A GENTLE AMBLE

After another night of that wet stuff from above, the mountain tracks were a long chain of muddy pools. Amazingly in this one

<<< I saw a vole swimming but could not get the camera out in time get a photo, it  was just such an incredible sight to even see one of these small, secretive creatures so out in the open. It climbed out and disappeared into the thick green undergrowth. We decided to drive elsewhere and went along a footpath down behind the old church. From here one can look  down into the valley.

The trees are looking healthy and green, a lovely backdrop to the purple of the heather in the foreground, where the bees were busy ... so lovely to see them out and about, but the bracken is already beginning to turn rusty coloured as the season turns from a barely recognisable summer into an autumn that we hope will be drier and warmer.

<<< a narrow track leads down into the shade  of the beech trees, with a deep ravine on the right ... the remains of old coal workings. The path itself is coal dark and can be slippery in wet weather but along its sides all sorts of small seedlings of heather and trees do their best to survive in the poor quality soil and despite the tramp of feet, human, ovine and canine. On a properly hot summer day, it is a pleasant walk down under the cooling canopy of the trees, today it was just overcast and the grasses were wet ... unsurprisingly after last night.

I love this small bridge >>>

made of old railway sleepers that nature has decided to decorate with mosses and grass. It is actually more sturdy than it looks and beneath it the water runs the slope from the old  mountain, heading down.

Looking back up the slope a reminder that in nearly four months time it will be Christmas, when a much larger tree than this will be cut down to decorate the old church ready for the annual Carol Concert. It is hard to believe we are three quarters of the way through the year. The normality of seasonal changes has been so mixed up with all this extraordinary weather that we've had that there hasn't really been a clearly defined winter, spring and summer and here we are approaching autumn and all too soon the swifts and swallows that were flying low around me will be ready to depart for warmer climes, who can blame them!

Down just as far as one of my favourite stiles, but no going over that today as there were cattle grazing in the field and with calves to care for the cows can be very aggressive towards a dog, so we turned back to see how the new Sitka Spruce seedlings were doing. At least something is flourishing in this warm, damp weather, they're looking healthy.

Whilst I was looking at the various plants that have thrived since the old 45 year old Sitka stand was harvested, the dog was nowhere to be seen until I realised he had found a rather large chunk of old trunk, which he was determined to bring back along the old forest track. I waited patiently on this single plank of a bridge as he struggled towards me, obviously chuffed with his prize. When he was a pup, not yet a tear old, he did this trick with a log twice his own weight, hence the term "Mad mutt!" He was obviously chuffed that five years on he can still manage to be a bit of a weight lifter. But another stile meant he had to leave it behind.

Having got over this lovely "log assisted" stile we headed home across the field with swallows and swifts darting low across the pasture to catch the evening insects.