From Meldreth With Love

I've always been a bit of a cheapskate when it comes to buying flowers. I once gave my mother a bunch of daffodils for Mothering Sunday which I'd picked from her garden. I was only little at the time and she feigned delight at the offering. In much the same spirit I walked around the village this morning and photographed some of the daffodils that grow abundantly on the roadsides, in the wood, by the river, in hedgerows and, yes, in other people's gardens (I hope they don't mind).

As you enter the village at North End

Down by the riverside

Near the stocks

By the fence

In the churchyard

In Melwood

Near the old pump

From the footpath near Topcliffe Mill

All this gardening produces lots of garden waste

which goes into the green bins 

and is collected for recycling.

Now all you have to do is feign delight at this unexpected gift! I hope the sight of all these golden daffodils cheers everyone else up as much as it lightens my steps on my frequent ambles around the locality.

Take care.

A Country Churchyard

A wander around a graveyard on a gloomy day. You could be forgiven for assuming that I'm in a low mood at the moment, but you'd be wrong. Photography doesn't work like that. Whereas painters project their thoughts on to the canvas and manipulate the light, colour and composition to express their feelings, photographers have to be sensitive to their environment and make pictures from what is there. So here is my response to the melancholy that seemed to pervade this morning's damp, chilly air.

Now lets find some music for what's left of Friday.....

The Music Maker Relief Foundation is a US charity which helps ageing and impoverished musicians, finding them gigs, grants and sometimes recording them too. There's a whole batch of videos on YouTube but this is one of my favourites. Here is the laid back Captain Luke accompanied on upside-down left-handed guitar by Cool John Ferguson....

As the good Captain says "YeeeeeaaaaAAH!...…......…...that's it"


Take care.

"Mr Noah Insists....

….that you step inside the village church and have a look at all the Christmas trees".

I mentioned in the last post that Noah the Donkey was being installed into his small pen just by the church door so that he can welcome visitors to the village Christmas Tree Festival.

Before going inside you need to make a fuss of Noah; it is the only entry charge, Be careful though, he sometimes nibbles hair and coats if he really likes you!

All the Christmas trees are decorated by various companies, organisations, clubs and societies in the village. And our very own handbell ringers will be playing carols (and very good they are too).

"So glad you could come. See you next Christmas!"

Take care. 

Ragged Miles

Here's a walk I do many times, but this is the first time I've taken you along with me. On a morning like this, when rain is forecast by lunchtime, it has the advantage of starting from my kitchen door. So we'll leave the breakfast dishes in the sink and stride off into the dawn.

This walk can be anything between 7 and 10 miles, depending on exactly which variations I include. But this morning we'll avoid the bit that crosses a newly ploughed field and just head straight down the road. There's a grass verge we can walk on when the occasional car comes past on their way to work.

The sun is just coming up and we can watch the darkness evolving into a bright autumn morning as we proceed. Watch out for the footpath heading off on the left as we enter the village of Whaddon.

Here we are following a track between fields under a marbled sky. Just a few months ago I heard, and briefly saw, a bird I'd never encountered in the wild before. A migrating Quail. These tiny game birds are extremely elusive and usually hide deep in the growing crops. I'll probably never see one again.

Further along we come to a working farm where the path goes straight through the farmyard.

We're now in among the handful of houses that make up the hamlet of Dyer's Green, which always sounds more like an artist's pigment than a place name. We can pick another field path up here which will take us towards the edge of Kneeswoth.

On the way we'll pass this little square reservoir, built by the farm to irrigate the fields during summer. The surrounding earth banks are thick with rare wild orchids during June.

When I set out on this walk I promised myself I wouldn't get "all arty" but would just show the countryside as it is, but I couldn't resist the contrast between the yellow leaves and the green-blue waters of the reservoir.

Our path leads on through the fields to the outskirts of Kneesworth, where a couple of hundred yards (or metres if you like) of road-walking leads to a path leading beside Hill View Farm Shop and out into the fields again.

This is always the saddest part of the walk as we skirt around behind Kneesworth House Hospital, a facility for mental health patients. You hardly ever see anyone but the high security fences tell you what some of those troubled patients must be like. On a morning like this when I can wander happily through the countryside one can't help but feel sorry for those shut inside. And I include the hard-working people who do their best to care for them too. 

A little further along there's a free-range chicken farm. They're also fenced in too, though they have a larger area to roam.

We'll turn on to a farm track that gives far-reaching views towards the low hills of Hertfordshire. But this is not just any old farm track.

When you find a track like this, which maintains a basically straight course across the map, but on the ground has many minor kinks and diversions, you can be pretty sure it's an old route. The little deviations have come about as travellers through the centuries have avoided patches of wet ground or other hindrances to progress. And that's the case here, because we're on Ashwell Street, an alternative branch of the Icknield Way, Britain's oldest road.

We'll duck under the bridge that carries the Cambridge-King's Cross railway line on its way to London.

Oh dear, we're getting "arty" again with the sunlight illuminating the autumn grasses! There's a sudden movement from the top of the bushes as a few dark shapes take flight against the bright sky. A scattering of scratchy notes rain down, criticising and scolding me for interrupting their feast. Familiar voices that I've not heard for a while: the first arrival of wintering Fieldfares.

Another brief roadside walk takes us through to the turn-off for Bury Lane, leading us back to the village. On the left are a row of poplar trees planted as a windbreak.

Another windbreak. There are several of these near here which I'm guessing were planted to protect the fruit orchards that once thrived in the area.

Here's Bury Lane, an old track that was once a road, but is now a leafy by-way that was thick with blackberries a week or two ago. Some of them will be making me an apple and blackberry crumble or two later in the year. Which reminds me...

I need to call in to Fieldgate Farm Shop to buy some vegetables and half-a-dozen eggs as we're passing. "Get Fresh, Get Fruity, Get It Here"......hmm.

I've noticed a few little clumps of fungi along the route today and these are happily growing right beside the village street.

A little autumn colour beside the Village Hall where the pre-school children are this morning. My littlest next-door neighbour is there, while his big brother has just started at the primary school opposite.

So that's the end of our stroll for today. Aren't you coming in to help me wash up those breakfast things?


Take care.

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.