Our house on the side of The Horns valley

There have been sightings reported locally of flocks of waxwings with one report of them on Rodborough Common on the far side of our valley. A local wildlife photographer posted some pictures of about thirty of them, but the exact location isn’t revealed. I drove to the Common early this afternoon when the clouds were forecast too thin and some sunshine might be expected. When I got there the sky was still overcast and there was a very strong and cold breeze.

I saw a couple with cameras standing near some likely large bushes, and when I approached them they said they had seen five waxwings about twenty minutes before. I hung about with them, chatting about birds and photography, and found they had driven about ten miles up from Dursley in the Severn Vale. Soon various other long lenses appeared and were attracted to where we were, all enquiring about waxwings. The word is out.

I wandered off and saw very little but explored some places I hadn’t visited for some years. On my way back to the car which I parked close to the road from Stroud to Minchinhampton which was once upon a time the route for horse drawn coaches plying their trade from Stroud to London in the 18th and19th century. Then they would have mostly been taking a few passengers as well as the woolly clothe, the main product of the Stroud valleys since the 16th century.

Before I got in my car I walked a few yards further to stand on the north-facing slopes of the common, and looked back across to where we live. We live in the last white house at the right hand end of the road at the centre of the picture which I’ve blipped. The Chapels of Rest just above are in the old cemetery. Some of you may well know the pictures I take looking across to both Rodborough Common and Minchinhampton Common, which I can see now from my desk as I type this journal.