Sunday

Consult the genius of the place in all;

That tells the waters or to rise, or fall;

Or helps th' ambitious hill the heav'ns to scale,

Or scoops in circling theatres the vale;

Calls in the country, catches opening glades,

Joins willing woods, and varies shades from shades,

Alexander Pope

I took the above from a previous blog written in September 2013 when we were house hunting,  I was looking for the time the fly agaric mushroom came into being down at the Beck, hit the nail on the head - written on the 11th September.

Yesterday evening I took Lucy along the lane for a last walk, the weather was beautiful, the sun slowly going down.  There was a tractor ploughing a field, the soft yellow colour of the stubble being replaced by the dark shiny brown earth, untidy ridges as the tractor ploughed its straight line up and down.  The farmers have been working late into the night to bring in the great bales of straw,

seagulls in place, for the turning of the earth

the cows have come over the hill

look at the wicked teeth of the plough

willowherb

a busy time of the year.  Morning mists, baby rabbits playing in the grave yard, September's cool mornings are a positive delight.  'Codlins and cream' or the great willowherb has faded into a grey ghost of itself.

Started reading The Miniaturist again by Jessie Burton, a strange Dutch tale of Nella's marriage to a Dutch merchant, she is given a a large cabinet doll's house by her husband to learn 'how to be a wife' but he doesn't sleep with her which she finds strange.  She acquires things for the dolls house from the 'Miniaturist' who she never sees but he/she mirrors Nella's life in the things made for the house, a bit spooky.

A romanticised view of the country side by Helen Allingham, sometimes I think this is the dream that nearly every town dweller takes into the country side, not like the tractor with great bags of sulphur that passed us.  And note how the 'surburbans' strim and mow every bit of their cottages nowadays. But they never get the wild rumbustious nature of yesteryear ;)

Why do we need sulphur?