The scraggy time of January, in this first photo you will see a snowdrop patch in this rather large roadside verge. They come up before all the nettles arrive, they sit under the wild cherry trees. I watch the fruit ripen in these trees and then in a flash the red cherries disappear, wolfed down by the birds. I often wonder what this piece of neglected land once held, an old cottage maybe, it is opposite the village green.
Then we come to our River Seven, not in flood, though the snow melt from Roseland Moor must have come down at some stage. Sometimes I picture this river with its gentle shallow depth, reaching the 13 foot height in a matter of hours. Now the banks are lined with willows, grey, dark and leafless, the water rippling over the stones. Stop to listen, for there is nothing more soothing than the gentle noise of water moving along. There are snowdrops along the bank, the snowdrop after all is very promiscuous as it wanders over the land.
There is one more photo from the walk, looking up to the farm on the hill, lower down the slope you get a glimpse of a large 'genteel' house, not sure of the date, but slightly Georgian, was it the manor house I wonder. Anyway the point of this photo was to catch the old tree left in the arable field. All over England you see these venerable giants given the space to live, when it would be so much easier to fell them.
The lane down to our farm (a through road to the next village) was absolutely full of snowdrops in large patches. David always said they came from people dumping garden rubbish during the gardening season and I think he may well be right. There were often crocus as well, although the mice adore crocus so not as many of those.
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of a lone giant of a tree mid field - I think many of them are protected now - it is nothing like as easy as it used to be to take down an ancient tree thank goodness. All our elm trees went (I lived in Wolverhampton at the time and we have three large ones in our back garden. All three succumbed to Dutch Elm disease we had to have them felled - a sad day.
Many trees are protected of course but how they do it in the countryside I do not know. Disease in trees is terrible, it thins out the landscape. What I hate at the moment is the 'butchering' of the hedgerows. Branches are torn off leaving ragged edges, and sadly even neatly cut hedges do not produce the array of berries and flowers.
DeleteYour area has such mystery and romance. Love it.
ReplyDeleteWell on the surface it is an ordinary village but underneath all kinds of history has happened. And as one gets older and joins the dots up it is the ability to see this history I think.
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