Winter Sun

Onwards

At the castle. In the dark woods.

Woods at Broadhembury

A day spent putting succulents to bed for the winter and then the following afternoon I finally find my way into Jeremy's woods, which turns out to be a lovely little wildwood. Long wellington boots are essential in here due to the large amount of water which underlies pretty much everything. Even with these on the wood still needs negotiating with care, so as not to end up getting very wet.

This is a small, friendly seeming wood, tucked away up many lanes near Broadhembury. I get the sensation that people do not enter into these woods very often. I leave huge galumphing footprints in the deep moss behind me which I hope will spring back after I leave. It is almost like walking on a floating green river of plants and moss. Nothing is certain here; what appears to be solid ground quite often isn't. Trees cannot be relied upon to bear weight if you lean against them. Apparently solid branches are actually soft and can just collapse with the slightest touch. Trees fall over and then they regrow themselves from the disintegrating horizontal trunks.

the rags of time

Plenty of rain has fallen recently so lots of growth here at the moment producing the tallest bluebells seen for a good few years. Gales heve blown through and battered the flowers but it is good to see so much rain at this time of year as it is right for spring. These pictures were taken at the end of April so the flowers still had a way to go before being fully in bloom. These were taken on Salcombe Hill which is a good steep climb out of Sidmouth and generally not that popular as a walk as you have to go straight up the Salcombe Road and then hang a left, it is very steep climb so not so good for fag smokers and layabouts but popular with the car drivers.

I got slightly lost in these woods a while back and at a particular point couldn't work out why so much rubbish was turning up, some of it very old, some of it very new, when all of a sudden in a crescendo of debris I came over a bank onto the Salcombe Road. For years, as people drive between Sidmouth and Salcombe, they come to this nice hidden wooded part and they throw all the junk out the back of their vans and cars into the woods. Considering this road doesn't really go anywhere very important (Salcombe telephone box is one of the least used in the UK) it is quite a busy little road and everybody seems very much in a hurry to be somewhere else.

I have been reading at the World Press Network Forum lately which has some good links to articles for news and comment on the global financial situation http://worldpressnetwork.net/forum/index.php?sid=0e6d8d981ab9bd4319e0d3323a90cbd0
the Silver Bear Cafe has some interesting articles too;http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/home.html

Yettington

These were taken on a hill near Yettington in East Devon. It was early evening and the air was very still. The first thing that I noticed was that there was hardly any birdsound, it was almost totally silent. As we carried on walking we heard the odd rook and a few other birds and then I remembered that a lot of the birds had probably already flown south for the winter.

The Woods in Winter

Lots of gales around here lately so big seas. The sun came out long enough for me to go for a walk and take these photo's yesterday. When it gets dark at about 4.30 or so in the afternoon there is not long to get outside into the sunlight.