Cowslips at Rodborough Common

I have finished my job. Hooray! Now I can relax before the intense run-up to the Council elections. In my ward it seems that the two incumbent Greens and I (standing as an Independent closely aligned to the Greens) are being challenged by a Tory who apparently lives three miles away in Minchinhampton. What a nerve.

I came home at about 3pm, said hello to Bomble, picked up my camera and drove down the hill, across the valley and then up the far side again to Rodborough Common. Winstones is a well loved place to go to have an ice cream at their factory, which is sited in a most unusual place for such a business. It is on the edge of the hillside beside the common, and on a day like this there are gatherings of families and young people sitting on the hillside looking back across the valley towards where we live.

t was fun to watch the young children out in the fresh air, running up and down the grassy slopes and eating the famously delicious ice cream. When I had finished and relaxed in the late sunshine, I walked along the road to explore the old track that was the way up here from the valley's bottom in centuries past.

I suddenly had a double-take when I saw a beautiful yellow flush spreading amongst the grasses, the first signs of the extensive wild flowers that the common is known for. These were mostly wild Cowslips, which adorn this grassland for a couple of months in springtime, or at least until the Commoner's cows return to roam and graze the common. Commoners have ancient grazing rights attached to their properties. It won't be long now till the rare orchids return as well; I have been meaning to record them for a couple of years, so it won't be long till you catch them here.