Pre-Christmas gallivants

No, it's not real snow, though it was cold enough to convince.
It almost loooks the way the architects imagined it - I imagine.
New mall in Leicester.
View through another café window
Starbucks in Leicester. Chilly day.
Tree shapes and lights from café

At Don Paddy's in Uppingham - a well earned cuppa.

Bringing home the tree from Fineshade

Welford canal walk - 11 Dec 08

with Marta.

Oddments

Geometry?
Costa Coffee shop in Corby - and a cool view.

A few snippets from the last few months

Sam on the track.
'Atmospheric' shot of Harry with the sun low in the sky.
On the ice at Nottingham, in the market place, with a German Christmas market in the background. Much better than Leicester.
Rambling types approaching Neville Holt. Dec 1st.
Ice rink in Leicester in November - not a great site, too much traffic, not near the action. And look at their ice-smoothers.
Isaac around the end of October.

Wadenhoe and Aldwincle walk

Wadenhoe Church
Orla the Harris hawk in Aldwincle
Gargoyles on All Saints Church, Aldwincle.
John Dryden's birthplace (1631) in Aldwincle.

Country walk.

Keep back, lads, she's wearing a headcam.
A fine specimen of chickenhood in Slipton.
Drayton House - not open to the public but there is a footpath which passes through the estate. Forelock touched, and envy nerve jangled.

3 weeks

Three weeks of what, wandering round the country - Southampton and Bristol in particular. Taking advantage of whatever summer we have, lots more short walks - Blaise Castle, Snuff Mills in Bristol, and some heath and woodland walks in the New Forest.
Swimming a little once I'd got rid of a 'summer cold'. Trying to improve my crawl style with tips from the Esther expert.
Walking with a group from the village and around. Visiting the bird-hide at Fineshade

We walked
and practised mud skating
on paths where sun sliced through trees,
arrived
at the hide
for a grandstand view
of clouds,
trees,
grass,
water,
reeds,
platforms
and birch trunks
hung with bird feeders.

At first, the movement of butterflies.
Dragonflies, big as birds,
skim over the pond,
with sun-glimmered wings.

Skittish coal tits flitter
from tree to feeder.
A bolder great tit
lingers,
turning its head
with a weather eye on the world.

We think that’s all,
when a white-face clown
bounces in with red cap and cummerbund,
cream shirt and pied tail-coat.
He alights and perches upright,
balanced,
tail against the trunk,
beak probing.

Now and then
he hops
to easier pickings
at the food cage.
A moment,
then the purposeful pierrot
returns
to dig deeper

until two lithe and speedy squirrels
chase each other
up the pole
and he’s off!

And so are we.

Football v swimming

Having said all of that yesterday, Rebecca Adlington has been receiving £12 000 per annum as a full-time athlete. Compared to footballers' salaries that's not a lot. In fact, as payment for swimming 350 lengths of her local pool twice a day, it's not a lot. And, yes, she'll make rather more now she's got a gold medal, but even so.

Sport or politics?

Editorial from today's New York Times - I found it refreshing.

'So be it. We like to root for the home team as much as anyone. But with the federal budget deep in the red, the economy in the doldrums, a broken military in need of repair, and enormous unmet domestic needs, we can think of a lot better places to invest federal resources than in building a sports machine. Let some rich benefactors augment the $130-million-a-year budget of the United States Olympic Committee.

And if international respect is the goal, a collaborative, less arrogant diplomacy would help a lot more than winning medals.

If we are looking to invest in sports, we would be wiser to spend money on daily gym classes and after-school athletic programs. That would not produce a large crop of Olympians, but it would help combat the growing obesity epidemic among American youngsters and yield health benefits worth more than Olympic gold.'

Foxton Locks and Canal

7th August 2008

Marta and I walked along the canal from Debdale Wharf to Foxton Locks, had lunch and walked back. Then we drove to Saddington Reservoir.

Saddington Reservoir - small, out of the way.

An earlier walk.

6th August


Ingarsby - Quenby - Botany Bay




These gates show that the land belongs to Quenby Hall.
They have a fine herd of organic English long-horns - cows with downward-sloping horns, which can end up almost circular, and markings that give their faces a rather surprised expression.
Under the main drive to Quenby Hall - dated 1777
The Hall itself, high on a hill, monarch of all it surveys. They claim that Stilton Cheese originates here. It is also the site of a lost mediaeval village.
A ha-ha. Can't have a wall spoiling the view from the big house.
Through the cornfield
The farm at Cold Newton Lodge

The railway bridge in Ingarsby.

Head for the hills?

Another Leicestershire walk and its wildife.

Church with open bell-tower at Stonton Wyville.
A useful signpost.

Heading for the hills The trig point - the mighty peak is conquered.

The trees have looked like this nearly all summer.

Never go out without a forage bag. Not where I expected to see New Forest Ponies.From the bridge we saw these plants, and masses of blackberries - nowhere near ripe yet
Private fishing lake, with water-lilies, dragonflies, and moorhens walking on the lily pads.


Bullocks on the approach to Thorpe Langton.
Over the footbridge and on to the field road to Stonton Wyville.

Gone swimming

The dive into the water,
arms poised against the ears,
enticed by it, slice into it,
this alien element
where we breathe out the bubbles below,
where we draw in the air above .
The glide of it, the slide of it,
the sensation of flying through water
The trust of it, the thrust of it,
the feeling of floating through space.

Happy new August

...and the garlic water is not a lot of good on its own. Snails eat beans as fast as they grow. No sloth in their breeding or eating habits. Beanstalk Jack, what was your secret?
Come on out Mr Pigog, and bring back the thrushes too.
Or perhaps we could dress Shelby cat in a smock and hat, give her a crook, and employ her as a snailherd, to lead them away.

Burrough Hill and Somerby

On Burrough Hill - the 'toposcope'.

We brought a map.
An ash tree regenerates.

Worth the effort for the flowers in the boggy meadow?An unusually coloured calf.

Slugs and snails

Eating in the garden
Is a sign of summer fun
A day of warmth and laughter
Not meals grabbed on the run.

I sit and nurse a wine-glass
And let silence bathe my skin
The evening air’s delicious
I don’t want to go back in.

And then I hear the chomping
As the gastropods attack
Bring out the garlic water
Those snails keep coming back!