Long weekends and good news..

 Four lovely days of feeling absolutely no pressure to be productive - it doesn’t get much better than that right now! I’ve never been someone who lives for weekends and has a sinking feeling of impending doom on Sunday nights, well aside from a couple of years in a truly toxic job shortly before I got out of the construction industry anyway. Recently though I’ve really started to empathise with the people for who that is just standard, as it has got increasingly harder to fill weekdays. The good news from today though - notably that English lockdown easing continues as scheduled - means that our upcoming planned trip to Cornwall  can definitely now go ahead which is great news for us! 

I’ve actually really enjoyed this weekend - it’s a rare year when we are at home over Easter, and last year lockdown was still too new and raw, alongside the fact that we would otherwise  have been on Lundy celebrating a pal’s birthday - to truly appreciate the novelty of 4 days empty to fill as we wish. 

Among other things done, we’ve bought the plants for the pots that live on the two balconies, and got those planted up - still a few things to find homes for, but first we need to hope they will all survive the frost expected tonight! 

We also got some nice views of the Thames from the RSPB reserve at Rainham - the reserve still has the one way system in place so instead of going right round we opted to dive out onto the river path via the handy one way turnstile gate part way round, and walked up to the hill at the old landfill site with its great views across to that bit of Kent that likes to pretend it’s London. 

More exploring at Amwell too - just a handful of miles up the road but of course very off limits from here for the past few months so it was lovely to be back. Not a long walk, but a stretch of the Amwell Walkway  which is along the line of a former railway, hence the bridge...

...and then more views  - this time from the new-to-us Widbury Hill. Not massively high but a nice short sharp climb up and then the reward from the top of the panorama of the Lea Valley stretching out ahead of you. One to return to for sure.  

Then today a nice 4 mile loop out at Norton Mandeville - starting of course with the train, rather more graffitied than the last time we saw it sadly, and with more of the interior pulled out too. It is still entirely baffling why someone would go to the trouble of buying the thing, and having it hauled to it’s current position, and then just leave it to rot. 

Underlining that spring is very definitely now with us is the fact that the oil seed rape is bursting into its full yellow glory - and THAT in turn means I’ve been sneezing for the rest of the evening, ho hum! 

For various reasons all our walks this weekend have been relatively short but also all really nice - we’ve deliberately still stayed fairly close to home, it’s nice exploring areas that we’ve been unable to visit for a while, apart from anything else, and we do after all have plenty of further afield exploring planned for the not too distant future, too! 

Robyn 

A new happy place...

 

I’ve mentioned before here how much I love swimming - it’s very much like running in that I procrastinate like crazy about doing it, don’t always enjoy it *that* much while I’m doing it, but pretty much always feel AMAZING afterwards. And on a good day that feeling of gliding through the water, self-propelled and weightless, is just world-beating. In the current COVID-19 climate though, I can’t say that the thought of visiting a swimming pool has appealed to me much. It’s not the pool itself - it’s the changing rooms, always with a tendency to be hot and humid, it just feels like the sort of place that a virus would be right at home, and so I’ve decided against going, but as a result I have really missed swimming. 

I mentioned that we swam on holiday - that sea swim was utterly blissful in spite of the cold and the jellyfish (bastard jellyfish) and it made me realise fully how much I had missed it...so I had a thought, and googled “outdoor swimming pools near...” to see if anything at all came up. And there it was - top of the list - Ware Priory Lido, just SEVEN DAMNED MILES from home. How did I never know about this before? Had I known about it but forgotten? Who knows, but having found out, it seemed rude not to do something with the information. Obviously I procrastinated for a week first, but this morning it suddenly occurred to me that the website had said it would be closing for the season at the end of next week, and so if I wanted to go, it would be sensible to do it soon. So I jumped online and booked - for this afternoon. (Yes, swinging from procrastination to impulsiveness is one of my defining characteristics!)

Well what a glorious place! For a start, they’re managing things beautifully in respect of COVID. Alternating the changing rooms in use to allow for extra cleaning, insisting that you arrive ready to swim and simply strip down to costume or trunks on the grassy poolside, and taking temperatures on the way in just to be certain. You have to book too, and they are only selling a limited number of tickets. Apparently the 10-12 people who were in there when I was is about standard numbers at the moment. The ticket gives you an hour and a half time slot - a hour for swimming and half an hour for showering, which works well. 

 In common with swimming pools generally, everyone was incredibly friendly too - I got chatting with a number of people including one lady who was very, VERY pregnant. Already overdue, she was apparently delighted when told that if the baby hadn’t arrived by the 28th they would induce her, as the 28th is the day AFTER the pool closes for the season, meaning she won’t have to miss any swims! Most of those I spoke to were committed outdoor swimmers - some would usually use pools at Stevenage or Letchworth I gather but those haven’t opened this year. 

Having been once I’ll definitely go back - I just wish I had known about it sooner! It took me no longer to get there than my usual pool, and although it is a little more expensive it’s not enough of a difference to feel significant, and it’s so much nicer - in warm weather, at least! Having grown up visiting an outdoor pool very regularly in the summer holidays (Larkswood in Chingford for any fellow East Londoners reading) it just felt so familiar to me - and without the limited time slot it would be an amazing place to go on a hot day and alternate swimming with sitting on a towel reading...maybe next year! 

Robyn 

Long Walk Sunday

Another Sunday, so another long walk was on the cards. We’d not planned anything in advance for today but the forecast was good so a brief discussion this morning and we decided to take the car to the little town just north of us - Sawbridgeworth - and then rejoin the River Stort and walk up as far as Bishop’s Stortford. 

It was a gorgeous day for a walk by water for sure - not too hot for the most part, and with a light breeze but also plenty of sunshine and beautiful blue skies. 

There is a common misconception locally that the Stort is a canal - but in fact the stretch we were walking is a “navigation” - a river which has been canalised and made navigable by the addition of locks. There are a total of 15 locks on the 22km long Stort Navigation- today’s walk saw 5 of them. Another misconception is that the town of Bishop’s Stortford is named after the river - in fact this is not the case, the river was re-named in the 16th century and was previously called the Stour. 

We parked the car in the centre of Sawbridgeworth a short walk from the river - which was easy to find as you simply head downhill! We realised pretty fast that we had actually joined the walk slightly too far north - but decided not to worry about that now the time being, we’d either walk it at the end or return another week and do it. In the end by the time we got back to where we joined the river we decided we’d been on our feet for long enough so another week it will be! 

One lovely bird spot today - and one that it is surprising we had not seen previously when we’d been walking his particular river - a Kingfisher! We were watching dragonflies dancing across the water, heard a splash and MrEH looked across in time to see the distinctive bright blue flash. A few moments later we both saw it streak away up the river - a stunning sight! 

A long weekend for us this week as MrEH has tomorrow off work. Nothing specific planned, just that he has holiday time to use and he fancied a day off really - we’ll decide what to do with it tomorrow! 

Robyn 

Day 62...

We have fallen into the habit during the lockdown of making Sundays a day where we do a longer walk, setting out on foot from home and making the most of the wonderful accessible countryside around where we live. This week was no exception - and indeed we reached almost to the edge of our trusty local  OS map this time!

That 10 miles was actually 11 - as you can see I managed to forget to re-start tracking when we paused it briefly just north of Gilston Park!

Out via one of the old roads that criss-crosses the town - these pre-date the new town but have been retained as footpaths/cycle tracks, and make it very easy to get all over the town using very few busy roads, if you wish to do so. 

Not long before we hit beautiful open countryside. Although this looks very flat it really isn’t - not the dramatic hills of some parts of the country out here in East Anglia but lovely gently rolling land, enabling some great views for quite a distance. 

This produced a rueful smile from us both - passing place signs, so common in the Hebrides where we should be at the moment, are less often seen down here, and it felt quite appropriate to walk past this one today. Our ‘standard’ when we are up there is also to take a longer walk on the Sundays while we are there, without using the car, so some parallels to be drawn! 

The wonderfully simple wild roses are out everywhere you look now - I can never resist the chance for another photo though! 

The sky looking a little more dramatic now - although it didn’t rain we did wonder for a while whether it might. In fact it was near perfect walking weather - warm enough for short sleeves with a nice cooling breeze to stop things getting too hot. 

Looking back across to Gilston Park. The public footpath runs straight past the big house - now divided into apartments we think - and judging by the glares we got from some of the residents sitting out having a socially distanced chat, people aren’t too happy about this! The park itself has a lot of massive houses - many dating back to the 1800’s and absolutely beautiful - very definitely a case of how the other half live! 

This barley (we think!) field made a lovely soothing rustle as we walked through - you can also see from this how desperately dry the ground is after the past few months of almost entirely dry weather. Although we may prefer not to have rain, I think it’s fair to say that it’s actually now much needed. 

Finally, back to the river before heading up through the town via the Town Park and home. Our only interaction with busy roads were an initial short distance along the former A11 early on, and then crossing the A414 close to the Eastwick junction on the way back - something which in normal times might have been more challenging than it was on this occasion. A glorious afternoon’s walking! 

The big national news today was that the Prime Minister’s political advisor Dominic Cummings has admitted to leaving his home during the lockdown to drive his child 260 miles to stay with family after his wife showed Coronavirus symptoms. Most are understandably outraged by this - while the rest of us for the most part followed the guidelines that the government had set, to find out that one of its “inner circle” had disregarded them blatantly does feel like quite a kick in the teeth, I think. I’m in no doubt that further details will emerge over the next few days but at the moment Cummings is refusing to resign and is being backed by the PM - it will be interesting to see how that pans out. 

Robyn

Five Favourites...

..This time - birds. Or, more specifically, my bird photos. Over the past few years we've got better and better at identifying the various birds we see - particularly when we're out and about in the Hebrides - it's difficult to spend any amount of time in such a wildlife-rich environment without getting a more in-depth interest I guess. We love joining in with the RSPB guided walks up there, and were extremely chuffed last year to be included in the list of people to "just ask..." if people wanted an identification confirmed.

So - on with the pics then. First - and a "must have" - is one from the Farne Islands. Now I could have agonised for ages over which particular Puffin pic to include here, but instead I just jumped in and chose one - and it was this one...

They're so funny the way they stand - on land they just look so unnatural, but when you see them flying, or better still on the water, the bodyshape makes complete sense! We're hoping to get back across to the Farnes this year - so hopefully there will be some more Puffin photos to come!

Next, we have a bit of a rarity. This bird has been on the RSPB's endangered list for a number of years now, after modern farming methods have adversely affected its natural habitat. Currently there are small populations in Northern Ireland, and on the west coast of mainland Scotland, but the bird's main stronghold is now on the Western Isles. Yep, you've guessed it - it's the Corncrake!

Not a great picture this, I know, the grass has slightly interfered with the focus and the bird is partly obscured, but we'd waited SO long to actually see one, it makes it in here for that reason. This one nearly didn't make it to being photographed, as it chose to run straight out in front of our car as we were driving out of the RSPB Reserve at Balranald! Thankfully there were no other cars wanting to pass by, the camera was within easy reach, and I was on the right side of the car to be able to shoot from where I was so not scare the bird any more. We've had several more brief glimpses of Corncrakes since, but nothing this close up.

Another Hebrides one - this was taken on our very last full day last year, on the island of Benbecula. Earlier in the week we'd done one of the RSPB walks hoping to see Raptors on at track to the east of Benbecula. we didn't see much in the way of birds of prey, but we DID see a good number of these...

He's a juvenile Stonechat - cute eh? We went back that last day because on our evening walk the light was too poor to make any decent photos possible, and I wanted to see if I could get a good shot of one of these little chaps. This one was further out along the track, and was trusting enough to let me creep right up on him - you can see that he was fully aware I was there!

A bit further South again for this next one - this was taken at one of our local nature reserves - Amwell, in Hertfordshire. This was the first proper chance I'd had to use my new 100-400mm lens earlier this year, the light was good, and the birds were being obliging.

I love this pictures for several reasons - Blue Tits are one of my favourite birds without question, and yet are quite hard to photograph, the colours can easily look false and garish, or dull and uninteresting, and this pic manages to pretty faithfully portray the actual colours I was seeing at the time. The background and setting is nice - although what draws the small birds in to this area is lots of feeders, it's always nice to be able to get a "clean" picture without any of them in view. Finally, the beautiful smoothness of that background - a true mark of quality in a lens, the ability to make the out of focus areas pleasing to the eye.

So, the fifth and final choice - and this one took some deciding on. I've finally settled on this Arctic Tern from our last Farne Islands trip...

I like the fact that you can *just* see more Terns in the background - there were So many of them, swooping, diving, and just sitting around looking malevolently at the humans who'd invaded their world! One took exception to MrEH and dive-bombed his head a few times. Annoyingly I wasn't able to grab the camera fast enough, or that shot might have been here instead... ;-)

Robyn

Lea Valley Walk - Section 2

With our impressive 8 miles clocked up on the Thames Path last weekend fresh in mind, we decided to head out on Sunday and have a go to see how far we could get on our next stretch of Lea Valley Walk. To remind you, this is an 18 mile tow-path based walk from Cheshunt in Hertfordshire ending up right in the heart of Docklands in Central London, and we'd already done the first short stretch from Cheshunt down to Waltham Abbey - just a couple of miles, a few weeks ago.

Without question it was the perfect winter day for a walk - beautifully sunny, blue skies and just the merest hint of a chill in the air, and by the time we were a short way from where we'd parked the car - close to Waltham Cross Station - to the towpath I'd offloaded my scarf and MrEH was talking about taking his coat off! Once on the towpath we realised that this wasn't going to be a quiet walk with hardly anyone else about - cyclists, runners (including someone MrEH knew from his rugby club - small world indeed!) and other walkers abounded! It wasn't long before we reached our first "landmark" - the bridge under the 8-lane wide M25 motorway...

..shortly followed by the first of the 6 locks we would encounter during the day. A lot of the areas we'd be passing through are identified as areas from the locks - Enfield Lock, Picketts Lock and Stonebridge Lock are just three of them - but in many cases although I knew the areas themselves quite well, I'd never seen the actual Locks themselves before! Enfield Lock in particular is just gorgeous - a lovely little terrace of houses fronting right on to the canal.

Just a short distance further on and we were passing our first reservoir. The 12 reservoirs in this area supply a good percentage of the water for London, and the Lea Navigation runs alongside them.  On the other side of the canal are industrial areas - seemingly miles of warehouses, factories and commercial units - a far cry from the quite rural terrain on our side of the canal. We stopped for lunch opposite an area of wharves, clearly in the heyday of the canals this would have been busy with barges loading and unloading - in fact a little further on we passed another wharf which was clearly still in at least some form of use. The Moorings along the navigation are very popular with those choosing to live on board their narrowboats too - we passed whole areas where one side was just lined with boat after boat - very romantic looking but I'm lead to believe that it's somewhat less romantic when the weather's bad, the wind is cold and the toilet facilities require "emptying"!

Carved bench

On past more industrial units, a golf course and a truly enormous sewage treatment works - although mercifully thanks to the coolness of the weather we were none the wiser about this bit! Then the "Edmonton Incinerator" with its always-active chimney pumping out smoke (or possibly steam? No idea, it's been doing it for as long as I can remember though!) - a very well known landmark in the area, this one. Our second major road of the day as we passed under  the Cooks Ferry Interchange on the North Circular Road - even wider than the M25, this one. Now on into an area with industry on both sides - on the side we were walking the narrow towpath is divided off by a barrier from the road running directly alongside - imaginatively named "Towpath Road". The road looks too narrow to take anything more than a car, so when we reached the bus depot we were scratching our heads for a while wondering how they get in and out - so far as we could make out the only way was indeed via the road! Once past there it suddenly felt as though we were back into countryside again - apart from the Pylons lining each side of this stretch!

Old Milestone

We were in to very familiar territory now - MrEH used to walk this stretch of towpath on a daily basis going to and from work many years ago, and I've enjoyed many a walk with family dogs along here too back when we used to live in London. At Stonebridge Lock we had to cross over the canal again - the maintained path switches from side to side as you make your way down, we'd had to cross previously back at Enfield.

Bus Depot

More houseboats - in fact the opposite bank is lined with them all the way down to our final Lock at Tottenham Hale. The light was fading badly by this time (we seem to be making a habit of finishing walks in the dark, or nearly so!) There was just enough light for one final photo though - and look carefully, in the middle you can see The Shard, the Gherkin, and various other icons of the London Skyline - a promise of things to come on the next and final section of this walk!

Robyn

More snow!

We were forecast to have a bit more snow yesterday - not much more, just another inch or so really. This time the forecasters underplayed it a bit - it snowed ALL day - from before we got up to about 9pm, and another 3 - 4" has fallen. As we had nothing else planned for the day, and we usually like to get out for a walk on a Sunday when that is the case, we bundled up in coats, hats, gloves and scarves (and TWO fleeces, in my case, I do hate being cold!) and set off to Amwell Nature reserve just over the boundary into Hertfordshire.

The roads weren't great, to be honest - nowhere seemed to have been gritted - even the main A414 was down to one lane along quite a bit of the stretch we travelled on. The lane going along to the reserve was a bit hairy too, although the only real problem I encountered was when searching for somewhere to turn the car round to park up. A bit of sideways action though and we were sorted out.

Rather than the actual reserve itself we decided to walk along the towpath towards Ware - always a favourite walk of mine anyway, and I thought it would be interesting to see the familiar route in these new, softened, clothes. The canal boats were looking cosy moored against the bank, several with their wood-burners going ...

...and it's always fascinating to see the way plants and trees catch the falling snow and look totally different to normal - this Old Man's Beard for example, looking rather more "Beardy" than usual...

...and the Teasles, too...

We decided to call in at one of the hides as we were passing - this one is a favourite of mine as there are feeders hanging right outside and it's a good chance to see some of our native birds up really close. I've often spent an afternoon there with the camera in the past, and got some lovely shots. In spite of only having the little compact with me I still managed to get a couple of shots thanks to a helpful Robin posing for me...

And look! A feeder-bucket FULL of Long Tailed Tits! Aren't they gorgeous!

And so we plodded onwards along the path. Very cold indeed (the car was registering -1 on the main road in the way there we noticed) but we were plenty warm enough with all our winter layers on, and the snow crunching underfoot as we walked. We were hoping that the boat-cafe might have been moored somewhere along the canal but sadly not, so no tea & cake for us - we could have continued on into Ware to find a cafe there but by the time we got to the outskirts the snow was falling pretty heavily so we turned tail and headed back along....

Just before we got back to the track out these cheery fellows came and said hello...

They are Konik Ponies - usually to be found grazing in the meadows at RSPB Rye Meads but currently housed at Amwell as the ground is too wet for them at Rye. They are apparently bred to bring back the Tarpan - a wild horse which was hunted to extinction over here some 130 years ago. They're friendly chaps as you can see...

What did you do with your Sunday? Did it involve any snow, or a walk, come to that?

Robyn

A walk to Ware

One of my favourite walks recently has been along the towpath by the canal - from the Nature reserve at Amwell, through to Ware. A nice easy level walk where you can get a good pace going, and plenty to see on the way. Then you get to Ware, which has marvellous charity shops and is just perfect for a browse ahead of the walk back! So, come for a walk with me, and I'll show you what I mean....

Plenty of parking available on the road by the entrance to the nature reserve - so first stop is often at the hide to see what birds are about on the feeders.  Last time I was there, as well as this inquisitive Robin, there were Reed Buntings, Blue and Great Tits, Dunnocks, Chaffinches, a Greater Spotted Wodpecker and some adorable little Long Tailed Tits too.

These catkins caught my eye - the stillness of the day meant they were all hanging in perfectly straight lines - what a great sign of spring!  The stillness of the day also meant that the reflections of the trees in the canal were striking...

So, onwards, and a little further along, just as you approach the outskirts of Ware, there is a bridge over the canal from the footpath on one side back to the actual towpath. Usually I walk there along one side and back along the other - the towpath itself is nice but is also terribly popular with cyclists - hardly any of whom seem to have bells - and  also joggers and, worse, the power walking gangs of yummy-mummies - terrifying in their designer workout gear and immaculate makeup! What a lot of interesting stuff they miss though as they power along, looking only at each other and not enjoying the view - I'll stick to my slower pace please!

Just before you get to the town itself - what fun - a cafe on a narrowboat! "Table Service" it offers, for your "1970's style coffee - made with 100% milk!" - thankfully it seems that a perfectly ordinary cup of tea is also available. One of these weeks when a treat is in store I'll have to stop here and make use of it I think, maybe with a cheeky slice of cake, too!

So finally to the small town of Ware - famous for its malting industry. There is still a maltings not far away - French & Jupps - and this statue pays tribute to that history. Ware also has some mighty fine charity shops, which if I'm honest, is of more interest to me than the maltings! It's perfectly possibly to while away half a morning wandering from one to the next in search of interesting bargains! One seems to get some interesting clothes and homewares, while another gets some great fabric scraps - I got some bits from there recently for a project I plan to have a go at soon.

Finally, all charity shopped out and bags in hand, it's time to wander back along the towpath towards the car. On this particular walk I stopped to watch the  boat below come through the lock - there is something fascinating about a lock, don't you think? The sheer simplicity of the process...very clever indeed. This lucky lady looked to be thoroughly enjoying relocating her home anyway!

Robyn

A little Kingfisher action....and a lurking Heron

With the lovely weather continuing again today I felt that a trip to RSPB Rye Meads was in order, so, camera bag packed (and remembering the 1.4x teleconverter this time too!) off I trundled. On arriving there are the usual pleasantries to be exchanged, have I been before, yes I have, and yes, I have already left my membership card on display in the car to entitle me to free parking. Non members get charged a £2 fee, but entry to the reserve is still free. Then its onwards and out onto the reserve to start my wander around. First stop is always the first of the hides - which tends to get a lot of waders and ducks visible from it. Highlights today were masses of Pochard and also a Little grebe with her chicks - like teeny weeny powderpuffs! Then on I go to follow the "Kingfisher trail" - at this time of year vast numbers of people make the trip to the reserve as you can be almost certain of seeing these glorious little birds. How lucky am I to have it 15 minutes away?!

My walk round the trail was interrupted today by these Goslings making their way across the path - Mum and Dad were trying to scoot them along but they weren't being hurried.....until they saw the scary human beings approaching that is!



Once they'd cleared the path and splashed merrily into the stream I continued, stopping once again when I got distracted by these glorious yellow irises - aren't they fantastic? These are out all over the place in the reeds at the moment and really make the place look so bright and cheerful!



Plenty of photographers in the Kingfisher hide when I arrived - there was some feeling that the chicks might choose today to fledge - the parents had been going to and from the nest repeatedly earlier on apparently, as though trying to encourage the babies to leave, poor little things!



All thoughts of fledging went out of the window when the Heron turned up - there was simply no chance of it then although he obviously felt it was worth him hanging about a while as he tried hiding for a bit......it didn't work too well though - we could still see you Mr Heron!



Thankfully after a while he decided he was bored and flew off, and, almost immediately, Mr & Mrs Kingfisher appeared again and began fishing in earnest! Clearly having decided that their babies were staying safely in the next for another day they thought they ought to feed them!Great for us as they repeatedly dipped from one of the branches not so far from the hide, and we got an excellent view whether we wanted photographs or not!



So there you go - a snippet in the life of our lovely local Reserve - makes being an RSPB member well and truly worth it as when the weather is good I can quite happily while away hours at a time down there, either walking round (there is a 2.5 mile circuit right round) or simply sitting in the hides.

Robyn