12beesbuzzingabout

Summer Solstice, Deep England Celebrating Summer Solstice at Sinodun Hills, watching the red kites flex their fantails to stay on the currents, listening to the invisible skylarks higher than the kites, and gazing at the outline of Lowbury Hill on the Berkshire Downs. This is a place to come and reconnect with Deep England. Niall Gooch’s blog shows how the essence of Deep England is deep within the work of artist Eric Ravilious. Ravilious worked in many forms, often as illustrator, giving us the viewers his interpretation of an ordinary rural scene, the light on cliffs, an aircraft in flight. Paul Nash is another 20 th century artist who communicated the spirit of Deep England through everyday life and ancient countryside in his work, especially in both World Wars. In later life he returned to his childhood landscape of the Sinodun Hills, seeing them not only from a house on Boar’s Hill a few miles away, but also through the prism of his profound wartime experiences. ...

From Cousin Tim  - guest contributor First off what is the Springline? Well, it is where one set of geology met another and created a condition where the water bubbles up between the rocks as a spring.  Spring means water source = people say lets make a settlement here = oh, and now we are a village or a town.  All this happens across 1000 years +/-.  The full story for spring line villages here  Springline info  in Buckinghamshire NOTE The B4009 road, through Buckinghamshire, is just of the dastardly M40. It is the springline road, the Lower Icknield Way in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, at the foot of the Chilterns Jaunts 1. Holy Trinity, Bledlow  Grade 1 listed. One of the top 1,000 best churches in England. It has the oldest church doors in Buckinghamshire. http://www.bledlowparish.org.uk/Bledlow.htm Bledlow  Famous for its font :) 2. Crowell Church, Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, flint building. https://en.wikipedi...

Ambled along the Thames Path to take photos of the warning signs posted by Wokingham Borough Council because of a wind-damaged oak tree leaning over the path and river (photo the Environment Agency or Wokingham Borough Council).   Sunlight glistened on the falling raindrops as a passing shower splattered into the breeze-rippled surface of the dark river. Black-headed gulls flew back and forth watching for fish surfacing to catch flies – which one’s the predator?   These umbellifers are magnificent alongside the river. Beautiful but deadly, I think these are Hemlock Water-dropwort and highly poisonous. Another good reason to not pick wild flowers, just enjoy them where they grow. Ducked beneath the Grade II listed brick bridge, completed in 1775 to replace a wooden bridge which replaced a Saxon bridge. Here the river is the boundary between Wessex, to the south of the river, and Mercia to the north.   Always surprised by wildlife just turning up.  Sw...