I went for a walk in the rain...

It was dusk and I needed some solitude so I set out up the hill.  It started to rain but this didn't deter me.

I saw so much beauty, a few examples of which I will share.

 

A sign of peace

Rainbows are so special! The excitement you see when one appears in the sky is a joy!

Last Saturday, CBC and I were in Billericay to go for dinner. He was driving in from a rehearsal and I had gone via train to have a quick peruse of the charity shopw. As I headed towards the restaurant, I got caught in rain.  

I dipped into Poundland to escape the rain.

When I emerged, I saw a rainbow emerging across the sky.

As I walked down the High Street, the rainbow became more and more intense.

 The wonderful thing was, all the people walking towards me had NO idea what beauty was behind them.

It was therefore up to me, to enlighten them.

To each and every person who came towards me, I said, "Have you seen the rainbow?"

And in each and every case, I had the glorious joy of seeing them turn round and gasp at how bright and intense it was.

Every single individual was overjoyed and stopped for a moment to gaze in awe and smile.

And I got to share that joy because I'd shown them the rainbow!

Of course, it can never be captured in a photo well enough.

I think this picture was my best one, of the bow over St Mary's church.

There was a secondary bow which was harder to capture.

This final picture was one that CBC took at the other end of the High Street. He managed to get a photo without any traffic!

Sometimes you don't see the rainbow in your gloomy sky because you don't see it...until someone takes the time to show you what was behind you all along.

I hope someone points out a metaphorical rainbow out to you this week...or that you can show someone that rainbow too!

xx

Dahlia dalliance

This year, in March or maybe February, the highlight of my month was going to Brentwood one Saturday...this was exciting for a few reasons....1.  a new Zerowaste shop, 2. We went to buy some vegetarian ready meals from Leon Lewis, 3.  Courtesy of Leon, I found where there was abundant Wild Garlic 4.  Wilkos!!!

This was of course in Lockdown where there was nothing to do and you weren't supposed to really go anywhere far. However, we had to go to the Opticians because CBC had damaged his lenses and his optician is there and has his prescription...even though he hasn't lived there for 8 years! 

Shopping in Wilko was really exciting at that time!!! I went because I wanted to get some gardening bits and I bought a pack of 3 Dahlia tubers (and also 10 Gladioli bulbs).

Growing such beautiful flowers has been such a pleasure this year.  They just keep coming and are rather beautiful.  

A couple of weeks ago, I photographed this Dahlia with a rather lovely, shiny visitor upon it.

It was such vision to look at.  The rather grand flower with a tiny jewel crowning it.   I love looking at this picture.  You can see a whole host of other tiny visitors taking a moment to rest on the Dahlia. Later in that morning, I also saw a Dragonfly weaving an iridescent path through the air from the flower later on.

 It seems that a variety of creatures are gaining pleasure from it which is rather joyful!

From the Archives- Skrandinski Buk

We went to Croatia back in 2015 and had a wonderful time travelling from Split to Korcula to Sipan to Dubrovnik with various day trips. It is a country with so much natural beauty that I am very keen to return to.  Here's a post, which Ally reminded me of, when she posted about waterfalls recently of my day trip to the Krka National Park.

Enjoy!

https://kerenzaallin-garner.blogspot.com/2014/08/croatia-day-5-waterfalls-waterfalls.html

Croatia Day 5: Waterfalls, waterfalls, waterfalls at Skrandinski Buk

Usually CBC and I like to do our own thing rather than going on organised tours, but when it came to finding our way to the Krka National Park, home to the stunning Skradinski Buk waterfalls, we decided to go on an organised excursion.  We went to Splitlicious, a company who different daily excursions and set off in a minibus with 5 other people and a crazy Communist driver who saw it as his mission to fill us in on misconceptions in British and American understanding of Croatian/Yugoslavian history. We drove to the river Krka and took a boat into the National Park, where we could access the variety of waterfalls through a series of wooden walkways. I think the photos speak for themselves so I shall restrict myself to a few comments here and there.  Enjoy...

The river Krka on the way into the National Park

The only place in Skrandiski Buk where you can swim.

The wooden walkways make it really easy to walk round, even with buggies. 

There were lots of these fish in pools. We laughed lots because the first pool seemed to have tadpoles, then there were small fish, then bigger fish, even bigger and so on.We were expecting sharks by the end.

We caught sight of this snake in the water. It is harmless though there are other harmful snakes in Croatia including the Horn-nosed viper.

The ducks enjoyed the waterfalls.

At the end, I went in for a swim though the sun had gone behind the clouds by then and it was a bit colder so I didn't stay in for long.

We then set off for the last leg of our journey that day...

Garden flora

 I've loved my garden SO much over the course of being at home all these months. I've come to love my home even more too and the location we live in.

It's been great to see the garden changing and to have the time to spend out there seeking the beauty and seeing the changes.  Here are a few recent photos.

In July, I cut the yellow rose right down after it had flowered.  CBC was dismayed and said I'd cut it too much! A month later and it had shot up to taller than me again and flowered.

The Golden Rod was very pretty and short-lived though sadly, some of the stems bent over a lot.

CBC is a walking contradiction. When he saw my lilac-coloured French-bean flowers, he was disappointed that they weren't the 'lovely red flowers'. I told him those come from Runner Beans.  I obtained 3 Runner bean plant via a benevolent neighbour and now they have the pretty red flowers. I served him up Runner beans for dinner and he began to bemoan how he much preferred French beans.  Sigh.

My trailing Begonia was a much loved housewarming present from a friend and its pretty pot goes so nicely on the shed.  The flowers have been very attractive too!

The Passiflora returns with avengeance every year, every month, every week.  Nothing can tame it!

The Seedum is starting to flower now, giving low-level pretty pink flowers.

The Verbena Bonariensis keeps going.  Such tiny flowers but they are delicious to all the flying pollinators!

I already shared our new Agapanthus plants flowering so beautifully but here are last years's smaller but more delicately pretty blooms.

There's plenty more to share when I get around to it soon.

Hope you are well.x

x

Journey to the river

Last Saturday, a week ago, I suggested to CBC that we go for a long walk.  The weather was lovely and both of us had failed to get ANY exercise the previous Monday to Friday (I may have had a walk on Monday but I'm not sure) and we needed to get some.

He acquiesced and so we set off from our front door.

The first part of the walk was not interesting as it was along the main road until we reached the first part of the Roach Valley way.  We walked up to the beautiful Minster church (which I didn't photograph but you saw it in a previous post of walking)

After about 3 miles, we turned off roads into a field path.  All of a sudden, we were completely alone. To be honest, for most of the three miles, we had been but now, goodbye all civilisation.

The vast open spaces filled my heart with utter joy and we could see in all directions.  All at once, again, like I have been every time I've walked in lockdown, I have been awed and blessed and thankful for where we live- to have such open spaces. I imagine my feeling of positivity throughout all this would be very different if I were cramped in a one bedroom flat in the city.

We could hear Curlews and other birds and it was gloriously easy to walk.

I found myself much taken by the swishing ostinato of the long grasses. We continued on for a mile and a half. CBC told me we were going to try and find the river and it seemed like we never would.

Then all of a sudden, we saw this...

"Is that the river?!" I asked eagerly.

"No," he replied, "That's the flood defences"* (*or something of that ilk)

I stopped to admire every beautiful difference.

We climbed up a steep slope and then...

The River at last!

I was utterly spellbound.

There was a hushed awe to the air of the feeling where you cannot quite believe how fortunate you are.

I stepped down easily to the 'sea wall'

To me, the mud looked like a beach, one that I could easily walk across and swim.

CBC was more skeptical about this but was equally delighted with the sight.

I begged to stop for our picnic here (we'd brought sandwiches, crisps and fruit, as we'd set out around lunchtime, stupidly, only to be eaten where there was no one else).

Here's a little video of the expanse.

He disagreed and said we should continue walking for a while.

I didn't tire of the sights or the utter feeling of euphoria on how we could possibly have this in walking distance from our house! CBC could never moan about where we live again!

Views across to the other side were interesting. We spied the odd train of the sparse branch line that runs on that side of the river.

The path was easy to walk on.

We didn't see a soul for at least 4 miles.

We continued walking on, reaching salt marshes which are a sanctuary for birds. There are nature reserves for the Essex Wildlife trust here.

A delightful stretch of Cow Parsley was an interesting difference.

I did keep seeing plants that were shockingly like Swiss Chard. I even stopped to pick some. Anyone got any idea what it might be?

Abandoned or just resting?

After a few miles, we saw signs of habitation on the right.

But the mud beaches stretched in never ending line, along the margin of a bay!

A most incongruous sign was Sheep in Essex!  But sharing the love.

 I particularly loved this stretch where the contours and colours made a beautiful layer cake.

I spied a lonesome Borage plant. Just the one.

Finally, after my feet were starting to hurt and it was at least 4 o clock, CBC agreed to stop for lunch.

We stepped down onto the sea wall, I discovered the mud wasn't so nice to stand on. The Bladderwrack was useful for stepping back.

No illegal non-social distancing here.

And that was my view for my Brie sandwich and crisps.

We continued along the path.  I kept asking CBC when we were going to turn round as my feet were starting to hurt (at this point, I had no idea how far we'd walked)

He said that would almost reach Wallasea Island and then we would have to take  right footpart. It seemed interminable and his hips started to hurt. Still, there was much beauty to make up for it.

As well as seeing a variety of wader birds including Oyster Catchers, we were flanked by the sound of a most persistent cuckoo for what seemed like miles.

I captured a bit of it here (turn your sound up)

At this point, my camera died and I had to continue walking.

As the sun set, we walked across fields and fields and it became harder and harder to walk.  Still, the rewards of perseverance were the glorious pink skies.

We walked into town and ordered some Chinese Takeaway (the restaurant had opened to takeaways 2 days ago) as a reward since it was already 8.15pm and we were so tired, it would be futile to cook.

They told us it would be 50minutes to wait so we limped home, via Sainsbury's Local which was empty and arrived home around 8.45pm, ready to drive back to the Chinese to pick it up.

That food was most welcome!

As we eagerly ploughed our way through the food, CBC looked at his OS maps and worked out our final mileage.  

We had walked.....15.3miles!  No wonder I could barely walk!  It certainly made up for the lack of exercise for the whole working week and the visual sights and soul food made it worthy.  It was a great exercise in gratitude as we kept repeating how lucky we are to live here all along the way.

I am aware how fortunate I am in these times, I have not faced hardship financially, mentally or in terms of space but it has been a time for learning the joy of what you have for me.

Onto the next!