Things are ripening fast! The harvest has begun, though the fields of wheat around Willey haven’t been touched yet. Any time now, I suspect – they’re a lovely golden colour. Meanwhile, the blackberries at the foot of Bould Lane were looking good too (they were delicious!).
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Wednesday evening 22 July: It’s only a few days since we last walked this way. Not many changes to see, though a distant field of wheat (or barley) now appears to be a candlewick bedspread. It’s still quite hazy, it’s cool under the trees, and again there’s no-one else around.
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A pleasantly warm summer’s evening – good to be out, but nothing energetic… We’re revisiting Boldings pools, this time taking the slightly longer route up the field to the old school, leaving the pools to the last few yards. The harvest has begun – completed, by the look of it, around here. All that remains is dozens of big bales of straw. In the first field, they’re all arrayed in lines; elsewhere randomly scattered, most of them glowing in the evening light.
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Down the quiet hidden footpaths, just yards from the Ironbridge Road, to the footbridge by the Boat Inn, and over the Severn to the china museum. “We can sit under a big brolly outside the YHA café and enjoy something from the freezer”.
If the café is open, that is. But it’s not. We can only assume they’re waiting until the china museum, now in the hands of the National Trust, reopens. Soon?
Happily, there’s a chalked sign offering ice creams and the like at the Boat (a pint would have been most enjoyable, but I’d have been fast asleep by teatime!). So, with a couple of Cornettos on a bench in the pub garden, we enjoy a few quiet minutes and prepare for the pull back up through the Dingle, which is also refreshingly cool on this increasingly warm afternoon.
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Tuesday and Wednesday: a walk in the shade on Wenlock Edge, and Boldings Pools – the light grows warmer as the heat fades. On both outings, we’re on our own – no-one else around. The orchids on the Edge have gone without trace; a red kite circles above the pools, a silhouette never quite in camera range.
The Edge:
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Boldings:
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There’s a fairly large buddleia bush just outside the house – and, before we set out for a walk on Sunday evening, I paused to study the numerous peacocks, red admirals and painted ladies – butterflies like buddleias! But what’s that? At first slight it’s a very small bird, hovering beside the flower heads – but it’s not. It’s a hummingbird hawk-moth: never landing, it hovers briefly at each bloom to suck at the nectar through its long proboscis. Watch it briefly coil up and straighten in the last seconds of the short video clip.
It’s not easy to photograph, rarely still on a breezy day, but it was there once more this afternoon so that I could try again…
It’s still quite warm when I leave the car, just after 7.30pm, but the route up through the woods, from Lower Pool to Shirlett Lane, is on an east-facing hillside – pleasantly cool. By the time I’ve dropped back down Round Hill, the sun is much lower and it’s very pleasant walking. I’m surprised to find, on returning to the start, that it’s just after 9pm. Although it’s still early July, I’ve seen the year’s first blackberry, and the wild damson trees are heavily laden with promise for the autumn…
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Monday evening: once again, it’s somewhat cooler, there’s a pleasant light breeze, and the sun’s behind the clouds. I’ll head for Hurst Farm and Aldenham – the path across the field should be walkable, as should the edge of Shore Pool. “Walkable” is debatable, I suppose – the farmer has cleared a the path through the beans, but they’re tall and the path is weed-strewn (tickly!). At least there’s no mud anywhere. And like Sunday evening, it’s quiet – no-one else around. An enjoyable outing!
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Sunday evening: The visitors have all gone – and so have the household authorities (temporarily). It’s quiet here, and it seems even quieter up at Shirlett. There’s a faint hum of distant traffic on the Bridgnorth to Wenlock road, but other than that, it’s just birdsong*. In the woods, the helleborines are looking good and will be flowering soon. Back in the open, I spot a deer – then it spots me and springs away, back into the woods. Looks like a roe – they’re more common a little further south, in Mortimer Forest, but usually we see fallow deer here (and the occasional muntjac)
* Merlin says it could hear a blackbird, a blackcap, a robin, a linnet and a treecreeper:
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The family are visiting – but they’ve gone away for a couple of days (did someone mention Legoland?), leaving us to a little r&r. What could be better than a stroll around the Willey lanes?
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