BETWIXT and BETWEEN ...

Just last Saturday, less than a week ago I mentioned the sudden frothing up of flowers like the hawthorns shown above, and all across my local area some of these old trees were really standing out white, marking old field boundaries. All was looking good for the Jubilee weekend, then came the wind and the rain, stripping the trees and hedges of their flowers. Strangely this year, there was more pink in the hawthorn blooms and they looked magnificent, but laid on the ground drying out in today's sun, they just looked rather sad. I was walking along the newly created "cycle track" which for years has been accessible to vehicles and a rough road it was too.

But, thanks to some new E.U funded initiative, vast amounts of money has been spent laying curbing and tarmac for the few cyclists that use this area. It runs in between the railway track and the Ebbw river. The railway was relaid after years of dereliction just a few years ago but the river has  run down the valley for hundreds. In the recent rains, flood warnings were issued for this stretch of the river and it is flowing rapidly, far too fast to dare let the dog swim in it, much as he wanted to. We didn't have much time, it was only a short amble, as I'd dropped one of our pensioners off at the Doc's, and in the wait before picking him up we had a chance 

to see 

how things were doing down here. It was lovely to have sun after a day of almost constant rain. Everything seemed bright and freshly washed, on one side of us the fast flowing river and on the other the rattling of a train heading up the valley and the dog found plenty of scents to keep him interested. 

We found the path along the new railway fence, overgrown. On the right the ivy overgrown old concrete posts of the fence before renovation. It was only a short amble but pleasant in the shade of the overhanging trees. We've walked this path for a few years now and the regeneration of nature reclaiming the stripping back of growth for the security of the railway line has been encouraging. Seeing birds flashing amongst the new green growth on an early summery evening was heartening as was my first sight of one of my favourite, fragile flowers, the delicately petalled, lightly scented dog rose.