Watching the changes

When I reached my desk early this morning, the light through the window was rather strange. Dark clouds accompanied the blustery winds blowing from the west. In the east the sun had risen over the hills surrounding us and just ocasionally a crack in the clouds allowed the bright light to shine across the Golden Valley.

I hovered by the window, just gazing out over the fields and woodland, armed with my camera, but the I had missed the brief sunshine. I played with taking some pictures mid-zoom and was pleased with the effect but not enough to show here.

Instead here is a simple record of how the south side of the Golden Valley below Minchinhampton Common is looking at present. I like the two main houses and the associated settlements which mark the line of the spring-line and the ancient dry track, now metalled, along the line of the River Frome valley.

Whenever I look up whether from the dining room, my study or the garden and its cabin, we look across to here at some point. I like to keep a record of the seasons and the change in the colours and presence of the vegetation. I am just beginning to notice the tops of some of the deciduous trees are beginning to turn slightly yellow with a brownish tinge. It won't be long before the valley lives up to its name again, as it does every autumn.

This afternoon we went to visit my old friend Andrew W. who is house sitting about a mile up the valley. We had tea in the conservatory, which is constructed of huge pieces of tree limbs, looking straight across t the main house you can see here. I tried to take a few pictures but wasn't able to concentrate whilst we chatted and caught up. Perhaps in a day or two, when I go back to pick courgettes and hopefully be given some of their eggs, I might be able to take views from their steeply sloping old orchard and garden. I've always wanted to visit it, as it is apparently an ancient bit of inhabited land just above the line of the woollen mills of Stroud's main valley. It stands directly opposite the line of the road on the other, dark and shaded side. At the bottom of the picture you can see the railway line which runs from Swindon through Stroud to Gloucester and Cheltenham.