The landscape westwards beyond Edge

I was woken early at 6-30 am this morning, by a present of sick from Bomble at the bottom of the bed. In my thoughts I rolled my eyes, and knew I couldn't return to sleep. So up I got it and cleaned it all up, stripped the sheet and made tea for myself, with some attention from Bomble after he returned from an early morning walk in the garden. He didn't seem his normal self.

Yesterday, Helena took the bus across to the other side of the River Severn valley to visit a friend of ours, who used to live much closer to us, where she was entertained with a trip to Hereford before S. cooking a meal for them both. I stayed at home watching the usual array of Olympic highlights.

But today I was going to to pick up Helena necessitating a drive towards the Forest of Dean, on the west side of the Severn, via a bridge at Gloucester, and hopefully to go for a stroll. S. lives close to one of the huge meanders of the river, where it is still tidal, and right opposite Framilode Church, which Helena and I recently visited when we walked along the old site of the Stroudwater Canal.

The road from Stroud to Gloucester climbs up the Painswick valley for a couple of miles, before ascending sharply up across the steep and wooded hillside leading to the top of the Cotswold escarpment. Stroud is the only place where the river cuts through the limestone layers of the escarpment, which reaches nearly 800 feet locally, so any other route has to go up and over the top. At that point is the hamlet of Edge, and once you then drop over the other side and start to descend down into the very wide Severn Vale, the views are magnificent straight across to the Forest of Dean and the Welsh mountains. A little further to the north the silhouette of the Malvern Hills forms a ridge like a dragon's tail.

But today the view was hidden by glowering clouds hanging incredibly low over the rolling clay vale, and towards the south were so thick that they obliterated the view entirely. It was obvious that a torrential downpour was in progress rolling up from the Severn estuary towards Gloucester. I pulled off the road at an old gateway into a field to take some pictures of the rain, but when I had gone into the field my eye was caught by this view in the diminishing sunlight across this small side valley, or combe.

This is a classic view of rolling Cotswold farmland, which Helena used to see everyday from the double decker bus that took her to her recent job in Gloucester. The heavy clouds can be seen in the sky and the rain arrived within a few minutes. You can just make out the line of the tidal river in the distance, sited in front of the hills of the Forest of Dean, close to where i was heading.

After I'd picked up Helena, we drove down to the river bank opposite to Framilode Church, and walked beside Rodley sand banks watching the numerous gulls and housemartins flocking at the edge of the receding tidal waters. Helena had already been down to the river at 9am, because there was a Severn Bore to behold which occurs at the full moon. The height of the tidal bore varies and today's was quite small, but when you see the largest of the bores it is an amazing site, with surfers often riding the wave up the river, sometimes for many miles. That will definitely have to be blipped before long.