The railway hut...

...though you may have to look in large to see it!

A fairly ordinary late-autumn Saturday, much of it spent cooking tasty treats for tomorrow's jaunt. Four spotty bananas were made into a version of the Hairy Bikers' Banging Banana Bread, moist and packed with bananas, sultanas and pecans - ideal food for a cold day out. I also made pizzas and a large pan of spiced butternut squash soup - and used up lots of odds and ends from the fridge in the process.

After lunch Rosie and I did a long walk along the river from Castor Station to Wansford. As the grief is subsiding I'm really enjoying being out with her, as we can walk much further and faster - at last I feel exercised again. The valley was full of redwings and fieldfares - the harsh 'chak-chak' call of the latter was a constant soundtrack to our walking. And as we approached Wansford there was the wonderful smell of bonfire smoke - so redolent of autumn in the countryside.

We walked back close to the Nene Valley Railway. I'd been hoping for a sunset but that wasn't to be. However, the wonderful sweeps and swirls of cloud in the dusk sky were some compensation. I took a number of shoits, but love the feeling of space in this one, and the tiny railway hut dwarfed by the autumn ploughland.

We were nearly back at the car when I was surprised to hear a voice say " Have you got a camera?". A fisherman on the backwater had just caught his first ever barbel, a good sized specimen over 30 cm long, and wanted me to record it. I was glad to help, and, even though the light levels were fairly appalling, got some decent record shots for him. The fish was then returned to the river to swim another day. Barbel are very uncommon around Peterborough, and tend to be restricted to stretches of river with high water quality and gravelly or stony reaches. I e-mailed the images to him later that evening - he was delighted with them and has offered to buy me a glass of wine at his local pub. It was so lucky that I came along at just the right time!!