The waiting game
A Fisherman’s red-tipped float lies at the edge of a tree’s overhanging canopy, its mock fluorescence glowing beneath the leafy shade like the ember at the end of a cigarette.
Back to Nature
This old fence post, now literally rotted to the core, has become a safe haven for any sprouting seedlings. In amongst the tangle of hardy grasses can be seen a tiny shoot of an Elm tree: its first tentative roots have unfortunately discovered a place that will in time only result in the growing tree’s stunted demise…
Horse-Flying around
A Horse Fly straddles a Bramble’s flower, searching for some nectar (which makes a change from biting chunks out of me)!
Abandon ship!
An empty Snail’s shell dangles, caught up in one of the gaps of some nylon netting that has been used to shore-up a dry stone wall, its invertebrate owner long gone. Whether this mollusc’s disappearing act is due to the Snail becoming trapped and perishing or because a bird decided to create a self-service gastropod larder I don’t know, but its empty spiral shell remains as a reminder…
The Transformers
Spotted these two Transformers pretending to be just a couple of everyday Hiab hydraulic aerial lifts, but I could see past their camouflage and now wait for the Decepticons’ arrival on Earth. What are their names, you may ask? Well one is called Cage Rattler and the other is known as Rickety Tilt…(?!)
Damp orange
Yet another shower has fallen today in this ‘Summer of Rain’ and so, capitalising upon this latest downpour, I snapped this Welsh Poppy whilst out on my travels: blazing a glorious orange hue, the flower’s delicate petals are spattered with water droplets and any more rain threatens to cause the flower to droop under its sheer weight…
Morning with the kids
A Moorhen family starts the day off by feeding the chicks, although only two have felt brave enough to venture out from the safety of the reeds in order to have their tasty morsels bill-delivered directly into their gullets!
The flag-less steeple
A bare pole rises out from the steeple of St. John’s Church at Thornham, Castleton, where usually the flag of St. George’s Cross can be seen fluttering its white and red signal across the fields and beyond, for all to see…
Illegal alien
I took a picture of some Lily pads at a local pond the other day and it was only when I was busy indulging in some Photoshop post-processing that I actually spotted something amiss: sitting upon a Lily pad to the edge of the frame was a Terrapin soaking up the Sun, the stereotypical “illegal alien” in the UK wildlife scene!
Long way home
A small yellow arrow painted onto a plinth points the way for you, the weary rambler. Beyond this stone marker, falling away and stretching out as far as the eye can see flows the last of the route you’re to travel today: across rolled fields, worn stiles and coarse’d moors those sodden boots must trudge, long before a restful night’s slumber can be claimed and called your very own…
Stretch the Horizon 