All The Colours

Well, a crazy day...

Weather - 'unsettled'

17 degrees and it felt like 17 degrees. Windy grey and mostly wet. But I suspected something extraordinary was going to happen. I could feel it in my bones...

After driving to Dudley to deliver two pieces of furniture to our daughter's lodgings, we stopped in Cradley Heath for Mrs I to do some essential shopping. I walked around the Mary Macarthur Park, a community leisure facility created in honour of the women chainmakers who, in 1910, through strike action, changed the lives, the pay and conditions for thousands of women who were employed in a tough and dangerous industry.

For more info on this and if you have a moment see link below:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/2005_43_thu_04.shtml

This afternoon we had a light lunch and watched a beautifully filmed and fascinating documentary on BBC4 about the Red Squirrels of Cumbria. Worth a look if you are interested.

Then, noticing a change in the light, and the weather, I headed out with a dog, a camera, a large lens, an anorak, my flat cap and spring in my step. The light was getting better, and better, and better.

I was very excited as the conditions continued to change, it got very moody and threatening. It got dark and and began to rain. And it rained heavily for ten minutes, and I sheltered under a tree and still got drenched.

But then there was break in the cloud and the light was extraordinary. And the rainbow was extraordinary. I could not believe my luck. 

I took way too many photos and could not decide which ones to show. Chose these two just because I think they illustrate the conditions at the time. The main is looking down the Corvedale towards the Brown Clee and the extra is looking across the Corvedale towards The Titterstone Clee Hill which is not in shot. But the western fringe of the rainbow is just visible in the top right hand corner.

It was a happy chappy who trudged wearily home weighed down by heavy camera gear and soaked to the skin. But the smile was worth every drop and if it never rained it would not be such a green and pleasant land. Would it...