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October colours 2

Posted jane -->on 19th Oct 2019

I wasn’t entirely happy with the last painting, although close up bits of it work really well – I think I need to simplify.

I went back to the kind of thing I did in the last folded book

where I used watercolour pencils in combination with the new handmade watercolours I’d bought

 

making myself allow this clean simplicity which is easy to do on paper with these materials

when the watercolour granulates and runs it does the most perfect things all by itself

so I took this one as my preparatory drawing (it is a section of a painting)

and worked off it in acrylic. there’s lots of texture because under the gesso is an old landscape painting I’d done about three years ago and decided to delete, so to speak. it’s 60 x 70 cm.

various bits of it look like good starting points for more paintings

using the watercolours for colour reference was interesting. I don’t mix the watercolours much because I bought a range of about 6 greens.

now I have to think up a good title!

the same day I put these final coats

on two small paintings, 30 x 30 cm (that’s 12″ x 12″) also basing them on sections of the watercolour.

I have this one to think about

here’s a pretty crucial watercolour, mostly using the pencils, in a square Khadi paper sketch book (it’s stitched, flaps right open, which is very useful, and its spine is about and inch or two cm thick.)

the marsh is a pretty good source of ideas too

these simple shapes of creek and tide

and reflection

feeding into the pencil gestures

as well as the textures of seaweed and stones on the mud

something about paper standing in for light

and windblown grass in stabbed lines

and lines coming through

so here is this one, as far as I’ve got it today, maybe it’s finished. a bit bigger, 60 x 82 cm   – perhaps “Wind through the Marrams”

using a graphite stick that is water soluble

thinking of these marks on paper with crayon

and much scratching with the point of the pointy palette knife

this pale pink reminds me of pink plaster

under this was an abstract painting with lots of blues and I have allowed them to come back under the paint around the edges and in this corner

now I feel I have a stronger language to explore, that’s related to landscape. we shall see.

 

 

 

 

 

 

October colour

Posted jane -->on 19th Oct 2019

firstly I have to squeeze in a succession of photos from the last day in September, really worthy of a separate post, but I put it off, so this is a catch-up

on Monday 30th September we arrived early at Morston knowing it would be a big tide, but after an overnight blow from the north-west the water had not got out of the lagoon behind Blakeney point between high tides and had risen right over the marsh

giving an impression of how things may be in a few years? decades? when more polar ice has melted

even the coastal path was impassable without waders or a boat

and B got several cold wet surprises leaping about in the long grass

but it was peaceful and very beautiful

and I took a nice clean dog with me on my taxi run for my good friend who has just had a lung transplant.

only two days before

I was taking photos of autumn on the edge of the marsh, where the samphire has turned all sorts of lovely colours, from maroon to shocking pink.

the sea asters are over but the sea pinks survived the inundation

inland colours are mellowing. here is an ivy bee, a specialist wild bee species that’s become more common recently

a little bit of bracken bronzing

and early leaf fall – at Holt Lowes it’s mostly the birch

of course Bims is a nice autumnal colour herself

the dartmoor ponies will stay out all winter, they have great resistance to cold and wet and are able to stay fat on very little

pools reflecting sky and leaves

as for painting I found these colours in a book of Diebenkorn paintings, this abstract done in 1951

and happily tried to transfer them

but my painting seemed so dull when I got it indoors I went back into it

with lighter versions of these early autumn shades

these details give me points of departure for new paintings

in the meantime I visited the original church of Edgefield, near Holt, in the 1880’s most of it was taken down and incorporated into a new church in the centre of the village. they left the Saxon octagonal tower

and some of the doorways and windows

the churchyard is full of hawthorns, bloody with haws – our visit on 1st october, the anniversary of Mary Tudor’s coronation – and some late tombstones

in heavy rain I took this photo of the biggest remaining window arch

which inspired me to add the shape to my painting

 

 

changeable september sea-light

Posted jane -->on 28th Sep 2019

and it’s almost a month since I last posted ….. perhaps being so devastated by the cutting down of all those irreplaceable oaks has put me off. anyway, quite a different subject – equally important environmentally – the saltmarsh at Morston on our beautiful North Norfolk coast. since the birds have finished nesting I’ve been taking Bims there in preference to the beach at Wells – it’s quieter, and better for her feet

and more fun, cross-country jumping over little creeks and pools. and for me a beautiful place with curlew, oystercatcher, redshank all calling –

at high tide when it’s early and still un-busy it’s very beautiful, I just long to be out there on a boat on a morning like this with no chop and hardly a breeze

though I’m a poor sailor and have never done much almost getting my bum wet and all that stuff. I did love having my tiny Mirror dinghy, but could hardly ever take it out, it was always too windy for me!

this was last week in clear sky weather

then later in the week with the tide lower. it’s all starting to look quite autumnal. funny how these salt-tolerant plants – samphire and sea-blite turn orange red or maroon. I’m not sure what the process is, as they are not about to drop leaves or anything.

the pools reflect the sky, so double the light, it’s all around you.

and a riffle of wind coming across this one

here’s B doing her thing, zoomies, round and round. she doesn’t go far from me

cooler light yesterday, and the tide on its way out. this perfect row of Cockles (or is the one on the right an Oyster – my initiation into this place more than thirty years ago involved a real clinker-built wooden Oyster – these are all fibreglass replicas) sitting upright in the mud.

this is the special place we used to come to by boat at high tide for picnics all those years ago, when our daughter and our friends’ middle daughter were only three … Morston Freshes and a side creek off the Stiffkey where it comes into the lagoon it shares with the Glaven

this morning’s sky

we were there earlier, so caught this lower sunlight and silvery sky

quite wet from all the rain

and the tide still on its way out. I have a sore foot so the saltmarsh and soft mud are kinder to walk on, and Bims gets to run as much as she wants. we may be doing this as our regular walk for a while.

as she was here yesterday she’s not needing to run around like a complete looney

sea-aster everywhere. the Elizabethans valued this as a garden flower. it flowers all along the margins of this coast in september and october

still quite a lot of thrift/sea-pink in the pink

and artemisia (sea-wormwood) silvery everywhere. I was lucky that B did not roll in the small dead seal which is decomposing slowly alongside the path. it looks like a young common seal. they pup in the summer, whereas the grey seals (the ones with long noses) give birth and mate in November, haunting the place with mournful calls.

the sun on the dunes and beaches of the spit, just for a moment ….

and a little bit of painting chat to tuck on the end of this watery post

I’ve tried glueing fabric onto my canvases, specifically pieces cut off linen shirt sleeves

they echo what I’ve done on fabric with stitches. but the problem is that getting past this seductive stage is rather difficult.

the unprimed fabric is absorbent and takes the paint quite differently from the canvas

here I could have held back too, if the surface quality of the canvas wasn’t a bit repellant

so a couple of layers later (the joy of acrylic paint, you can white over what you did that day, and have another go the next) this one is waiting to see what happens next

here’s another which looks interesting like this, but it still wasn’t enough

so here it is, finished (for now) 60 x 70 cm. the pale blue was a freebie with a paint order!

it has lots of texture and “Mirfak” scratched into that blue socket. Mirfak is a star in the constellation of Perseus. they have amazing Arabic names from the thirteenth century when astronomy was forging ahead in Islamic countries.

 

 

 

 

 

back to norfolk

Posted jane -->on 28th Aug 2019

after another early morning walk on West Sands

although it would be warm later in St Andrews

the mist was only just burning off, and there were only one or two runners and not many dog walkers

I thought it would be a kindness to Bims to let her have a run before the long journey home

and a paddle. but it turned out that her adrenalin levels were quite raised, and she was not happy in the car, it took her at least a couple of hours to settle. stress equals adrenalin even when it seems like she’s having a nice time. we of course had air conditioning to insulate us from the 33 degree heat on the drive, but the heat of the following two days has got us in a rhythm of very early walks – straight out of bed on waking and off before seven, even six fifteen yesterday.

our norfolk fields are very beautiful then

the stubbles full of frolicking hares

pink horizons

and sea-wards a lingering mist

those hares got B’s stress levels up again – in fact it takes days for the levels to go right down, and she seems quite over-alert even three days later.

sun on my back and a bit warm already by six forty-five ..

not a creature to be seen along by Bale wood, where the huge field (named the prairie by the neighbour) has had its oilseed rape harvested – however much B hoped to see another hare

the silver-washed fritillaries long gone

and the thistles now beneficial to birds rather than insects.

this morning we are cooler, and slightly damp – what a relief!

but at Bullfer Grove there is devastation

all the non-National Trust part of the wood is being cut for selected timber removal

and a right mess the machines make getting in and out

I would guess that Albanwise are harvesting mature oak trees all round here

there are I’d estimate at least a hundred trees piled up here where there’s access from the main road

each side of the NT gate

really it’s a shock to find this many trees felled

and they have been in to all of it and taken the large oaks

leaving smashed up branches

and stumps. so the question is, are they going to replant? and does this have anything to do with a 2013 statement

that they were then thinking of more intensively managing their 300 hectares of woodland, possibly using the product for woodchip fuel

whatever the intention, it’s horrifying to see trees cut down that would have been viable for at least another two hundred years, and helped to keep our carbon dioxide emissions just a little lower, at the same time as we are seeing apocalyptic film of the Amazon forest burning, and fires in the Arctic boreal forests out of control in Siberia, canada and Alaska.

 

two walks in Fife

Posted jane -->on 24th Aug 2019

yesterday we went to Kemback wood, a steep woodland quite near to St Andrews, for a shady walk at lunchtime, thinking of what was best for the dogs as well as ourselves.

this walk begins and ends with a pretty gate, first through the stone wall near the Neo-Gothic parish church, stone-built  in 1820 and very small with narrow pointed windows. you drive up an alarmingly steep lane to get to it.

the gate leads to a path along the lower edge of the wood, looking out

under trees into meadows. one tree was a huge field maple, I’ve never seen such a magnificent specimen, as big as a mature beech. I’m pretty sure it was field maple, with small maple-type leaves and the rather spongey bark.

small burns flow down the hill

Em always likes a paddle

B not so much unless she’s been running

this burn tumbles down the hill from a set of waterfalls, amongst bluebells

and ends up in this pond, flowing over the far edge. across the meadows is Kemback House

our path led up and up. we were thankful for the shade and the breeze shimmering the dappled light

when we got to the top, past caves, or quarrying in the level bedded sandstone, the path skirted some steep drops

then we were out into the back of Blebo Craigs, and a grass field with a gorse portal to this path

back into the edge of the wood

through a narrow kissing gate, and then down what seemed like hundreds of steps back to the church. a good work-out for all parts of legs and bum.

this morning we drove to Balmerino, a bit further from St Andrews, near Tayport and on the Tay estuary. I actually looked at a small house for sale here about three years ago, but the enclosable garden was too small for dogs. this yellow painted one would suit me better, but it’s not for sale, of course.

a few metres down the lane you drop down to the Fife coastal path and a shingle beach

today the tide was low and the water clear and still

the estuary is huge, the Tay has a catchment area of two thousand square miles and is the longest river in Scotland.

the coastal path takes you along the edge of the estuary, on a paved path above the shingle, and then up steps into a wood full of bluebells and also many campfire hearths. today there was a beach clean along here, and I imagine there’s a lot of litter and debris involved with this camp fire activity.

several burns flow down the steep slopes, with footbridges crossing them

the path wanders up and down

at times near the beach, where there were some line fishermen and views across the Tay

not so much of a breeze today and higher temperatures.

the beach with overhanging trees made me think of a book I’m reading at the moment, Oliver Rackham’s The Ancient Woods of the Helford River, which has just been published by Little Toller Press. In that part of Cornwall, on the Lizard peninsula just south of Falmouth, the land is interpenetrated by drowned valleys, where the woods come down to the sea in the same way.

here though a lot of the trees are non-native conifers

with some clumps of beech, also planted. Beech is common in Fife, but it is not native.

we turned off the coastal path to take a track back to Balmerino. the conifer wood is very obvious in this view of the Tay and the farmland opposite.

the track is bordered with ditches, some sounding with water burbling, and hedges of bramble and sloe,  edged with rosebay willow herb. in the middle of the track we found this huge elephant hawk moth caterpillar looking for somewhere to pupate. Rose bay willow herb is a favourite food plant. the adult moth has a wingspan up to 2 1/2 inches and is a beautiful creature, olive green and pink. you can see this one’s horn at its rear end and the double eye patches near the head. it was flowing across the track at speed.

we found a more portable treasure as well – a jay’s secondary wing feather with the blue stripe of the covert feathers like a jewel on the edges of the white.

I would have expected to hear and see buzzards around here but there was nothing. too near the sea? over-active gamekeepers? (we saw a pheasant rearing enclosure in the woods) perhaps we were just unlucky.

today the Tay was like a mirror

back in Balmerino we popped into the grounds of the ruined abbey, founded in the thirteenth century by a band of twelve Cistercians.

it was converted into a house by the first Lord of Balmerino in the sixteenth century, and so much of it survives.

actually we were more interested in the four hundred year old sweet chestnut tree in the grounds.

 

early blues and a smaller splash

Posted jane -->on 19th Aug 2019

back in Scotland after an eight hour drive through rain and wind (only on the M6 and M74) and surface water yesterday.

wind this morning but with it light and shadow and clarifying blues

early morning walks at West Sands beach are rewarding, both in terms of cobwebs blown away and in sheer beauty

also in the opportunity for my running dog to run – difficult in the summer in North Norfolk where beaches are crowded and the temperatures a bit much

with the tide out this morning there was plenty of room

she was completely blown after a second session – not a teenager any more

though the energy seems endless.

all along the high tide mark there are clumps of sea rocket flowering

it’s a salt resistant sand loving plant that responds to sand blowing over it by vigorous growth, and it has a deep tap root to keep it in place and find moisture. there’s a lot along the edge of the sandy beach at Blakeney Point, and it’s typical in the Hebrides – in fact all round the British coast where there’s sand and dunes.

I was delighted and astonished to find more harebells growing in the sandy grass than I’ve ever seen before, probably altogether more than I’ve ever seen in my life.

I think this grass must qualify as machair, though it’s not in the Hebrides or any Western Isles. harebells love a chalky soil, and one of the characteristics of machair is a high lime content of the soil, due to shells breaking down on the beach.

lots of rosebay willow herb too

but the harebells were just stunning

thickly spread blue, lighter and more airy than bluebells

those of us who walk in birkenstocks with bare feet …..

and more blue – this was the product of the leftover oil paint during last week, a smaller canvas, 50 x 50 cm.

it has something of the drama of the beach and sky this morning in its contrasts

and textures

but it does remind me a little of the splash detail in Hockney’s swimming pool paintings, so “A smaller splash”

meanwhile B is on her hols and I have brought some new watercolours to see if I can do the delicate thing for a change.

holt lowes – a favourite place

Posted jane -->on 14th Aug 2019

a few years ago I stopped going to this place, because under the aegis of the Norfolk Wildlife Trust all the mature silver birches were grubbed up, and a lot of soil removed back to flinty ashy subsoil

in an attempt to get it back to the four thousand year old heathland it had once been.

the idea is to encourage the heathers – bell heather like this –

and ordinary like this –

and to cut the gorse back.

the trees got in the way and changed the biome.

but nature is irrepressible, and a few Dartmoor ponies put in to encourage the grass will not keep back the growth of trees. Once it was common land with rights of grazing and furze cutting for households in Holt, and presumably there were hosts of goats, cows, geese, sheep and people using the land. now it’s dog-walker territory, with some rare flora and fauna – sphagnum moss and natterjack toads, more common on Dartmoor than in Norfolk. the birch seedlings sprout everywhere.

not many people walk here either, it’s very quiet,

the ponies are fat and peaceful,

a little mischievous perhaps,

appearing and disappearing mysteriously amongst the remaining trees.

I’d thought we were going to get a wet walk but the morning warmed up,

there were gatekeepers and painted ladies flitting about,

and the regrowth of the gorse makes the paths sheltered.

one could have done with a sit down,

but Em and Bims got a paddle at least.

the flinty dry upper heath is cut in two by a damp trickle and pools – a small wetland.

this pool’s trees are full of willow warblers in early summer.

it’s the time of year for heather –

here the gorse cutter has succeeded in making it look like a heath.

it’s a place that’s good for winter walking with these dry peaty, sandy paths. of course, you can’t let dogs off the lead near the ponies – but I wouldn’t have Bims off anyway.

 

Ty Newydd again

Posted jane -->on 13th Aug 2019

Back to Ty Newydd, the National Writing Centre of Wales for a nature writing course with Mark Cocker and Kathleen Jamie (with Horatio Clare as the guest writer/reader) last week. when I was there in the autumn it was late October and quite a different feel to everything. and this was such a different course to the rather alternative storytelling retreat with Hugh Lupton and Eric Madden.

last week it was warm and we had a lot of sun

the lavender in flower and filled with bees – honey, and several different bumblebees

I think this is a carder bee

and this is a white-tailed bumble. One of our morning workshops with Mark had us looking hard at the bees for at least fifteen minutes to write something really concentrated about them.

there were also dragonflies – this is a dead one found in the house

and a few moths. this rosy footman was stranded in the house overnight

having entered and become confused by the glass the night before. there are so many moths with wonderful names; it was great to have someone (Mark) who is an expert on insects to share information.

this time I managed a walk to the beach almost every morning – the circular walk is just over two miles, taking in small paths

through tree-edged fields of grass

under the single railway line

past brambles – ripe blackberries one morning for breakfast –

bracken, grazing cows

a deliciously tarry hut

down to where the river Dwyfor comes out into Cardigan Bay

and along the coastal path

beside burling water (burly water described by Norman MacCaig) that in spate into a high tide must be quite a sight –

but the tide was out or going out in the mornings last week – and one morning a heron flapped across low to the little waves

there’s always a special light in the mornings

and back up to the house, David Lloyd George’s last home

a lawn full of self-heal, and the semi-circular porch and window echoed by lines of flat pebbles set on end raying out in another semicircle before the grass starts

the house is surrounded by mature trees, but this walnut is my favourite, its branch across the stone steps down to the kitchen and utility part of the house.

I omitted to take photos of the wood and the river where we spent one morning making notes, leaving me with a few close-up portraits of Himalayan balsam flowers – extraordinary sexy glutinous objects.

full of thoughts about my own writing and about the very good insights into the poems we worked on, from the whole group of writers, and from Kathleen Jamie. I drove home in a gale, shreds of leaves flying across the road. these damsons blown early off the tree in my garden went into a cake. the next lot will be gin.

those blues seem to have got under my skin

yesterday I tackled a large oil painting (48 x 48 inches) which has been waiting for me to know what to do to it. the large emulsion brush turned out to be the key.

it’s good to have a break from something like painting. doors open, just like that!

 

 

 

butterfly day

Posted jane -->on 30th Jul 2019

after the heat, the rain and grey glum damp weekend, the sun is back and it has brought a new crop of butterflies with it.

today in my garden there were at least six painted ladies on the buddleia

plus a peacock and two red admirals, and more of the gatekeepers and large whites/veined whites which are the most common.

in the rough headland by the wood there are plenty of thistles which feed all sorts of insects

 

this beetle is a harlequin longhorn (Rutpela maculata), at least it seems to conform to the description here with its very long stripy antennae which you can just see, and its wasp-imitating yellow and black wingcases. It’s not in my insect book, or there with another name.

as in my garden, painted ladies consort with red admiral, gatekeepers and large whites

Bimba and I wade into the long grass and flowers (including these splendid marsh thistles) to see if the the silver-washed fritillaries are flying. it’s a perfect hot morning for them, and here there are thistles, knapweed and hemp agrimony, all three favourite food plants.

the hemp agrimony loves damp places and this is a soggy bit of land. once it was ploughed and there were big ruts full of water at the edges here. now it has a wonderful range of wild flowers which are spreading out from the scrub wood which was once a wet meadow.

and here they are, leopard-spotted and large, flying and feeding together with the painted ladies

I was here ten days ago and there were none

I didn’t see as many this morning as last year. it was only 9.30 am so maybe a little early in the day.

think I saw about six. and several painted ladies.

there were also a couple of common blues. missed it with the camera, but there was one on this st john’s wort.

fleabane here. maybe I should try rubbling in on my skin as an insect repellant. three horseflies had a go. last time I was here one did get me.

after the richness of butterflies off the beaten track, the lanes seemed barren and empty. even this once-tarmac lane which is full of field scabious and st john’s wort had very few butterflies this morning. not enough thistles, and the grass field next to it has one kind of grass only, no flowers, just a little patch of clover at the opposite corner.

it was a bit hot for Bims this morning. one needs to be very careful with dogs, they can easily get heat stroke. when we got back she immersed her front legs in the deep water bin I keep full for her, and had a good drink. never mind that she comes from Spain; they don’t have this high humidity there.

last week the Holt festival had a little exhibition of Lucy Rie’s pots and I took a few photos.

they are like exotic butterflies, delicately thrown in porcelain

or stoneware glazed with “volcanic” effects

I love her tall forms, they inspired my “listening pods”

perhaps when working on this painting at Art Group this week I was subconsciously inspired by that zinging yellow bowl. there is something butterfly like about the shapes too. never mind that stripy beetle!

both these are 50 x 50 cm. square canvases make painting abstracts easier, I’m sure. I’m building up layers and scratching through with the point of a small palette knife. in hot weather it’s much easier to get the acrylic paint thick but I have to be quick to make the scratch marks.

 

the flowers of the forest

Posted jane -->on 25th Jun 2019

a well-timed visit to scotland in mid-June, where the weather was cool but sunny in contrast to saturated Norfolk

we had several beach walks, some here on West Sands in front of St Andrews’ golf course, early mornings before family went to work

low tides gave us plenty of room

although one of us is very sadly a bit too arthritic to play games on the beach

I visited Big Cat Textiles in Newburgh, on the Tay estuary, had lunch with old friends on the last day of Michel Garcia’s plant dyeing course. everyone was extremely busy rinsing, printing, ironing, drying in a fever of time limits, I pottered in the shop, bought some of Alison Mountain’s deliciously dyed merino/silk/yak knitting yarn.

Jeanette Sendler showed me a marvellous book from their library, of Sheila Hicks’ small tapestry works, Weaving as Metaphor, which ought to inform some abstract paintings soon; if I were not already doing too many projects it would have me going back to this art form which I tried in my twenties.

back at St Andrews – Bims is so much more grown up now she is three and there were no floor/carpet tragedies.

on the Saturday we went for a walk at Tentsmuir near the mouth of the Tay estuary – in fact between two estuaries, the Eden flows out to the south and the beach here at low tide appears to join up with West Sands, but in between are sandbanks, quicksands and a river. Tentsmuir forest is forestry commission, but the seaward edges are very au naturel, low sandy hillocks covered with some marram and some machair-type vegetation, full of flowers. this is an area full of ancient archaeology, which used to be turned up by rabbits until the myxomatosis disaster. it’s also next to a military zone. a place full of complications and connections.

to my delight this June it is full of northern marsh orchids, some flower heads five inches long. I was so excited by the orchids I didn’t take enough notice of all the other flowers.

Bims had another fantastic run and play

then back on the lead and into the woods

more orchids along the trail

woods in Scotland have totally different understoreys to english woods, fern, lichen, and moss are king

old birches growing out of mossy humps and cushions

someone had put a painted stone in a hole in this tree – green with red lips and white teeth, a kind of baby dinosaur face.

on Sunday we went further afield, into Angus, near Forfar, Montreathmont Forest.

it’s Forestry Commission like Tentsmuir, but much of what we walked was open like this, some spruce but a lot of scots pine and forest floor covered in a mixture of ferns, mosses, heather and bilberry.

there are supposed to be capercaillies, but I think you would have to be up at dawn to hear them.

more flowers – a lot of bugle – occasional orchids – beautiful dark blue speedwells

and this which I now think is wild grape hyacinth – I found the native version in Simon Harrap’s very thorough Wild Flowers, although the flower head is usually more like the garden variety, except that it’s a really dark smoky blue, and in this photo the blue is too bright.

we followed some marked paths through open meadow (where the bugles followed lines across the grass) with alders and birches, and then through more of the “Caledonian Forest” style woods, delightfully not forest trails.

Lucy had downloaded the OS map for the walk, and there was supposed to be a path near here, in an open strip similar to this, with a little burn/ditch, but no sign of the path, in very long wet grass

then as the grass was so long and wet we tried the edge of the wood, but the moss and heather cushions were knee high, so that was not any easier

we crossed the burn/stream/ditch – luckily there was a ledge or the remains of a bridge where the path had been

through drier/shorter grass and a landscape of fern clumps growing out of their own humps/stumps and some birch, alder and then heather and broom. then the open landscape ended in a wood. the path was supposed to go through it, parallel to a straight forest ride. we had to push/crawl through small spruce and gorse, ended up soaked and our clothes and hair full of pine needles. the spruce branches low sharp and painful. at last we fought our way through to the high gorse edge of the trail, I had to sit on a gorse bush to allow Bimba through. real forest bathing – and my hip has still not recovered completely.

the trail also petered out, but that was marked on the map, and the path it turned into had recently been tended with some branches cut. finally we were back on track to where the car was parked.

 

 

 

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