A different day… The warm sunny weather ended (as it so often does) with thundery rain yesterday evening, and now it’s cooler and grey, with more rain to come. It’s a dry morning though – let’s see how the orchids are doing on the Wenlock Edge. We had high hopes after yesterday’s outing, but there were only a few, in the woods with the last remnants of the bluebells. Are we too late for the early purple orchids?

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…or do I mean steep? It’s a bit of a pull up Round Hill, but after that, it’s downhill all the way. Plenty to see on this short leisurely wander, starting with the family of belties near the start, and at the other end of the scale, a green-veined white butterfly enjoying the wild garlic flowers, and posing very obligingly too.

Caption note (the daisies, photo 5): Very many years ago (in the days of black and white) as a small child I was sent to Sunday school. Hated it! (I wanted to be out and free!). We sang a strange song: “Daisies are are silver, buttercups are gold”. Why “are are silver”? Years later, on reflection, I realised that it was “are our silver” and “our gold”. Our teacher may have pronounced “our” as “are”, but we certainly didn’t. How easily is confusion sown, and meaning lost!

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A regular good leg-stretch – up and over from Bedlam furnaces to Coalbrookdale, down Coach Road to the riverside, and back to the start through Ironbridge. If I time it right, I’ll stay dry…

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Tuesday 16 January: I’m back from my trip to Skye. Before I begin posting the photos from those remarkable days up there, I need a local leg-stretch. It’s familiar ground, and none the worse for that. Going by the Met. Office’s definition (the calendar months of December, January and February) we’re half-way through winter now – I’m going to look for any early signs of the spring that will surely come in just over six weeks.

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Merry Christmas everyone!Best wishes from Geoff

…there are showery days. Need to time this carefully! It’s a walk around the lanes (too much mud away from hard surfaces) at Cound, always pleasant, never busy. Timing? Perfect – a light shower as we drove home, and a heavier one just after we were back indoors.

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Just published to Geoff’s Rail Diaries, an illustrated account of our visit (on 30 September) to the Keith and Dufftown Railway, in the land of Speyside malt whisky… Visit “The Whisky Line“ – now!

Another dry morning (another showery afternoon). I’m wandering through the fields, mostly between the Bridgnorth road and the river. There’s no-one else about – but what about those three there, by the edge of the wood? We often see fallow deer in these parts, but they don’t usually have this dark colouring. I think they’re the ‘melanistic’ variety, described as black or chocolate coloured, but I’m not sure – never seen any like these before. They look up – they’ve seen me – but I don’t seem to be posing a threat, and for a minute or two they carry on nibbling at the undergrowth. Then a pheasant suddenly bursts noisily from the wood, spooking them, and they’re off!

Just beyond the deer, the path was completely blocked by a fallen tree (hawthorn – I’m not going to try and push through that!) – had to take a field’s edge detour.

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