York & a few things medieval

First glimpses of York & the Minster was from a long, rather wide sweeping road from an easterly direction that lead under the Monk Bar (Monkgate), with arrow-slit windows, vaulted on three floors of one of the finest preserved of the medieval gates embedded in the city walls, with a portcullis still in working order & a Richard III museum. From here the wall ran high above a narrow roadside & overlooked long treed gardens that seemed to stumble into the grounds of the Minster, majestic & mysterious with its own history of fires, collapses, sieges, civil wars, constructions & restorations, with a large expanse of 14th century stained glass. Several gates were embedded in the pale, earthy grey & ochre colours of the crenellated, parapet stone walls & in the spring, daffodil-filled green banks, sloped up to its base.
The town spilled out from the centre with a cacophony of architectural styles, the streets narrowing so much, that the overhanging shop signs nearly met in the middle of the Shambles. A pedestrian street where the road was as narrow as each pavement either side & old shops & house fronts wiggled & wobbled, it was a wonder they managed to stay upright at all. The crooked rickety walls amassed a jumble of different style lead lighted windows, that bowed out onto the street with tiered overlapping upper floors, dormer windows at the top, under low sloping rooftops. Such places now cater for books, jewelry, antiquated bits & pieces, coins, clothing & cafes, adorning the shop fronts of the street, where once butchers hung their meat.
Elsewhere, Tudor style heavy timbered oak, embellished  white walls containing obscure vertical, oblong shaped, heavy lead-lighted glass.
Opposite a small square planted with deciduous trees, situated amidst the town's buildings, an old clock protrudes out from an upper floor of a multi-coloured red brick building, its lower floor containing a deeply recessed heavy wooden door painted black. Twisting lanes & alleys weave here & there amongst the town's other buildings, old & often triple storied, winding around to the different gates held within the outer stone wall. Very old buildings tumbled over the pavements, crooked as ancient bent oaks, rooftops sagging with the centuries, beams dipping with dilapidation, windows leaning every which way. Houses & shop fronts, history hidden within the walls, bow this way & that, sturdy still with old age, oak-beamed buildings that have experienced the test of time scatter through the town, nesting birds flit around the low rooftops of High Petersgate, mice scamper in the rafters of Micklegate & tiny spider's occupy dark corners of book shops. Stained glass  gothic windows, demurely reflect the sun's rays as they flood into the hymn singing churches, cascade down the upright pulpits & creep in & out of the timbered benches.

The castle on a hill withstood nine centuries of conquering kings, wars, imprisonment, royal administrations & tumultuous defenses, fortifications & explosions, reinforcements & rebels. There was once a moat & artificial lake, water defenses against marauding foe.

 The Minster, established from the Anglo-Saxon period, but dating back to where the possibility of a hurriedly built wooden church stood upon the site in the 7th century, retains many collections, both of manuscripts dating from over a thousand years ago, monuments & worked stone of archaeology, silver & books in a library, decorative iron work & stained glass windows. The city of York within the vicinity of the surrounding walls, exudes a timeless charm. And York will continue in the annals of history.

Travels with my camera

The plane roared into the air, over the outer fields near Melbourne & quickly climbed through a thin layer of wispy clouds & out into the autumn sunshine, the clouds disappearing in the altitude drone of the engines. It finally leveled out & headed for Singapore, the camera safely tucked away in the overhead locker. The first seven to eight hour leg of the journey was underway & now very familiar, as instead of going home, I was returning to England for another visit & to push the boundaries a little more, adding Rome, a day in Florence, then Paris & more stunning art, history, architecture & of course, photography. Then fly back to the South West of England from Paris, which is like returning home & a feeling of comfort settles happily in the soul.
 A mile walk up the lane with camera, while staying with a friend, is an opportunity to revisit the old cottage, where twenty six years were spent amongst the countryside & all it offered. In the small front garden, a deep well still pumps cool clear water, the old stone wall draped in foliage, sits beside the narrow lane with tall banks of hedgerows opposite following on to the pretty West Dorset village of Thorncombe.
The lanes are still the same after hundreds of years, sometimes a familiar smell of farms wafts through the air, the cuckoo calling from down in the woods, heralding the arrival of spring. Primroses appear in clumps beside the winding narrow roads, bluebells carpet the wooded hillside nearby. A chance to capture on camera, the same feeling of years spent ensconced amongst the hillsides & hamlets of Dorset.  Where the summers lengthened & the autumn mists, mysterious & damp, hung in the valleys by the stream, clinging to the farmyards & hovered above the fields, the cows, wistful & in no hurry, ambling along the lanes, of the nostalgia living in the countryside of outstanding natural beauty.
With a fairly brief stop in Singapore, (on the return journey, the route will change to Dubai), walking the long, clean corridors of shops & restaurants, the long flight of a further thirteen hours, had to be erased from the mind & thoughts turned to what lay ahead.
Landing in London is always delayed in the air, flying quietly with the engines at a minimum & gliding in circles over the city, Kew Gardens & the river, waiting in the queue for a chance to land, before planes drop out of the sky, one after the other in intervals of not much more than a minute between them. The early morning arrival is undertaken & after a brief pause, the first day begins with a walk in the fresh air after the long flight, accompanied by the camera.

The many tourist sites are avoided, as they have been well visited in the past & the chance to look more locally, mundane even, is preferable, with perhaps some eye-catching light to enhance the photography. With a little fossicking about in some out-of-the-way places, this can be achieved, some searching for something different, looking up & finding things never noticed before, the quirky, the unusual, people in the parks, wildlife flying low over the lakes, can stimulate & relieve the knapsack of the camera & run-of-the-mill 18mm-200mm lens. A heavy & cumbersome tripod is reluctantly left at home & would certainly do justice to some low light photography. The thought of Paris at night, Florence at dusk or Rome flooded in a subtlety of early morning light, would be a chance not to be missed. Well, there may be a few posts or walls of which good use will be made for the purpose of camera stability.

Many opportunities present themselves over the course of at least four weeks away from home, new territories & a change of scenery can bring rich rewards for photography.
 A few years ago, travelling at will through France via Rouen to the Loire river, following its path & chateaux, then back through Normandy, along the coast through Honfleur to Bayeux, viewing the 900 year old tapestry & beyond, have been experiences captured on camera, a challenge with which to persevere. Stored memories for future reference, with a view to following, to a certain degree, historic paths, where kings & queens roamed on horseback in the middle ages, battles took place & where the crusades & armies swarmed the countryside, the history of lost centuries, can make travelling with a camera, the stuff of what dreams are made of. The time of day & season, can make a difference to good images & moods, keeping all options open at most times, will recompense for the effort. Having an intriguing interest in  photography, the arts & architecture, of medieval history over the centuries, will often throw up wonderful, unexpected surprises. A love of books & poetry, with a new interest in writing, have tended to reorganize priorities & dictate a varied lifestyle. Not being able to write when the moments present themselves, would be unthinkable!

Parts of the British Isles have been visited, some several times over in the past. England is familiar territory within the towns, villages & countryside, ancient places, rich in history, such as York, Lincoln, Ludlow, Shrewsbury, Oxford, Cambridge & Canterbury, with the Lakes District, Cotswolds, castles & cathedrals, never disappointing. The villages are a delight, mountains & river valleys sitting well on England's shores & flora & fauna will, with spontaneous intuition, initiative & a desire to keep pushing the boundaries, both with a camera & travel, always reap rich rewards in life, of existence & purpose.

All part of life's experience

History, art, architecture & adventure, to see what is over the next hill, beckons. Visiting London, Rome, Paris & an oh too brief day in Florence will be a feast of the aforementioned. Add several days with my best friend in the South West of England & maybe several days roaming more nooks & crannies of Dorset or North Wales is about to become a reality.
 Since a similar journey in September 2011, photography has played a more significant role in  life. Always much to learn & travelling with a camera, captures the very essence of what to others, may not be of great interest, but the content & enrichment of back streets, detail of history & architecture inscribed on the walls of buildings, art galleries overwhelming the emotions, cathedrals adorned with magnificent architecture & ancient tombs, castles steeped in mystery & mood, is what challenges the senses, lifts the spirit & enhances the soul.  Subtle light, the eye will see & the lens record, gives a journey a certain magic & locks it into furthering life's experience.
It will feel good to be back once again in Britain, where I think I left half my heart. It's somewhere I always feel comfortable. 

George Bernard Shaw said - A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

Oscar Wilde said - Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.

Winter in the European Alps

The morning dawned clear & bright, crisp & clean, a cold light breeze sharpening the air as the night turned into day & frost clung, hardened & white to the wintry garden. Clouds rose from the breath like a fleeting ghost as it hit the frozen air then disappeared into nothingness.

The car sped along the motorway toward the airport, with green & brown fields & fence posts, hamlets & farms passing swiftly by, the quietness of the countryside on the distant hills gripped with morning frost, fell silent in amongst the valleys where the early winter sun hadn't penetrated.

The usual bustle at the airport was orderly as the passengers waited in their planeloads for the boarding to commence. Once in the air, the sun was blotted out through the window with the plane climbing up through the layers of thick cloud until, after passing through the last grey & white fluffy wisps, it leveled out & droned on, leaving England & crossing the Channel to pass over France with frost glistening white on the hilltops & the rivers sparkling in the morning sun, darker shadows sitting in the lower valleys & in amongst the forests.

After arriving in Chambery, not far from the French Alps, the last leg of the journey was quiet & efficient, the mountain road became steep with many tight bends that wound up toward the resort, after travelling through small towns & villages with the snow becoming thicker as the road became higher.

The first day dawned relatively bright, very cold & still, icicles had frozen into long spikes of stalactites that clung from the overhanging rooftops & snow lay thick on the balcony rail of the chalet. The sun had broken, golden, from behind the sharp tips of the alpine peaks & slowly flooded across the whiteness of the village, steam from chimneys curled into the cold morning then disappeared, as the sun crept into the day. Boots were snapped into skis & a small narrow path, thick with ice, was negotiated with more than a little trepidation. Skis shuddered & skidded down the path with the ice crackling under them, until a wider snowy path led down to the first lifts, that whisked skiers quietly up through tall pine trees growing on the lower slopes, skimming the tops & knocking the snow off that plopped to the ground. From the top, the peaks seemed endless & reached as far as eternity, with thick powdery snow piled in abundance beside the pistes & the choice of directions was similar with each one dropping off the mountainside as if there was nothing but a bottomless pit to launch into. After throwing caution to the wind, the ski edges bit the downward slope turning, the exhilaration of fighting to stay on the mountain, overcame any early nerves as the adrenalin flowed. The slopes lead down, twisting around through trees, across other pathways & through drag lifts with a line of people hanging on, keeping a straight path rising steeply in front of them. Huge cable cars, full of steaming, chattering skiers, all in different colours, clunked over the tops of the support posts & headed through the abyss with a sheer drop underneath, where ant-like skiers weaved their way down the sunny slopes.

There were many days of bright sunshine & the snow on the pistes glistened, as tiny particles blew about in a light  breeze & rose up, colors sparkling like jewels in the crisp alpine air. Making another long run down that was as wide as a motorway at the top, the trees sparse & the undulations clear, small hills appeared quickly, before dropping steeply down over moguls, some high with what seemed like World War I trenches around each one. It was tiring negotiating them, the legs burned with lactic acid as the skis found a way over or round each one with increasing speed as the slope dipped frighteningly steep, almost endless, until it flattened out & joined another, leading to the next six-man chair lift.

The days ended with shadows lengthening, the air becoming colder as the sun dipped behind the tops of the mountains. The bars & restaurants halfway down the slopes, smelling of spiced wine & schnapps, glowed in the late afternoon light, warm & inviting. They quickly filled & people danced on the benches, danced on the crowded floor as the live music played & the waiters held trays aloft, laden with beer & skillfully weaved in & out the throng of skiers. Much later & dark outside, one by one skis & sticks were recovered & groups of skiers laughed their way down the slopes in the dark, the skiing fraught with hidden hazards. Negotiating lumps & bumps which seemed to go unnoticed, they meandered into the village & skiing blind in the dark with friends after an hour or two in the bars was undertaken with ungainly relish & much laughter.

It was always difficult to leave this snowy haven, with the warmth of the sun reflecting off the snow during the day, the cold biting in the mornings, until it almost froze the face, the occasional blizzard blowing horizontal, stinging the cheeks until it was impossible to see a hand in front, or the snow so thick, the skis attached to boots would disappear under the powdery depths & it was impossible to realize which way was up or down, or if they had come to a complete halt. But as the European Alps & Mont Blanc disappeared from view, it was difficult to wait another year for the winter to return.

A few thoughts on London!

The Thames flowed strongly through London with monotonous regularity, past the Houses of Parliament standing majestic in a dignified & glorious history, with Westminster Abbey opposite, resplendent, where kings & queens are buried, statesmen & poets have found their final resting places, where treasured paintings hang, where British pageantry & coronations have adorned the centuries for a thousand years. The river flowed under Westminster Bridge & Big Ben strikes the exact time, as it looks down on a busy, bustling London & continued under Waterloo, Black Friars & Tower Bridges gracing its banks. The Tower of  London stood steeped with a dark bloody history, of royalty shut up to die, princes disappearing without trace, murders & mayhem,  mournful of the deaths on Tower Green, built by the Conqueror in eleventh century England.
The underground trains almost constantly ran, criss-crossing all under London, deeply ensconced in the deep dark & curved tunnels, where a wind of train line smell & squealing brakes pushes out in front of the approaching trains, blowing onto the platforms, where hurrying commuters & visitors crowd into the carriages day after airless days.

St Paul's Cathedral, symbol of hope & strength, sits proud near Ludgate Hill, upon which site an earlier St. Paul's existed until the Great Fire of 1666. Sir Christopher Wren's masterpiece is magnificent in all its exquisite architectural design, reaching high up to the beautifully adorned dome in all its finery, with the Whispering Gallery winding around the lower part, descending to the illustrious space below.
Red buses, black cabs & the constant trail of cars, stopped & started as they swept around Piccadilly, curved up Regent Street, drove by Trafalgar Square with its fountains & Gallery, travelling past monuments & mews, passing palaces, parks & museums, endlessly going in ever increasing circles. The few cyclists daringly squeezed past double decker buses & wound in & out the constant London traffic.

Near the financial center is the 'Inside Out Building', Lloyds of London, the large insurance institution with its radical architecture dominating Lime Street. Clipboard & briefcase suits meet in the street to discuss the markets, hurry up staircases back from a prolonged business lunch, or catch lifts up & down the outside of the building. All in contrast to the mounted Horse Guards who exercise daily in the streets of London, where Henry VIII played at tilting near St.James's Park, Number 10 Downing Street & Whitehall, scenes of annual events.

London weather varies from the foggy damp in November, when the leaves have almost fallen, some snowy days in the depths of a dark winter, to the sticky heat of the summer where people laze around in the parks, lunching under the trees that weep their branches beside lakes & ducks mingle on the water. Rain can cascade & drench the weary wanderer & busy filled streets, the history will continue & all things British & London will always be London.

Early Spring in Dorset

A soft light reflected in the wings of the morning, as dawn broke into the east with a breeze blowing gently that seemed almost balmy after the long cold winter of dark nights, particles of white glinting, moonlit after a cascade of snow chilled the frost-bitten air. The breeze shimmered the tips of the trees as the eastern sky dappled itself into the waiting day & shivered ripples on the river, moving in a breaths glimmer of movement, like ducks gliding silently through the dark water. It had been rather a cool night, with the moon's shadow creeping across the garden, until dawn danced on the surface of the river, glancing off the ripples until the reflections of the trees impaled themselves on the water. The sun slowly crept from the eastern clouds & glowed pink & yellow upon the hills, throwing the small valleys into a misty morning haze that softened the woodland pine trees into a blur of quiet green. The morning's dewy grass glistened like jewels, catching the rising sun & sparkled its way across the fields as the early spring moved steathily into the day with a fresh breeze sighing in the willow tree.
Birds sang the morning brighter as they hopped in & out of the copper beech tree, chirping & twittering with the sunbeams slowly encroaching upon the newness of the spring day, adorning the fresh green buds that appeared along the stems of the hawthorn in the hedgerows. Blue tits & robins pecked around the garden near the purple, yellow & white crocuses that had pushed up through the new grass. Many varieties of daffodils joined them in large quantities & smothered the bank with yellows & whites that bordered the garden from the field next door. Soon the bluebells would carpet the woodlands with wall to wall blue, the cuckoo knock on the tree trunk & call, echoing in the valley. Church bells pealed from across the hill, ringing out another Sunday in the village.
Ewes were dropping their lambs in twos & threes in wet covered bundles onto the sloping field of spring & suckled them from milk-filled udders. Soon they tottered about, fast gaining strength in their solid little legs, their bodies still unfattened & thin with a hint of curly wool. During the day, the lambs gathered together in groups, dashing around the field before suddenly stopping & doing the same in the other direction, then return to the ewes & sometimes climb on their backs.
The farmers had been busy muck-spreading, preparing the ground before ploughing & now the tractors trundle up & down the fields sowing seed to grow tall, ripening in the summer sun before the autumn's harvest of mist & mellowness.
Yellow primroses scattered in clumps around the lanes & banks of the hedgerows, with the appearance of wood anemone down by the river. Days of new growth burst from the ground with shoots young & tender appearing in the rockery. Fresh young buds sprang forth in the borders & the sap rose in the apple trees, with pink & white blossom along their boughs happy in the warmth of spring's birth. Tiny blue flowers would emerge from the aubrietia hanging over the stone wall, saxifrage spreading in the rockery. The lanes soon accommodating lady smock, the cow parsley & nettles rising lush & green, spilling onto the roadside in May. Wild garlic spread on the river banks & hid among the tall new grass.
Soon the days would lengthen even more, the sun dipping into a long twilight, while the owls hunt over the fields of Dorset, the badgers in their setts roaming the woodlands in the darkness of the night.

Camera Club Outing

Dawn broke gently into a pale blue sky, scattered with soft pink-edged colour, yesterday's heat smouldering in the pavement & the brick walls of the house retaining the seething warmth that embedded itself with what seemed a never ending summer of hot dry weather.
After gathering together a little photographic equipment, I drove toward the city of Melbourne, with a certain amount of anticipation & going against the heavy traffic, it was still an ordeal negotiating past trams, trundling along the middle of the road, with passengers stepping out in front of you. It was necessary to stop & let them board, before making a quick dash to catch the next set of green traffic lights before the tram caught you up. Remembering how to get to the city at this time of the evening, had been a little daunting, & being about an hour's drive away, thought I should have taken the freeway. (Later found there had been a considerable hold up & it resembled a car park!) I easily followed my written instructions & couldn't go wrong on this somewhat auspicious occasion. After nearly an hour in the air-conditioned car, listening to some music, I found the outer city street where it may have been possible to park. Wrong! So I hastily made a decision to put the car neatly away in a paying underground carpark. Wrong again! It was going to cost me an arm & a leg at least. Being underground in a narrow approach, with a barrier closed in front of me & another car close behind, I started to have a little difficulty with lack of instructions on the quickest way to encourage that barrier to lift. I turned off the engine & went to parley with the driver close behind, who said he would gladly back up & let me out of there. (Probably wanted to be rid of me as soon as possible!) In a tight spot, this was no easy matter, & feeling just a little flustered, put the car in reverse, & back I went, slowly. Nevertheless, a post managed to hit my rear with considerable force, a rather low hidden & very solid post! Oh, you've done it now lady I thought, & not being in a position to stop & have a look at the enormous hole in the back of my car, I negotiated round a tight circle & exited from a difficult situation.
This was going to be an expensive night out, & all I wanted to do was park the car & take some photographs with other Camera Club members. After extracting myself from that tight, claustrophobic underground, a little distance down the road, I stopped to face the inevitable. To my delight, there was no gaping hole, no marks & only the side bumper-come-panel, being a bit out of alignment. I gave it a sideways flick with my backside & it re-aligned itself back to normality.
So I drove nearer to where I was to meet the others & quickly spotted a much needed carpark in the street next to the Fitzroy Gardens. Soon after, I met up with a few straggling members of the Camera Club. Of all the streets, in all the city, I had to bump into them!
We joined up & made our way toward the first area to shoot, a lovely park with gushing fountains that sprang out of large water jets. These were in full flow & a breeze had sprung up that caused the water cascade to spread, which proved a good opportunity to capture the many patterns of water & droplets in the evening sunlight. There were many members gathered with tripods & cameras, forming into small groups & swapping technical information & any other information of interest.
A few other people had wandered into the area & a small boy had decided to run into the fountain in the late heat of the evening, enjoying the spray as he played in & out of the water jets. I took my chances & captured him with the light in just the right position with the spray.
Later, we moved a little down from the park, to the steps of Parliament House & as I was about the last to arrive, set myself up in the middle of the pavement. By this time the night was upon us & the lights of Melbourne were glowing in the warmth of the night. I was completely absorbed in the camera perched on top of the tripod & the settings to adapt, as this was my first proper experience of slow shutter speed night photography, completely unaware that the law in the form of two policemen had slipped up behind me & one was bending over, hands on hips, scrutinizing what I was up to. Taken completely by surprise & sensing his presence, I turned round & looked with surprised guilt at him & tried to smile sweetly as he said, "and what might you be doing in the middle of the pavement?" "Who me officer" says I. "Yes, you dear lady" he replied. "Oh, I just want to take a few nice photos, then I'll be moving on" says I. "Well, see that you do then" said the officer, with a twinkle in his eye, & a grin on his face. Yes sir, three bags full sir, muttered I, as he sauntered off, still grinning, to join his colleague. Laughing I thought, I'm not moving until I have taken all the shots I require of these juggernaut trams, swinging slowly around the top of Bourke Street & the passing traffic with all these twinkling lights. There was a constant sound of shutters firing from all the cameras mounted on the steps of Parliament House as we turned our lenses to the street action & each other, enjoying the night's fun & cameraderie.

Dorset Memory 7 - On a Winter's Day

Blackbirds no longer sang in the dead of night as a cold & bitter wind had been blowing itself away during the darkness of the night & replaced with a light more westerly breeze which brought with it a grey damp gossamer mist hanging in the air, clinging with droplets of a heavy harvest of moisture upon the hedgerows & nearby hilly sloping fields. Soaking silvery spider webs encrusted with a lacey fringe gripped the bare branches & held on with a weight like watery icing. The mist hovered into the depths of the banks laid bare by winter's bleak hold & wrapped itself around each dead nettle stalk & dripped down where the soil held the roots in its grasp, earthy & pungent, rich with the nutrients of well rotted leaves from autumns past.

Down in the village, which sat comfortably tumbling gently down Dorset hillsides spreading from where the stone Norman church rang out its bells peeling over the hills across the valleys & streams to farmyards & hamlets, it is a slow Sunday & in a nearby farm, nest seeking mice had been scampering the dusty beams in the far flung rafters of an old wooden built barn. The stacked hay below still smelt of last summer's sunshine, sweet & herbaceous as the dropped seeds disappeared amongst the hidden nests of food seeking mice, roused from their winter slumbers, while cows enclosed in their winter quarters, wandered the yard lazily chewing the cud. Chimneys puffed smoke that hung in the mist enshrouded day, scented with the smell of apple boughs burning & age old oak. The village was quiet as an old,  crooked legged man, hobbled his way down a narrow path disappearing into the hovering mist that enshrouded farms & cottages dotted along laneways & in the churchyard, it floated around gravestones, ghostlike, consuming all in its path. The ash trees stood silent, stripped bare after the autumn had loosened their golden leaves that still littered the ground, heavy after the melting snow. They are scattered about near the eerie churchyard with its inhabitants peacefully sleeping beneath its wintry layers, cold with the damp earth as their bed, never to see the changing seasons, no more to love & be loved.

As the village church bells continued to clang one after the other, people were starting to drift toward the heavy oak studded door & disappear into the confines of the organ playing interior. On a quiet Sunday morning the floating mist enshrouded the old bell tower, crept stealthily unobserved through trees dotted around the grassy grounds & clung to the trunk of a large yew tree. The music wafting from within the church ceased & peace ensued, that drifted over the village with only a quiet dripping where the mist had collected gently flowing down the rooftop valleys & forming into puddles. Two horses in a nearby field, blanketed against the damp, ambled & grazed the wintry grass lifting their nonchalant heads to rub against each other, steaming after a brief canter. An old dog sidles up to the horses sniffing their muzzles through the fence & wanders off along the fence to join its owner who opens a five bar wooden gate, a lady plump with life's living, graced with a ruddy complexion & large kind brown eyes. She greets the dog who dashes, tail wagging. to meet her & they both pass through the gateway & continue into the misty morning of a winter's day.

Dorset Memory 6 - A walk to the village

Outside the weather seemed reasonably calm for an end of winter sort of day, the sun lazy on the horizon, still not completely risen from the depths of a dark night, but enough to shed the day's dreams of pink warmth as it managed to stealthily reflect its unobscured glow from behind whispy clouds of cotton. The gentle winter breeze still sharp as it bit into the bones & came to an abrupt halt around a scarfless neck, then shivered its way elswhere. The sun again slipped ruthlessly behind another ominous looking darker cloud turning the air briskly cold, the edge of which seeped among the hollows of the nearby wood. The overnight rain had sheeted down & left its mark with scattered puddles reflecting the hedgerows in their usual places lining the side of the lane. The snow from a week ago had almost been washed away & still left traces of gritty chunks dolloped in various corners of the garden. Blackbirds fed on the faintest of apple windfall scraps in between clumps of rain sodden grass, where the plot sloped gently beside the small pathway which lead to an old cider barrel nestled close to a wall near the front door. In the summer, pansies of dark crimson & blue grew almost wild in between the old bricks of the pathway, that had fallen down from a cottage chimney down a long track on a farm.

In the lanes, a few early primroses peered out from beside tuffs of wet, rain glistening grass, a gentle yellow with their centres pale & delicate. Clumps of tall, green edged snowdrops grew in various corners of the garden & around the base of a large bay tree & scattered themselves here & there on the way to the village. The nearby lane turned a sweeping bend & dipped down past a farm with old crooked windows tucked under a sloping thatch. Overhanging oak trees opposite, stood ageless & bare in the winter light, their twisting knotty trunks solid in the high, wet, rain sodden banks. The lane narrowed as it passed the farm & continued on up to a crossroad with a turnpike cottage close to the road on one corner. Its small long garden winter bare but for a few new shoots appearing on the straggling woody bases of a few elder trees. Dead nettle stalks poked out from around an old water barrel propped under a rusting downpipe beside a small outbuilding.

Turning left, many fields adjoin a narrowing sweep of the lane toward the bottom of a hill in Horshoe Lane, wooded both sides in places where the hunt use to roam in between the thickly grown deciduous trees & banked beside the roadside. Further past a small intersection, a large estate stretches wide with its sprawling grounds & plant nursery close to a river with gardens visited by many in the summer. Centuries ago, once a priory in the days of King John, Forde Abbey stretches alongside the Axe river that sometimes overflows its banks nearby covering the lane that crosses a narrow humped bridge.

The lane straight ahead by turnpike cottage runs down a hill past an elegant two story Georgian house with its sweeping driveway edged with roses & cherry trees leading to a swimming pool at the back of the house. The gracious old gentleman who once lived there swam each day the lengths according to his age. A scattering of cottages near a farm almost opposite, lay beside the lane with different coloured wooden doors & neat summer flowered gardens & shrubs within stone walls leading down near the centre of a pretty Dorset village which nestled into a sloping hillside now dappled with a late winter sun throwing its gentle light cascading throughout the hills & valleys. At night an occasional barn owl haunts the night with its cries as it flies low over the hunting grounds of tree dotted fields & mist filled river valleys. The soft ochre coloured walls of the village church with golden leafed autumnal trees, lie close to the grassy churchyard opposite the village shop.
Various shaped & painted cottage doorways line the narrow main street that holds the village in a captivated time warp of family orientated life & a history listed in the Domesday book.

Visiting a Lake

Mist hung in amongst the trees while passing forest after  leafy forest, the swirling grey moisture lightly glancing  the leaves of the eucalypts and a few changing deciduous deep reds & yellows, bright even in the low autumn cloud hanging in the air like a ghost's breath moving stealthily in & out the stillness. The road up ahead met the corner with an intermittant transient light, bouncing off the scattered fallen leaves that clung to autumn's imposing presence with a calm memory of past years. The many varying tree ferns stood unfolding, spreading with fresh tight young buds slowly opening over time's motion, unfurling & lengthening to reach out & catch the mists, falling hovering with regular tendency. The mountain road wound almost constantly, climbing nearer the top, closed in on both sides by mainly forests & the occasional house situated back from the road, hidden in the dense gardens adorning the hilly properties, with a mixture of natives & rhododendrons trees. The soil was iron rich, a dark red brown reaching down hills into wide valleys where tulip bulbs lie hidden awaiting the following spring.
Near where the road dipped down, a large property appeared indistinctly from behind an old diamond shaped wire fence with tall golden maples, ginkgos & ornamental cherry trees graceing the side of the road as they hung their arching branches resplendent, leaves dropping in a gentle autumnal breeze falling into carpets of colour. The pathway through the garden narrowed & fell steeply down a hill amidst many collected plants scattered far & wide, intermingled with tall mountain ash eucalypts & ferns. The long path continued leading down to an ornamental lake, surrounded by disorderly grown trees & shrubs spilling into the edge of the lake as the sun squeezed through the misty morning. Ducks shivered ripples on the lake, moving in a breath's glimmer of movement, gliding through the dark water in gentle motions dipping their beaks amongst the floating debris. Dry, deep yellow leaves uttered from overhanging trees & softly fell to the water, that sighed in the early morning mist of a breeze. The ducks ambled across the mysterious surface, picking at the water weed that collected, while king parrots & kookaburras flitted through the arching branches of tall eucalypts as daylight danced across the shadows that impaled themselves upon the water. The sun slowly breaking from the eastern sky glowing upon the mountain with soft shades of pink & blue, throwing the valley into a misty haze softening the forest trees that looked a quiet green. The mornings's dewy grass glistened like jewels catching the rising sun as they sparkled their way across the glistening surface & the early autumn crept its way into the day, with a whisper of a fresh breeze sighing in a weeping tree. The lake began to reflect the nearby trees that stole across its darkened shimmer & ducks straggled under a bridge to where an old wooden boathouse stretched its legs down into the dark depths at one end of its tranquility. The exterior slowly decaying while the walls echoed its history as they housed many small insects in their secret corners. Two square multipayned windows at the front misted & mysterious as the sun fingered its slow rays through one side, lighting the boatshed as a pale moonbeam penetrating its depths on a winter's night, the windows uttering a milkiness in the low filtering light.
A waterfall cascaded down a steep craggy bank & hit the rock pool at the bottom catching the low lengthening sunrays & turning the splashing spray into a riot of colour painted light. Two wooden bridges extended themselves over the grassy banks with their reflections mirrored in the water like dappled structures shimmering with darkened shapes.
As the afternoon sun shed its last rays creeping slowly amongst the tall forest trees, more leaves descended from above gently carpeting colour into the lake the consistency of spun gold fluttering from overhead in the autumnal air, tranquil now as their branches extinguished the sun, the mist returning, hovering damp between the trees as a frost filled winter's night.