Keeping out the wild

The tamed versus the wild up close ... you should go for it!

I have to admit that I'm suffering a bit from the guilts at the moment! I've received lots of hearts and truly wonderful comments from people this last few days, and over this last few weeks even, and I haven't got around yet to thank everyone personally. Notifications went awol last night for some reason, and I found out today that the notification history gets truncated past a certain point. I'm mortified to realise that I've lost track of all those who have given me hearts before I've had a chance to acknowledge them. If you are one of those people then please accept my thanks here and now. I would hate you to think that they get taken for granted in any way. I always get a thrill when that notification message lights up. To get a heart means that you've reached out to touch somebody and that is a very special feeling indeed. I can't imagine the novelty of this will ever wear off. It truly is what gets me out each day making that extra little bit of effort to capture something good. I feel very honoured to have such wonderful virtual friends here.

So ... what about this weather? I suppose other people have noticed that the seasons are all over the place this year. It looks we're going to have two short glorious summers sandwiched by a prolonged something that has yet to acquire a name (any ideas?). As someone who is always looking for symmetry and patterns I've actually been predicting this current period of good weather. It was almost inevitable that we would see a spell like it to mirror that which we enjoyed in the spring. Although I happen to think that it's not been that bad a summer (as evidenced I think in my blips), it's not had any extended settled periods like this one, or the one in April. It's when the weather is this good so late in the year that I get most frustrated at being stuck in the office - because you know that this is the swansong and it's not going to feel as warm as this for another six months. I felt like a caged tiger at work today. Despite a lot of deadline pressure I finally broke down at 3pm this afternoon. I had the bike at the office and went for a spin for an hour in shirtsleeves. It felt wonderful. I've been more productive since then so it's not too hard to justify!

I explored the area to the south and west of Shipley, an area of heavily dissected hills which is largely rural, but being on the outskirts of Bradford is relatively highly populated. It's nothing like as photogenic as my normal hunting grounds north of Ilkley. It's hard to take a landscape shot without the intrusion of some kind of housing or pylons, or in this case telegraph poles.

I did rather like this boundary wall however. I cycled past it and it was a good few hundred yards before I fully realised its potential and double-backed to take this shot. I can't really explain why the field on the left is this beautifully manicured pasture and the one on the right has been left to tussock and heather. The wall looks like a barricade to me, with a line of fence on either side, plus barbed wire. It's as if the tamed field is being defended very robustly against possible invasion from the wild.

PS Once again I woke up out of a dead sleep to be presented with a stunning sunrise. My internal clock seems to be very well synchronised with the elements indeed. But not a duck or a goose or a sheep in sight, so it didn't make the cut!