thameshead

Trying to be outdoors as much as work will allow Instagram @edmorris3

[thameshead]

Running

September 2016

It was a warm, damp, drizzly start to the day but eventually the skies turned the clearest blue with just the odd stripe of cloud here and there, like contrails from planes, but a bit tougher and longer lasting.

My deal with myself was that I would run when I was home from work.  And despite the lure of lighting a fire and watching the sky I was out of the door by six.  I didn’t feel like I was running well and my Garmin suggested I was doing a pace I hadn’t managed for nearly a year, but I felt ok, decided to ignore the watch and carried on.  This often repeated run takes me round the edge of Highworth, on the wide verge next to the feeder road for the housing estates built in the seventies.  There is a ditch and a hedgerow between the verge and field and here and it’s kept brutally in check by the flail.  But here and there are some small trees, and about two thirds of a mile in I get to run across a layer of crab apples, ranging from pale green to yellow to a yellow starting to rot colour.

Then, over the main road, past the industrial estate, then past Pentylands fields reserved for dog walkers and wildlife, along Pentylands Lane which suddenly starts running alongside Bydemill brook, before ploughing over it and along a Bridleway which must have been the main road to the river crossing to Kempsford before roads were tarmacked and this one wasn’t.  The hedgerows and plants here are overwhelming in contrast to the road around town, you have to duck and weave to avoid being stung and scratched, but thankfully someone has got rid of the worst of the nettles.  The canopy includes some oaks and looking down my eye catches sight of a small, perfect, vivid acorn on the ground, still in its cup.  My foot is about to land on it.  Without thinking I twist to avoid it.  I just fail and can feel the acorn pop out of its cup and fly into the undergrowth on the left of the path.  All I can think of is the colour of the nut, a green so fresh, especially in the surroundings of early autumn, that I think I can see though it to the leaves of spring.

[thameshead]

Combine

July 2017

I’ve managed to keep cycling regularly. I can almost run, but not quite and so I have to be patient.  Cycling does keep delivering life affirming moments though.

Today I went out with a friend who is a much stronger athlete than me, and approaching the end of the ride he had distanced me coming up a hill.  something very large, could only be a combine from the sound, followed me up the hill until it was safe to overtake and occupied the gap.  And at the top of the hill I soon caught the combine up, and with no chance of overtaking it sat in its not inconsiderable slipstream.  I wasn’t expecting such a joyous experience.  

The rear of the machine was covered in mud, dried mud, dust, chaff, straw and grains.  As it trundled along bits were constantly being dislodged and sweeping towards me in the draft.  It seemed that each one was bringing a memory, too many of them to register individually, but a collective impact that left me smiling delightedly, almost forgetting to concentrate on what the combine was doing.

[thameshead]

Barley

May 2017

Just about the only exercise I can do at the moment is cycling, and I’m trying to cycle to work at least once a week.  This spring has been stunning.  And although the weather was nowhere near as warm and sunny this evening as it was last week I could see and sense that the light and heat have done their work well.  As I cycled through the fields of barley just south of the old Down Ampney airfield the strong winds streamed their scent across me.  There must be so much that science doesn’t understand about smell and memory (though I suspect it knows a lot more than me).  It doesn’t fully understand how birds mange to migrate 1000s of miles or how bees communicate where nectar is.  But it can probably explain why the perfume of blushed barley squeezed my emotions.  My understanding of the chemical reactions is basic at best, but that said...

I grew up on the Vale of York amid miles and miles of wheat and barley and oats.  The whiff, faint though it is now from these young crops, must be ingrained in my consciousness from when it was ever present.  From when we used to get into trouble for making dens in the fields (only got caught once) to the more regular occasions when we would just pick a single barley stalk and use it’ s slightly sticky whiskers to try and tickle someone, or even yourself, under the chin.  It may be why I love the smell of beer, of malt and of brewing now.  It has few rivals for me and the main one is a close relation.  In July and August when I cycle down these same lanes my senses will be overpowered by the harvest, with chaff and dust drifting out behind the combines and a more mature version of the same scent of barley drifting with it.  Even if I’m driving and I see a combine I’ll wind the wind down and try and get a hit.  One that transports me back to a the Vale of York.

[thameshead]

Welcome to Winter

We’ve charged through late summer, autumn and now, it seems into winter.  The roads are wet, covered in mud, decomposing leaves and the clippings of the flailed hedgerows.  It is a poor combination when you riding a bike, commuting to work I can tip toe round corners and swerve to avoid anything that looks sharp.  On todays ride through the Cotswolds with real cyclists I clung on at the back, covered in the filth from the roads, having to trust that if I simply followed the wheel in front I would come to no harm.  It seemed to work, but wasn’t relaxing.  And it seems to be winter because I lost my hands for the the first time since last winter.  Getting home into the dry and warm was painful.  But the hot shower was bliss.

[thameshead]

We went to Devon and Dorset for the day.  West Bay cliffs and late afternoon sky.

[thameshead]

Ladybird sheltering on our very late sunflowers....

[thameshead]

25 June 2013 - Pembrokeshire Coastal Path

Today was a whistle stop, as much as running 35 miles in 7 hours can be whistle stop, tour of some of the best beaches in Britain.  Starting at Amroth, in perfectly still and hot conditions we went past sandy beach, sandy cove, all framed by calm sea and azure, windless sky. It's like being abroad my brother kept saying.  It was down to him that we were there as he is trying to run the whole coastal path in 4 days.  There was bank after bank of foxgloves and layer upon layer of ferns.  Furry caterpillar after furry caterpillar on the path. It was early evening by the time we got to the mythical Barrafundle Bay and moved inland to skirt the Castlemartin range through wildflower meadows.  A buzzard perched on on one of the red lights at the top of one of the warning flagpoles and glided silently away as we approached leaving the red light starting to glow in the dusk.  There were cooing pigeons, gentle cattle, a village with a stone 'pound'.  We finally reached Freshwater West where surfers were enjoying big waves despite the calm everywhere else.  We cooled our legs in the sea, promised ourselves we would come back to this special spot and set off back for team HQ in Porthgain, wishing it wasn't quite so far away.

[thameshead]

22 June 2013 - Flying

I finally stepped onto a cricket field again last Thursday and though the sky was grey and the strong wind was carrying drizzle it soon mutated into a beautiful evening with the Cirencester church tower glowing amongst and above the trees.  Above the trees at Tarbarrow was a buzzard.  The ones here are keener on hovering like kestrels than others I’ve seen where they soar or wait on posts.  Or perhaps it is just this family of buzzards really bending their wings and tails to concentrate on one spot while the others are all soaring gliders, who use the wind to stay in one spot, just occasionally twitching a primary.  Perhaps they all do it, but the terrain lends itself to hovering more.  Then on the way home from work the next day as I came out of Down Ampney towards the old airfield I could hear a piston engined plane being put through it’s paces.  I stopped pedalling to look for it, and to miss the old boy walking his dogs who goes swimming at the leisure centre every lunchtime, and tracked it down.  It was a bi plane doing aerobatics over the old airfield.  .

[thameshead]

21 June 2013

Another woodpecker.  This time near the mill in Coleshill, and a greater spotted rather than green. Already a remarkable summer.

[thameshead]

7 June 2013

Had a great run in Cirencester Park at lunchtime, made even better by seeing another woodpecker in a completely different area of the Park. Two in two weeks?! And my legs felt good for a change.

[thameshead]

28 May 2013

Spring has finally sprung. Summer approaches, and the weather continues to surprise. I love this sort of day, the many different shades of fresh green foliage and the candles on the chestnuts standing out in the gloom. We spent the weekend camping in Dorset and there was a young horse chestnut by the tent which had recently been cut back, it carried just one candle, like a light set in a green wall. The grey sky overshadows everything and the reflection of the office lights in the windows make it seem a little like early winter, not late spring. The steady, heavy rain reminds me of school holidays when the Test match would be off because of the weather and eventually, I would be forced outside, bored of reading, into the garden, or the woods where I would get more of a soaking from the soaked braken and bilberry bushes than I would from the rain. The rain eased off after work, halfway through my run. I went to circle the playing fields, running efforts. At the top of the field where it meets the woods a bird flew off, a dipping flight, a yellow rump, it paused and stopped on the fence. Definitely a green woodpecker, after missing one in Dorset as I had my back to it I was delighted. It was there on every lap of the field, I know I was disturbing it by running past but it was a privilege to be so close.

[thameshead]

17 May 2013

For a variety of reasons I have not cycled to work, from Highworth to Cirencester, in the last ten days. But it wasn't the last journey in gale force winds and torrential rain that put me off. I have had to spend more time at home and it has given me the chance to see some of the everyday wonders in the garden unfurl. The tulips, red and yellow, purple, plain blood red. The blossom on the fruit trees and the even more spectacular blossom on our neighbours gigantic apple trees, and the incredibly delicate flower on a pear tree. Around dawn the local blackbird starts shouting. He used to sing at the front of the house, but the Town Council had all the undergrowth cut down so he has had to move to the back and in the last few weeks has been very vocal outside the back door. Hopping from the fence, to the roof, to the boughs of a small birch tree. He was in the same place today, singing his heart out, with perhaps a note of concern, yet just three feet away, balancing on the same fence, basking in the morning sunshine was the neighbours cat, apparently showing no interest. I waited for five minutes and there was no movement from the cat. I went back out twenty minutes later and they were still there.

[thameshead]

Day Off

No need to go to work today, but I still have plenty to do and if I am going to get any time on the bike it needs to be early.  I don't get out at 7.30 as planned but five to eight isn't bad and it has given the sun the chance to come out.  The roads are still filthy and the upper Thames valley is soaked.  Sodden.  Wet through.  the fields have small lakes in them, fields that shouldn't even have water in them have small lakes.  Anywhere man has created some sort of boundary the water has backed up against it and is trying to spill over.  In some places it is pouring over the roads.  It must have before though because the roads are ever so slightly cause-wayed so they cut through the wet land.  As I climb ever so slightly off the valley valley floor through Harnhill and turn east I get a new problem.  Road glare, the low sun on the damp road dazzling and hypnotic, I keep staring into it rather than beyond it.  Reaching the higher ground north of Fairford the bike starts to dry out and the chain starts to sound like it needs oil having had pretty much everything washed off.  I can lose my sense of place around here as the hills roll so gently and the large fields look so similar that a lot of the crossroads, copses and farms look the same.  It is only as I get to Quenington that the valleys steepen and places become more distinctive.  For half an hour the quiet country roads are busy with commuters and then suddenly they stop and I have the roads to myself.  I realise there is no wind and the road home is mostly down hill.  I get on the drops and work hard.  Earn my cake and pint of tea. 

[thameshead]

in the dark

It seems like it has been dark for months, even in the day.  The only day where I have ridden in sunshine was New Years Day and then my route was still governed by the floodwaters.  In the dark, to and from work, across the upper reaches of the Thames.  My eyes scour the road looking for potholes, sharp sticks, anything that is going to halt my progress.  Very little else, apart from the traffic catches my attention, very occasionally I might see a pair of eyes staring at me in the distance before hurrying off into hedge.  And I have seen some very small mammals scurry across the road in front of me, though a lot of these turn out to be leaves.

Not always though, and this must be what the barn owl, or owls, I've seen in the last few weeks are looking for.  let's pretend it's just one as it has all been in the same area near and across the old airfield at Down Ampney.  It must be a struggle finding food in this damp and dreary winter which is I guess why I am seeing hi on the margins of the day, in the morning as well as at night.  I've seen him glide across in front of me, blaze a trail in front of me scouring the verge, early in the morning quartering along the treeline next to the old perimetre track giving a cry, and sitting in the lane almost as  though he was waiting for me to stop and talk.  I almost had stopped before he took off into the darkness, across the field.  I could hear his first few wing beats.

There are pleasures to be found in winter, though I do worry about the owl, wonder about his real story.

[thameshead]

By Car

At the moment I spend more time on the A 417/419 than any other road as it takes me to and from work, if I drive rather than cycle. The section between the edge of Swindon and Cirencester where I work starts at the top of Blunsdon Hill. The view from there across the Vale of White Horse to the Cotswolds is always stunning. Whether there is a mist hanging across the lower ground or whether it is clear and you can pick out the Perpendicular church at Cricklade and the c type hangers at South Cerney. It roughly follows the route of Ermin Street and the straight road plunges down the hill. At the bottom, on the flatness of the vale floor it goes past the Saxon town of Cricklade, across the barely navigable Thames. From there it charges through gravel pit country where the extraction industry is creating a haven for wild birds in it's wake. There is danger for them too, this morning there was a dead swan on the central reservation, it's feathers a bright white mocking it's death. It's also creating a land of second homes and leisure activity on the lakes. Would Vaughan Williams who lived in Down Ampney, to the East of the road and winner of the Bleddesloe Cup ‘village of the Cotswolds’ a couple of years ago, have approved? Then South Cerny airfield where there are often people jumping out of planes in the afternoons and large groups of soldiers mustering to go somewhere in the mornings. You fear for their massed ranks waiting calmly to move on our behalf. There are playing fields, gain to the east, and there is often a buzzard perched on one of the fence posts, or the top of a rugby post, waiting to swoop on one of the many rabbits that feed there.

The 419 arrives at Cirencester and skirts round the town. Before I turn into the centre to the circus of work I pass the Roman Amphitheatre, dressed in banners of autumn colours.

[thameshead]

Rain

The Thames at Castle Eaton was pretty full when I crossed on Thursday morning, swishing past the fences that separate the gardens that run down to the river.  There were large pools in the fields opposite the Church, filling the course of the old meander.  It wasn't raining though.  The low fog clung to the ground all day and once the rain started it got slowly heavier, heaviest shortly before I had to set off for home at five.  Once I got onto the flat of the vale I was mostly spared.  In fact I was too hot.

The steady soaking had turned the roads and lanes into muddy streams and coming out of Down Ampney, where a concert in the Church to celebrate Vaughan Williams was being advertised as sold out, the autumn colour seemed to be working its way from the ground up rather than the trees down.  The brown puddles in the lane giving way to dead grasses in the verge, dead, straw like climbers through the hedge and then some colouring beeches and elders mixing with the still green hawthorns.  At the top of one telegraph pole I disturb a kestrel, it flew off clutching it's dinner in it's talons.

By the time I cross the Thames again into Castle Eaton it was starting to rain again and the river has risen further, threatening the picnic benches in the pub garden. 

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[thameshead]

Autumn view towards the Corallian ridge.  Not this autumn.....