Showing posts with label Absent Without Leave. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Absent Without Leave. Show all posts

Thursday, 29 January 2015

Walking in Circles, Again

Encouraged by recent inspiring posts from chums over at Sun Dried Sparrows and Grown Up Backwards, I've been digging around in my hard drive to find the photos from a couple of local walks I took last year. This first set is from the evening of August 31st, just as the nights were beginning to draw in. Click on any photo to enlarge it. More to follow soon.

Accompanying the visuals is Greek post-rocker George Mastrokostas, trading as Absent Without Leave, with the appropriately titled 'Evening Walks', from 2008. Find more Absent Without Leave music here.


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I featured a river walk last time, but this one takes me in the other direction, East. First though, I head out over the marsh.

Swinging left, away from the road, I cross a field and arrive at the river. Look at the length of my shadow. This is a fairly long walk and the sun is already low, though this heron has found a few evening sunbeams to bask in.

All is quiet at the quay. The sign shows me the way.

This is a circular walk and I still have a long way to go until I reach the halfway point, but the sun is already dipping below the horizon. This stretch of river is far more open than the area I walked through last time.

I wonder why this cow is looking so intently in my direction, when suddenly there's a gentle whoosh over my right shoulder. The cow wasn't looking at me, it had seen a barn owl crossing from the other side of the river. It pauses for a breather on a post right next to the cow.

I've never seen a barn owl quartering on this stretch before and I click ecstatically, capturing absolutely nothing but fresh air on my camera, so I give up and for several minutes silently watch the beautiful creature in action. Finding no success in its search for food, the owl swings back across the river just ahead of me and I manage to secure a couple of blurred images.

After about a mile, I leave the river, clamber over a crooked style and negotiate that rarest of all terrains in this area - a hill!

Well this is what constitutes a hill round these parts anyway! And I get a good view back along the first half of my journey from the top.

I love this dirt lane. I like to imagine that this was once a main thoroughfare, frequented by highwaymen lying in wait for a passing horse-drawn carriage - perhaps I've been out on my own for too long! It is becoming very dark.


Even the animals in surrounding fields wonder what on Earth I'm doing out in the middle of nowhere at this hour.


Passing birds form an arrow in the sky - though pointing in the wrong direction! Fortunately the sign on this gatepost tells me all I need to know.

In the a glade on the other side of the long hedge on the right, the evening calls of birds and other animals echo in a spooky cacophony. To my left, a lovely location for an owl box, though I've never seen it in use.

I've been out for well over an hour and as I near civilization, a mist begins to gather on the marsh. A final signpost looms out of the gloom.

I practically have to feel my way across the last short stretch of field towards the houses in the distance. This footpath brings me out in the middle of the village and the warm glow of our nearest streetlight, a few hundred yards from home.

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