Riverside

I had to take the car in for its MOT this afternoon, and while I was waiting went for a walk along the River Avon. It was cold, some of the puddles still had ice upon them.  This shot was taken looking across the river towards the chequers pub at Hanham. 

If you look carefully you can see that there is a bird balanced on the overhead power cables.  When I got closer to it, it turned out to be a cormorant - not at all the bird that you would normally expect to see on a wire.

Many years ago, when I was at school near here, the weekly cross country run took us on a 6 mile circuit.  By the time we got here I would be pretty tired.  Notwithstanding that I always enjoyed this bit of the run.  It was the most attractive part of the run, and the last 1/2 mile would have been down hill so we were running more easily.  But not only was this the picturesque part of the run, by now we would only have a mile or so still left of the 6 mile run. From here we climbed the river cliffs and ran through muddy fields of red clay.  We would be caked with the stuff by the time we got back to the changing rooms and showers.  My poor Mum had to wash the very muddy kit that I then brought home. But at this point the end was always in sight.