Beer and bread

We walked through acre upon acre of beer and bread on our wander this morning. Well, the genesis of beer and bread anyway. As we approach Lughnasadh (still a few weeks away) the landscape of this part of the Chase is taking on it's seasonal golden hue, at the moment it's a deep and rich colour, though as we getter closer it'll fade to a more sandy colour. The land above 'The Tarrants' is a patchwork of mainly cereal crops and pockets of woodland, it's rather pleasant walking, we did just shy of 10 miles this morning, and beyond farmers in distant tractors and the odd passing vehicle on the few road sections, we only saw two people.....nice.   

Nut clusters

Walking over The Tarrents again and along the hedgerows and in the coppiced woodlands the hazel boughs are sagging under the weight of this years developing nuts. Commonly the nuts hang singly, in pairs or sometimes threes, though this year clusters of five, six or more are more than commonplace. I don't remember a year of such fecundity, though the proof will only be known at harvest time. You can never really know what's inside the shell, frequently a good sized healthy looking shell produces nought to speak of, or even nought at all. Still, there could well be a bumper harvest to come.

The Cliff

The countryside was glorious this morning, a parade of beautifully lit rural vistas, along rustic woodland paths and field edge tracks.  As we walked along the ridge running above the Tarrants 'The Cliff' came into view; that title never ceases to amused me.  Okay, it's the steepest hillside in the Tarrant valley, though Cliff, surely that's stretching it too far.  Some one was having a laugh back in the day, I reckon. Unless they genuinely hadn't seen a cliff and thought this was what they were like. Imagine their surprise had they travelled a few miles south to the Jurassic coast. 

Ruins

It's strange the things you come across whilst out walking. This morning we came upon some ruins tucked away amongst tree alongside a woodland track running through Chetterwood, which is a mosaic of deciduous and coniferous tree with a coppiced under-story.  A small rectangular structure, it's so degraded I couldn't fathom it's nature or purpose, beyond, it was constructed of brick, oldish brick I think. With the central part of the structure smothered by trees reaching for the sky, it rather gave the appearance of a pound shop version of one of the smaller temples at Angkor.  Nature will consume the works of man when left to her own devices, and if we don't change our ways, that'll be the shape of things to come.

Wheaty Geoff

We were out walking around the Tarrants today and the path we were following went through a wheat field. Geoff had never experienced this environment before and, man, did he love it. Luckily there were no farmers to see Geoff's frolicking. 

Sunset

The sun set behind the only cloud on the horizon. The sky's big out here over the Tarrant valley and I'm certain there'll be dramatic cloudscapes and sunsets to be seen when the time's right. Now though although we don't have the drama at sundown we've certainly got the colour, and what colour it is, tonight was so rich and warm it saturated the whole landscape. Lovely.