The resting tractors

I headed off this morning to meet my sister Rosie who lives in Calne, Wiltshire, which is about 35 miles away.  We don't meet often enough so I suggested we go out for a pub lunch and catch up.  I love drives like this, when I choose a cross-country route down the small back roads which have little traffic on them.

The sun was shining but scudding clouds in the stiff breeze ket the light changeable and the day warm rather than hot.  When I arrived I found Rosie had been dealing with a leaking overflow pipe which had soaked some of her ground floor.  We sorted out the blocked overflow pipe and worked out what was wrong then eliminated the leak even if only temporarily.  

I drove Rosie to a pub she knew a few miles out of town on the edge of a  small village, as she is unable to drive for a few weeks. We were able to sit outside the front of the thatched pub and there was virtually no traffic.  Instead we were accompanied by flocks of swifts and other birds flying over the fields and the hedgerows, which nestle under a ridge of tree covered hills. It was delightful as was my ploughmans lunch and a half of Wadworths 6X bitter drawn directly from a barrel sitting on a stool.

I headed home after we'd had tea in Rosie's garden,which is only a few yards from the rather lovely church in Calne. Hopefully she can come to stay with us in a couple of weeks time.

I stopped on the drive home a couple of times to take photos. I also visited the Walled Garden plant centre in Brinkworth, where I bought the pelargonium ardensm, which I blipped two days ago. They always have a wonderful and specially chosen selection of plants, particularly climbers such as clematis. I hadn't meant to buy anything but couldn't resist an Abutilon to replace the one which died a couple of years ago (it didn't like the cold), and then a clematis, and a salvia. So I need to get gardening this weekend. 

Other photos I ended up with were of a heron, and a swan with its cygnets on the river near Malmesbury, and a beautiful blueish dragonfly.  But my blip was taken on the way home of a field I'd spotted earlier when I drove towards Malmesbury on the way to Rosie this morning. I liked these two tractors resting amongst all the flowers in the field. The light wasn't great with the sun shining down from behind, but I couldn't get access to the field. Perhaps I should have taken the photo in the  morning when  first spotted it, but I was in a rush.