Afternoon Country Images

Meeting with members of my family has naturally been severely curtailed of late, so I was delighted to have a rare opportunity to spend that socially distanced time taking a walk in the country – I drive to Sawston to meet up with my elder daughter, and we head out to visit a Sainsburys Supermarket car park, that has the river Cam (or Granta) running alongside. Whilst Catherine visited the supermarket I walked along a section of the brook. 

I follow her instructions on reaching the brook, for at this stage it is little more than a trickle, but it is known to be visited by kingfishers. So, while Catherine does her food-shopping, I follow her instructions on reaching the brook, for at this stage it is little more than a trickle, but she tells me it is known to be visited by kingfishers. I follow the brookside path from where I was able to reach it from the Car Park, feeling this overgrown stretch of water hardly seemed a likely hunting ground for kingfishers. 

Later, we headed for another wood alongside the river, which looked far more promising for the possibilities of sighting kingfishers, but irony of ironies whilst there, I parted from Catherine to walk further along the bank in search of likely vantage points for likely bird-friendly overhanging branches by the river bank — I went some distance along without being able to find likely locations, so returned to Catherine who gave me really disappointing news, that whilst I had been away, she had been graced by no less than three kingfishers! Subsequently, I did learn from Google Earth later there were a couple of lakes beyond where I had chosen to turn around and retrace my steps.

The images in this gallery are the results of opportunities taken during the day from my arrival at her home earlier, when I was in her garden, then along the overgrown section of river by the Supermarket, and later still, with images taken on another more open woodland path. A very sympathetic extension to a cottage caught my eye in dappled sunlight as did a strange mobile cylindrical trailer tank, whose original function completely eluded me, but whose rusted charm I found appealing. The overall content of this group of pictures does illustrate the very catholic tastes I have for what appeals to me – the architecture, the random nature of subject matter covering still waters reflecting the deep cerulean blue sky beyond the cover of trees, the strange dichotomy of styles of the church, and the texture of the sun-bleached gatepost. I relish such opportunities to capture this wonderful and random splendour.

We then went to the woods close by the former Spicers Envelope Printing factory and another walk by the river, which provided a particularly attractive cottage en route. The subsequent gallery therefore is an amalgam of different locations and differing images, all taken in a single day.

Hot September Day – Oxfordshire

The intention was to visit a part of the nearby country where Red Kite were supposed be prevalent, and in terms of seeing them I was lucky, but in each occasion, that moment was gone in a flash, despite my waiting around having stopped the car. I spotted a hovering kestrel, but even though the right camera and lens were to hand, and parking up close by was not a problem, it was gone, never to appear again. I had seen a pair of kites in the distance by a bridge, but they never returned, but from that bridge I was surprised to see very rusty, and twisted rails disappearing into the haze yet a red signal was alight, and in the opposite direction just buffers (Health and Safety gone mad?) I stopped at two bridges on the same line and I would surmise that no train has ventured on these lines since Dr Beeching took the axe to Britain’s rural lines in the Sixties. The twists I saw at the second bridge were certainly not the trick of a heat haze!

I took a walk along the canal near Thrupp, and the pubs along the way, must have been very welcoming of the unexpected trade due to the unseasonable warmth for the end of September. The stretch was full of narrowboats, and canoes, and the towpath offered the opportunity for fathers to repair their son’s cycle punctures, parents and grandparents to read their books and magazines, and several to take the opportunity to repair and paint their boats in preparation for the autumn and winter ahead.

I developed a raging toothache, and was very grateful that a village shop had some ibuprofen, and in this same village on my return passage I spotted a wonderful view accentuated by the lowering sun of a cottage just beyond a small pond and reed beds, with a few late flowering lilies; there had been a pair of mallard ducks, but my arrival sent them into the secrecy of the reeds. A little later in the return trip I came across some fields awash with pheasants, close by a drive beyond security gates, where a lone cyclist was leaving the grounds.