As we wait for the various right-wing journalists, lobbyists for the tobacco industry and corporate executives who now hold positions of power in this country to do something, anything, to help get us out of this state of incarceration — I go on a walk, look at the meadows, and don’t hold my breath.
An awkward spot to tag, for sure. It takes a certain devotion. Though the river is very low at the moment, with it not having rained properly for weeks.
One of those shots where if I’d had any longer to think about it, it probably wouldn’t have turned out as interesting. But this hat — attached to a person of course, but they’re not the subject of the photo — was spotted passing below my house today, and I just got the shot before they walked on into the shadows.
“And stretch that right leg… hold it…. hold it…. feel those calves working!… and rest.”
A shame the bird’s body is a bit grainy but this was done on a very long zoom. And on a beautiful morning, as you can see. The blog’s third magpie, according to my over-detailed files.
OK, this picture isn’t high art but at least it’s something different, as the council decide to take advantage of the lack of traffic and resurface the road outside our house. I’m glad there is still a semblance of working life out there but I’d quite like to go to work myself, on occasional days (did I really say that? It’s true though). This is only the fourth picture to feature people who are not family members since the end of March.
I’m still trying to keep the step count up, but the weather turned rather grim. Being up on the moors above the town in squally drizzle made the exercise less pleasant than it might have been. But it kept me moving.
The moor here is a riot of cottongrass. I feel it comes out at the wrong time of year — it looks like it should be a December plant, a proxy for snow.
I know I am not the only one to whom this has happened, but I have lost all the little things, outside my immediate home, that gave my life pleasure. Except one — and that one thing is walking, experiencing the countryside. I spent the day reading, planning, looking forward. That’s a large part of the fun, in fact.
And yes, I need the reading glasses to do it. So they can take their rightful place on the stage.
I reckon that under these circumstances, everyone is getting to know their immediate local environment better than they might have done last year. Reached through the woods near my house, the meadows on the upper terraces of the valley, near Old Town, are currently a riot of buttercups. Their yellow carpet is a more natural version of those blankets of oil-seed rape that one gets in more arable districts: and more pleasing, somehow.
And so it has come to this after eight weeks of lockdown — abstract shapes in the washing-up bowl. And on a Friday evening too. But they are pleasing shapes, at least to me.
The plum tree in the garden is warming up for one of its summers of abundance. It has hundreds of these little plumlets happily soaking up the sunshine. If you want fresh plums, come see us in August. Hell, you might even be able to travel by then.
Being 42 