Down at the river

On the weekend a friend told me about a poppy field near her house and suggested I may like to photograph them. I planned to go today, but she texted me last night to say that they had all withered and they were no longer worth photographing. We have had the hottest and driest May ever since records began, and the flowers are not lasting in these conditions.

On my walk today with Xena we saw a deer in the woods and a European green woodpecker flew low right across our path, but I was too slow to get a photo of it.

Gavin needed to get some stationery so this afternoon he popped into town to buy what he needed and I went with him to see if there was anything to photograph at the river... well it was something like Bournemouth beach on the weekend - a very large crowd of travellers were swimming in the river, picnicking on the river bank and having a jolly time in the sunshine with no regard for the social distancing rules whatsoever. What was worse was they had brought two horses with them which they had tied up in the sunshine and heat - the one horse was whinnying in a distressed fashion, while the other horse was obviously suffering from the heat and blood was coming out of it's nose - see extra photo. The poor horses! A group of their teenagers were drinking beer in another area that is out of bounds, it is fenced off with large notices saying it is dangerous to go on the small bridge over the weir but they totally disregarded that and were all standing on the bridge yelling and making a lot of noise. The river bank is an area that mums take little kids to feed the ducks - now it was full of horse shit and empty beer cans - no wonder travellers are not welcomed in this area, they are always upsetting the community with their behaviour. It will be interesting to see if they clean up all their rubbish as usually they don't and it costs our council so much to clean up after they have visited an area. I know in other communities travellers are very welcome as they don't do anything to upset anyone, but our villages have had many problems with travellers, such as their children running into shops and stealing goods, and they also leave an awful mess wherever they set up.

There was a swan family with only three cygnets which I followed as they swam down the river but it was difficult to get photos of them as the river banks are now very overgrown and I could not get a clear view. As they came out the water I managed to get this photo.