Some people would be disappointed to find that they have a free weekend....so long as it's not too often (I like balance) I relish it. I've caught up on domestic trivia, painted, got some sewing done and without any guilt planted my rump.in the chair for an evening of athletics viewing. As we were in need of some exercise yesterday and it was due to be a more manageable temperature, I suggested that we repeat a walk very local to us. It turns out that we've done a couple of sections on previous occasions, but that much of the route was new to us. Another gentle and most enjoyable quiet adventure.
Autumn is beginning to put her shoulder to the seasonal door and let summer slip through before she makes her grand entrance. The fields are golden, the hedges are laden and the harvesto is in.
If you walk through the countryside here you are virtually guaranteed to see stables, a stud and sheep (we also got alpacas) and quite probably old shepherd huts which are seeing a second life as overnight lets. This place had several including one that is awaiting restoration. Everywhere farms are needing to find ways to diversify to make ends meet. The stile was referred to as a TV one where the T is the bit you can lift to let your hound through. I've seen a pinch stile before, but not with.this particular combination.
The farmers round here are very good at recycling what they've got lying around. Even I didn't take a photo of the old sewer pipe used as a gate weight, but this other example utilises.a load of old sash window weights for the same purpose. The line of locally made bricks (the former Southwater brickworks site is now a nature reserve) gives you a bit of welcome hardstanding in what would be a muddy morass in the winter months and the former WWII tank trap is one of a series which have been upended and are now marking the edge of the verge. Someone has been busy putting their black sticky tape to good use on their homemade sign too.
One can never be sure what one will find when one crosses the threshold into the woods, but they don't usually disappoint. There was the usual clutter of mysterious old bits of farm machinery rusting away, but we did stumble across the perfect sized chair for a hobbit as ably demonstrated by my husband! I am that woman who often finds treasure and is to be found with random feathers etc in her pockets. This time the nature gods gifted me a large empty snail shell. When I got home I realised how beautiful it actually is.
What was intended to be an ordinary sort of walk became a rich and varied wandering.
Arilx
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