It’s inevitable that, in the countryside, the landscape changes from year to year. Rivers erode their banks, animals eat shrubs and the wind breaks branches and trees.
There is a row of trees near Ingram that I’ve been fond of photographing for several years now. When I took my first photo of them back in February 2012 there was snow on the ground:
It’s been a great year for vibrant coloured autumn leaves along the lanes where we live this year. It’s been a real joy to see the ochres, umbers, purples, yellow, golds, reds and russets. But…nothing lasts forever, and the leaves are almost gone now. But as the deciduous trees shed most of their leaves for the winter, the larches are still holding onto their needles as they turn a wonderful yellow-brown-gold. Again, what’s not to like?
Mmm. Well. I mean. How clean? What more can be said? Strange, don’t you think, that some people who visit the countryside because of its beauty then rather spoil that beauty by leaving litter?
The River Breamish Riverbank Protection project began in August 2019 and anyone who’s kept abreast of developments will likely know that one of the final stages of the project was to lay some coir matting at Site 1 (what I’ve referred to as the ‘whirlpool’ previously). This can be seen in some nice aerial shots taken by Tweed Forum.
Well, after all the seeming drabness of lockdown, even the skies are beginning to reward us with their colours.
Hot on the heels of making Powburn bloom-ing beautiful (see what I did there?) with planting flowers and shrubs in road sign planters – including a donation from Dobbies – May Wilson has been out and about again improving our environment by putting bedding plants into the flower bed just at the entrance to the Plough Inn car park. She was helped by Noreen Birnie and Mary Wealleans.
Now that the UK lockdown has eased, and it’s easier to travel to some of the local beauty spots, I took the opportunity yesterday to make my first trip to Holy Island.
The wooden staithes – part of an old jetty – in front of Lindisfarne Castle on Holy Island are an iconic part of the seascape.
The British Library is preserving this site for the future in the UK Web Archive at www.webarchive.org.uk
