Green River

Rose at Time Stand Still, a photo blog has recently published two posts with old Creedence Clearwater Revival hits as their titles, so here's another. The Green River that John Fogerty sang about was Putah Creek in N California, a long way from the green river I'm talking about here.

This is the River Mel, just a short walk from my back door, and it's about as far as I've been venturing during the rainy weather we've been having. I have managed to do a few things in recent weeks: I met up with my American second-cousin who, as it happens, comes from mid-way between Putah Creek and John Fogerty's childhood home in Berkeley, though being a few decades younger than me she may not be aware of the connection; then I went to a wonderful concert by Irish accordion-player Sharon Shannon and her band; oh, and I'm a year older than I was last time I posted.

My "green river" is extremely green right now after all the rain. It's also "green" in the other sense in that its waters are very pure having percolated through the chalk hills just to the south of here. I may well have seen a water vole, though it was difficult to get a proper view through all the vegetation!

On the little footbridge I noticed the fallen elder flowers floating on the thin layer of water that had collected on the hand-rail. I wasn't expecting to find such a delicate floral arrangement on a piece of rusting iron!

In places it looked positively tropical, a rain forest on my doorstep, though the chilly raindrops falling on my neck told a different story. The logs and stakes you can see in the river are here to maintain a fast enough flow to keep the stream clear.

From time to time you'll see birds like Kingfishers, Little Egrets and Grey Wagtails frequenting these waters.

There's a small area of meadow where you might come across the beautiful flowers of Meadow Cranesbill.

The village is very fortunate to have a public footpath running alongside the little river, as both the path and the river cut through the properties of people who live on this side of the high street - it could only happen in England! The exact history of how this came about is something of a conundrum and may be the result of a change in the river's course some centuries ago.

However it came about, it's a lovely place for a stroll and I usually meet someone either walking their dogs or just taking the air, though not so many on rainy days like this!

The Field Rose is blooming in June just as it should, whatever the weather may throw at it. The sight of any of our wild roses in bloom used to be enough to start the older farm-workers predicting that harvest would begin in six weeks, which must have occasionally been right. As I emerged from the wood and took a path across the fields the weather started to brighten up and make their predictions at least seem a possibility.

Take care.