Up the Downs – Dunstable

This write up is well out of kilter, because it is what happened last Thursday morning. I visited a local precision engineering workshop at Icknield Way Farm, SRB-Griturn. It was on the way back that I decided that I might take a quick look up a steep path to the top of the Dunstable Downs. It had rained a day or two back which made the going tricky, and although I was taking it easy, I lost my grip and went down very hard, giving the camera and lens a very hard knock as well as my upper leg on one of the wooden steps.

I checked the camera and lens and fortunately all seemed well, what I did not learn till much later was that the jolt dislodged some specks onto the sensor, which is one reason for why it has taken me much longer to process the files for three galleries of images. I now have to find the time to give the sensor a very good clean!

The weather was not ideal for landscapes, so I was taking the hike as much for the exercise and interest as for taking photographs. It was whilst I was focusing on a small blue butterfly that I got the fright of my life – a greyhound came bounding at me at high speed, and I jumped out of my skin – to guffaws of laughter from the dog’s owner! What a specimen that dog was. I believe Harry the owner called him Marley, and the smaller dog was Meg. I think it should have been called ‘Greased Lightning’ because it was a hell of a mover! That was a nice way to get some unexpected shots. Harry told me that only two years ago the dog was at death’s door, well I have to say that is far from the case now; he is a wonderful specimen.

I took even more care going downhill and back to the car, and later in the day made off in the car for Hampshire and my sailing trip from Bosham to the Isle of Wight.