impossibly yellow under a dull grey sky. Then a moment of clear transition from the sweet but unpleasant scent of Oilseed Rape to the pungent scent of Wild Garlic, leaving behind open fields and sky, to enter a network of ancient sunken ways, between steep banks, beneath the trees.
At the Dorsetshire Gap, where four paths meet, and every path is lined with a carpet of white stars, Wild Garlic flowering beneath the elegant Beech trees and their pale new leaves.
I sat for a while in the sunken hollow, drinking coffee, under a dead Ash tree, next to the little box that holds geocaching Mysteries. A Song Thrush singing:
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
Also Chiffchaffs, who don't bother with the careless rapture, but certainly have the repetition thing nailed.
After a while I heard voices, and it was time to walk on. The ancient paths are still busy. Met a couple as I was ascending a path of mud and fallen branches and large flint nodules, and they were descending, and we exchanged news of the road.
Then time to leave behind the woods carpeted in Wild Garlic and Bluebells, and to emerge onto the open downs, where the skylarks were singing, and the rain began. No landmarks here on the wide, open hilltop, only grass below and cloud above. Took out my compass in the rain, to make sure I was heading west. Through a gateway where the mud helpfully tried to remove my walking boots, then onto a narrow stone path lined with Bluebells and Greater Stitchwort and Red Campion.
Onto the farm track back down to Folly, with the scent of the Wild Garlic beating the scent of the Bluebells 4-1.
Found a convenient puddle to wash most of the mud from my boots, then drove home along the green lanes, with the rain coming and going.
no subject
Date: 2024-05-05 01:47 pm (UTC)It is lovely to have some sunshine and dry weather though. I could believe summer was on it's way this morning as I cycled to Meeting.
no subject
Date: 2024-05-05 03:30 pm (UTC)It has been grey here all day, but it's definitely getting warmer.
no subject
Date: 2024-05-06 12:58 pm (UTC)We have another sunny day here, but I'm having a rest/domestic day after a few strenuous days.
no subject
Date: 2024-05-06 02:19 pm (UTC)We're having the more traditional sort of Bank Holiday weather here. Fog, followed by rain.
no subject
Date: 2024-05-06 07:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-05-07 03:15 pm (UTC)