Walking with Philip and the Standish bluebells

After lunch I drove over to Bread Street in Ruscombe, which is a small hamlet on one of the other Five Valleys. The Ruscombe Brook flows out from springs at the head of the ‘combe’ and has cut a steep valley down to Puckshole, where the first mill was built, and then flows on to join up with the River Frome a few hundred yards further downstream.

I’d arranged to meet up with my old friend Philip B. for a chat and a cup of tea. We try to meet regularly but since lockdown it has meant we couldn’t  have coffee in town so today we met at his lovely house overlooking the valley.

When I arrived Philip asked if I wanted to go for a walk and recommended the bluebell woods at the top of the hill. I was slightly concerned that there wouldn’t be any after my trip last week to part of the same woods, but he reassured me that they were looking wonderful.

By the time we got into the heart of Standish Woods I could see he was right. We had been greeted on the edge of the woods as we entered by a buzzard swooping low over our heads as it flew into the woodland. My camera wasn’t at hand so I missed its flight, and it soon flew away again. But I did catch one later in the thick of the trees.

At one point i was explaining to Philip about this lens I purchased recently, a Mark11 to replace my Mark!. I took a relatively close-up snap of him then turned away to this scene to demonstrate its flexibility. I have just sent him a copy of both pictures so before I sort out all my other pictures I thought I’d blip the bluebells. The range of their colours was wonderful today as the sun wasn’t shining, so it was interesting to try to work out why their colours differed from place to place on the varying slopes of the mostly beech woodland.

Quite a lot of the wood has been severely cut as there has been a problem with a blight of the larch trees that were planted at some time in the ancient wood. The National Trust is responsible for the piles of underwood left all around the woods, and apparently they are keen to open up glades to bring in more light and this variety of habitats. Philip pointed out how much the woods have been damaged by trail bikes going wherever they like.