Five Gulls

Felt knackered fairly soon after waking. In fact, I've felt knackered ever since returning from Yorkshire on Wednesday. For me, holidays and short breaks are never about relaxation. They are about discovery and exploration. So I go mental, trying to cram all that I can into whatever brief time is available. Ever since I left work on Friday, having accomplished so little, I have toyed with the idea of going in to the office today. But I didn't push myself hard enough. And as I write this, I'm saying to myself that I must get up earlier and be at work no later than 7:00.

Yet on the other hand, and tellingly, though I wanted nothing more than to lie horizontal and watch a film, I pressed on with producing and scrutinising pictures from Yorskhire and from Derbyshire yesterday. And by afternoon, as the sun swung into descent, through dropping eyelids I looked forward to a potter about with a camera.

I didn't have far to go. Tootling along a narrow lane I caught the firey orange of a tree top poking over a tall hedge. How quickly I became alert. A swift calculation suggested to me the tree might be isolated, or capable of isolation. So with brakes applied and a swift reverse towards a passing place, I was out the car, now faced with the problem of gaining entry to the field. I walked back the way I had come (the wrong way it transpired) and returned to the pull in. I would have to crash through the ditch, the rolling branches that bobbed in the water, onto the other bank and up through the brambles, stingers and other scratchy obstacles. So I did.

In the field the hedge height was much lower than that at the side of the road. So I chugged through the mud to a tree in the hedge and found myself a decent vantage. The sun never shone again. A full 30 minutes I sat here crouching, occasionally standing to look back to where the sun was meant to be. And as I waited, the clouds from the left, travelling to the right in this picture, grew larger and bluer, chasing the white whispy ones away. Shortly the dark clouds skirted all the way back to where the sun was meant to shine. Just above the horizon I could see rain fall.

I came close to posting the colour version. This newly ploughed field was carpeted in the tree's leaves creating a duotone of orange and blue. Had I been blessed with just a moment of sunshine I suspect the colour would have been favourite.