Severnside

It's been a stop-start day, and CleanSteve's sister didn't come to visit after all. We did, however, manage to buy a lamp (yaay!) and drive down to the river Severn at Arlingham. While there, we did not collect the snowboard that my nephew in Dundee had recently bought on ebay, because the seller was out snowboarding!

Nonetheless, the weather was warm at time down by the banks of the river, and I enjoyed the relative quiet. At the moment, I long for silence. I don't 'hear' it very often. Once a baby had stopped bawling lustily outside the Old Passage, the upmarket fish restaurant, I could hear the church bells of Newnham-on-Severn (across the water) tolling the hours, the halves and the quarters. Previously, there was a ferry here, but now it's a long, long drive round via Gloucester or M50 Second Severn Crossing into Wales. At low tide, the water is very shallow, but the mud is treacherous. Lives have been surrendered to its sucking embrace.

Afterwards, we went to the Red Lion pub back in the village. It was recently bought by the villagers after being put up for sale, and they seem to have made it a clean, friendly place with a reputation for good food. I'd like to return, to try the food, and to spend more time blipping the incredibly elaborate tombs in the village churchyard. The only thing we did not see or hear on our riverside trip (apart from trains!) was any bird life. Just a little further downriver, at Epney or Framilode, wading birds are everywhere. Slimbridge, the Wildfowl and Wetlands Fund's headquarters, is only a few miles away. Some day soon, we will go there.


These were the only two panoramic shots I took that 'stitched' together without a noticeable join, and I could not decide between them, liking the blue sky above, but the more varied scenery below. So I have included both.