Watery Lane

Looking West - deep and fast flowing water in winter sun

When I visited St. Leonard's church in Bulford at the weekend I wandered around the old part of the village.  The old village is centred on a splay of chalk streams which run either side of the church. Ancient houses appear among the trees, clustered around the church and nourished by the waters.  In the year 2001 some were flooded, particularly the ones along Watery Lane.  
I wonder how many times this has happened over the centuries.  The name is a bit of a clue.

Looking East - sun at my back

Shallow and serene - clear as glass

Still on Slow Time

Early sunlight on hazel 

I can't seem to get up to full speed after various bugs and ailments, so am reducing the frequency of posts for a short while until I get back in the swing.  

I found this old picture taken last autumn and it called to me.  I like the way the sun has gilded the coppiced hazel and picked it out against the backdrop of the fallen leaves which look purple in the shade.  

By Dose id Bugd Up

Common Toadflax

Managed to come down with yet another bug and am going to go quiet for a few days.  I'm a bit fed up, so looked for something to cheer me up.  Common Toadflax photographed on a walk at the end of July on the one day it wasn't raining and the whole world was alive

The Walk at the End of July

Field Scabious in bright early morning sun

That walk at the end of July is still providing wonderful images.

Harebell, still drying out

Musk Mallow - Also drying out

Danebury Hill Fort

Fair Weather Cloud

There is a big sky at the top of Danebury Iron Age Hill Fort.  It sits just above the pretty little town of Stockbridge in Hampshire.  Thoroughly dug by archaeologists and well documented it has a lot to offer.  There are beautifully cleared gravel paths around the top and wooden steps where the going is steep.  It is a very Hampshire experience.

Lords and Ladies (Cuckoo Pint), growing in a  hollow tree stump

I enjoyed it, but for atmosphere nothing beats Sidbury Hill, my local fort where climbing can be tough and you almost need a machete to walk around the top.

Tough little Exmoor Ponies graze on Danebury Hill Fort

Wild Marjoram

Old Walks

The Pyramidal Orchid

I'm still looking at pictures I took on a walk at the end of July when all the flowers seemed to appreciate the early morning sun.

Everlasting Pea growing wild

A patch of Bloody Cranesbill

Walk on the last day of August

On the last day of August - at last, some sky

I went for a walk on the last day of August, everything a bit chilly and wet, but as the sun warmed the land the flying things came out to bask and warm their wings.

Red Admiral on Thistle and Ragwort

Gatekeeper (Hedge Brown) resting on the path

Bee having a doze on the last of the Viper's Bugloss flowers

Still Savouring...

Dropwort - Filipendula Vulgaris

I'm still savouring my walk at the end of July when I saw so many treasures.  This is Dropwort, such a pretty flower referred to as the downland Meadowsweet.  I had never spotted it before.

Culpepper describes it as a diuretic good for stone, gravel and 'stoppage of urine'.  However, most Filipendula are poisonous to some extent or other.  

For all sorts of reasons I have done very little walking this year and I feel much the worse for it. 

Styling Knitwear in the 1950s

Nice cardigan - shame about the bird's nest

I'm thinking about writing something on how changing social attitudes and mores are reflected in knitting patterns.  This lady has obviously been 'bird nesting' and is about to blow out this egg to put in her collection.  Now an illegal practice.

The RSPB says,

'It has been illegal to take the eggs of most wild birds since the Protection of Birds Act 1954 and it is illegal to possess or control any wild birds' eggs taken since that time under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

It is illegal to sell any wild bird's egg, irrespective of its age'.

What defeats me is that Jaeger ever thought this was an appropriate image, even in the early 1950s.  

Taking a little break

Swathes of  Viper's Bugloss
on  my last walk on the hill

Just taking a couple of days out to sort out the pickle I seem to have got into.  Major tidying and cleaning exercise under way.  Back to routine soon.

 Viper's Bugloss and Ox-eye Daisies

I love the blue of Viper's Bugloss, but I never can seem to pick it up properly with my camera.
Most of all I love its name - Viper's Bugloss.

Fine Dining

Rather Endearing Little Snail on Evening Primrose

Up on the hill not many insects to be seen - too wet, but snails and slugs in plague proportions.  This little chap was chomping his way through evening primrose.  A huge patch of it grows in an area near the garrison wire. Can't help feeling he might have tummy ache when he's finished that lot.

6am on a Saturday

Setting out in the drizzle - red sunrise and a rainbow

Sun coming over the hills

Something about the air up there.  Something about the scent of the turf makes the spirit rise.

Flowers of the Field

A jewelled patch of flowers on a drizzly morning

A couple of Saturdays ago I went for a long walk, first time in weeks.  It was drizzling, there was a rainbow, but I took a chance.  I was rewarded with more flowers than I have ever seen on the hill.  I found myself walking along with a big smile on my face.  I took masses of photographs and this one appeals to me because of the mix of species on one small patch of earth.

Among the ones I can name are Red Clover, Viper's Bugloss, Self Heal, Birdsfoot Trefoil and Hop Trefoil.

Pink, bright blue, purple, yellow and green.  What a range of colours to play with.

Against the odds

Docking station for Bees

I love foxgloves for the eccentricity of their structure and the random pattern of their spots.  I love the way the bees go right into the flower and buzz loudly and impatiently to capture all the goodness.  A garden with foxgloves is not a silent garden.

In spite of the rain and the construction work, some things have survived.  The theme today is strong pink.

Rosebuds in the rain

And the open flower - an old rose in next door's hedge

Back to my garden - Sweet Williams with Love in A Mist

Hidden Treasures

My Favourite shady Wiltshire walk

I have fallen behind on the walking for one reason and another so on Friday I made myself get out in the fresh air.  I make a point of not turning for home until I have found something to photograph, but tired and aching and uninspired and feeling a little low I started back without a picture, choosing my favourite shady walk which is an old track way covered over by hawthorn and crab apple and dense with blackthorn.


In the space of two hundred yards I found all these little treasures opening their early flowers for the insects.

Ransoms (Wood Garlic)

Bluebell - we get very few around here - not the swathes of blue  I knew as a child in Hampshire

Lords and Ladies, or Cuckoo Pint - distinctive dark splodges on the leaves

Garlic Mustard

Lungwort

Mouse-ear flower among Goose Grass leaves

On top of Sidbury Hill, from inside the ramparts looking out across Salisbury Plain

Out walking on Friday 13th April.  Delighted to see in the woodland several Speckled Wood Butterflies.  Unfortunately they were not obliging enough to pose for the camera.  It was a warm sunny day and they danced through the dappled shade, but as soon as a cloud came over and it got a little chillier they took cover.
See the Speckled Wood on the UK Butterflies website

The hill is sprinkled with violets and white blossom of blackthorn and out on the lower slopes in an arid chalky patch of ground I found this little treasure.

This time the books aren't helping me.  I haven't been able to identify this yet.  Maybe a Storksbill?

The Green and the White

Flowers of the Norway Maple

Because the flowers of the Norway Maple are usually up high, I hadn't really appreciated them before.  I only saw these because a branch had fallen and was still merrily flowering away.  This is a non-native tree in Britain and can tend to be invasive casting a dense shadow, shutting out native plants and flowers and reducing the diversity of the habitat.  In spite of all that it's now well out in flower and the bright green on the skyline is quite welcome.



Wild Cherry 

According to the Woodland Trust other names for Wild Cherry are :

• Idath (Old Irish)
• Crab Cherry
• Hawkberry
• Mazzard
• Merry
• Gean

White (or off-white) and green being one of my favourite colour combinations, I couldn't resist using this little bit of wild inspiration to try out another slip stitch for my collection.

Dotted Ladder Pattern
From Barbara G. Walker's Treasury of Knitting Patterns

Orange Tip Butterfly at the end of March

Orange Tip Butterfly on Aubretia

The Orange Tip Butterfly is my favourite because it comes to us in English gardens on the good days in March when we know there will  be more dreary weather, but we can enjoy the moment.

In the picture above you can clearly see the markings on the tip of the wing and catch a glimpse of the mottled dark green and cream under wing.

Full face portrait

This one modelled very patiently while I lurked about with my camera and seemed to particularly enjoy the aubretia which I have learned is a very important plant to have in a wildlife garden, providing nectar for the early insects.  I'll definitely sow more this year.

I have targeted myself in 2012 to take six photographs that I am really pleased with and the full face portrait of the Orange Tip is the first of the six.  I'm quite pleased with the level of detail I managed to capture with my funny little camera.  I took several fuzzy Orange Tip photos, but that one is clear and clean.

So now that we have the grey days of April I can look back on these photos and really enjoy them.

The Last Day of March

Wild violets clinging to the edge of a tank track on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire

I took a walk on the last day of March.  We've had some wonderful weather and the world looks good.  The violets surprised me, so rough were the conditions for them at the dried out edge of a scumbly rock hard tank track.  (Scumbly is a word I just made up). 

My grandmother Violet Ann celebrated her birthday in the early spring and mum tells of how she and her brothers and sisters would walk out across their Dorset farm to a spot where masses of wild violets grew on a shady bank.  They would pick a bunch to take back for Nana's birthday present.

I remember the place where I grew up in Hampshire and the long lane bordered by ancient hedgerows, darkened by overhanging trees, dappled here and there with a little bit of sun where each year we saw the patches of violets, white ones among them.  Every year it was new all over again and precious.

My Cat Marilyn

Marilyn - extremely comfortable

For a long time I have been trying to persuade Marilyn to curl up in my sewing room because I feel guilty about leaving her on her own so much when I am at work and then leaving her while I knit and sew and blog upstairs.  For years she would not stay with me.  Now it appears that it is acceptable to come with me as long as she can curl up on my chair.  She creeps up onto it, curls up behind me and steadily pushes me until I am perched on the front edge.  We're going to have to find another way.  This isn't working.

"Don't even think about trying to move me."