Wisps

Cath had way too much work to complete to make the best of a full day out. So as she sat at her desk, I took advantage of promising skies.

I drove south, but was torn between places to go. I ended up at Ettington again. Atherstone and Preston will have to wait. The approach I made took me close to the hotel, on a rising metalled path, past outbuildings of the same age as but less treasured than the main building. Some were used to hide the unsightly aspects of catering. Others had plain fallen in.

Leaving the hotel and entering a coppice I came to the collection of bales. There were two stacks now. Each much wider, deeper and taller than the boot I had seen three months earlier. I ignored the yellow footpath marker in the direction of Halford and strode out east along a track with tyre marks. Here was a nibbling kestrel on top of a sun bleached fence post. Further on, peanut-brained pheasants dashed for undergrowth, I startled a muntjac and the muntjac startled me, and I saw roe deer leave me a wide berth. A place with numerous hides on stilts.

In time I stepped on to higher ground to return to the bales. Half way along, I chose a descent marked by a south curving track through thick, creamy straw. Above and to my back were cirrus cloud wisps.

Lower down, by a tributary of the Stour, stood a dense bank of hogwort. Twice my height, I guess they were the giant variety, with thick, ribbed stems, the snapped ones hollow. I searched for dark backgrounds to photograph them against.

Then on the main path to Halford, there were the solitary trees. Now in fields of ploughed soil clumps, occasionally speckled with stones and loose straw scatterings. A great way to while a way a few hours. The best light of the day.