Thursday night wasn’t the first time I’d slept on the canoe, just my first time while on the water. These next two images – heavily Photoshopped, to show far more detail than I could make out at nine pm in … Read More »
Attenborough yesterday. The early autumn fruits are ready – apple and blackberry, elderberry, hawberry and rosehip. Horse chestnut even. While cabbage whites do floral cunnilingus, honey bees go deep stick. Everyone’s a winner. Red winged damselflies do it in the … Read More »
The nights are drawing in. Though not yet nine pm it had been dark the best part of an hour. I squeezed the Skoda between two trucks hunkered down for the night on a layby a few miles west of … Read More »
Sloes seem early this year, rosehips too. Blackberries less so. No SLR with heavy telephoto lens today. Just Jasper by my side and Galaxy S7 edge in my shorts pocket. This outlet, from Coneries Pond and Sailing Pit into the … Read More »
Today, with dear friend Sue. We took trains, she from Sheffield, I from Beeston, to meet at the cafe in the park, Matlock. From there we walked the left bank of the Derwent upstream for a mile before swinging west … Read More »
Bewdley on Tuesday. Though the dominant look is Georgian, the town’s prosperity as highest port on our biggest river goes back to the Tudors. We’re camped a few miles downstream, at Stourport on Severn. Served by fast roads, it’s not … Read More »
My highly acclaimed River of Fear post drew to its cliffhanging close with me settling down for the night, after a harrowing four hours afloat between Langham Bridge and Merrydale Farm, at the side of a lock where Grand Union … Read More »
The River Soar rises between Lutterworth and Hinckley, then takes a northerly course through brown-field, cattled meadow, reedy margins, trailing willow, dreary town and many an idyllic village – as well as Leicester and Loughborough – to top up the … Read More »
In a one seat canoe, you’re skipper and crew, just messing about on the river. Josh Macrae My kayak lives in the garage. Deflated, rolled and strapped to a folding trolley of the kind used by porters to move sacks … Read More »
… these for instance, yesterday, by the river between Attenborough and Trentlock. * Cor – more ants! Yes, I’m afraid it’s true. In the end all teachers – and I’ve spent goodly chunks of my life being one – succumb … Read More »