THE SINGING GATE

  Today was one of those lovely days, awakening to a golden glow. Temperature ... a wee bit nippy, but hey this is late November. A late outing with the mad mutt, only to find that up on the mountain, despite cerulean skies and virgin white clouds the wind was gusting, at times so strongly that trying to take photographs nearly saw me blown down on the ... grass! Take away the first two letters and you get my drift. Twas a wee bit blowy today. 

  But it was a westerly wind and that to me, means one special thing, The Singing Gate. and right next to a stile, here it is ...

and this is the reason why it is such a musical gate, it has "note-holes" rusted in it

To most musical folk, this may not seem like an instrument suitable for an orchestra, but this gate is a multi-dimensional soloist. Sometimes sad and mournful, occasionally as today, light and uplifting and on other mornings in mysterious misty conditions I have heard the  almost religious sounds of plainsong and on one particular day, I sat for half an hour, with the changes in musicality  sounding like a choir. It's a wonderful sound to hear. I only wish I had the technology to share with all of you some of the tunes I have heard.

Now, before you think Dafad has gone soft in the head, other sights bring me back down to more earthly reality and my sense of humour kicks in. I was trying to photograph some of the more unusual things that attract my eye, such as this rusty roll of barbed wire, and the wind-blown bareness of the beech trees with the stand of, needle-less larches behind.

.As I edged along the dry stone wall that separates  the farm pasture from the commons, my attention was drawn to the Welsh Mountain and Texel sheep. Next spring there will be Wel-tex lambs bouncing all over this area of pasture, an interesting mix that will be. I have to admit Texels are not my favourite breed, useful as they may be for extra market weight & thicker fleece, they remind me of rather thuggish, rugby prop forwards!

As I mentioned the wind was blowing me almost flat and I just captured a moment that later, when uploading the morning photo's, amused me. One can imagine the caption ...

"I think you've got that the wrong way round mate!"