Sunny day- it's really Spring! or is it Summer?

Welcome to Spring and our resident mama blackbird is broodily warming her eggs. She's lived in our garden for over a decade now and raises a family of blackbird chicks every summer, daddy blackbird sings beautifully and sits on our garage to greet you when you arrive home. This is the first time we have so claerly seen the nest and her on it though, they used to have it in the back garden.

A walk towards Moreton from Cuttlebook at about 12:30 on Friday 8th April after submitting the dreaded TMA02....Superbly sunny and 'twas good to walk off the tension.

Lucy shows the way. Unusually no lambs yet in the field on the right.

Scumptious textures in that NEW Spring GREEN. Yummy!

Hawthorn in bloom everywhere: so pretty. Glossy and bright, a virginal white.

The dogs got a bit too warm so Pips heads into the nearest muddy stream....

I took the bridge myself.

Such a glorious mass of white against the blue, BLUE, OH such a BLUE sky.

The girls( dogs) had acres of fields to run about in. Yet choose to roll about in cowpats instead.

I'm holding my nose......

Back in Cuttlebrook the river by the big brick bridge is so low they can paddle and do so with alacrity. It's a new experience for them.

All relaxed I go home to hose and shampoo the dogs and collect Miss Y from school on my orange bike. Village Voices choir tonight for an - almost- final rehearsal for the concert on Sunday.

The temperature was summery: 22 degrees and above in the sun!

Walk by Moreton on Sunday 10 May 2009

Thanks to Lucy at www.attic24.typepad.com I have been inspired to make a new resolution!
This is to walk a new walk every weekend- weather permitting- using my new ( BIRTHDAY!!!) OS map and to do this with the dog and the family if at all possible.
Lucy 's in Yorkshire and has such wonderful outings and stunning scenic photography that I was inspired to seek our own local scenery and greenery. I want to reflect and record our little corner of Oxfordhire/Buckinghamshire

This was last week and we've just got back from a walk today but as life's been so very busy busy busy with SATS etc I am gradually catching up again.....

This was 5pm on Sunday last week when my youngest refused to move and JJ very kindly offered to cook the dinner if we would walk the dog: WHAT an offer!!! How could I refuse?
( Cooking is not my favourite pastime- especially NOT the quick family evening meals...)
Izzy started with blowing the above- far above- dandelion and making a wish.......
When she was very little she asked me once where the mummylions were and did they look very different from the daddylions?

Then we spotted a butterfly: a ........ and I just HAD to capture it on camera- not as easy as it looks actually as it flitted about a LOT! teehee HERE I DID capture it TWICE!



Onwards past a neatly ploughed area where a few years ago among many cabbages Pippa used to dash about as a pup, we called them her mad puppy dashes, she'd run in silly circles among the cabbages , then run back but drop and hide behind them just before reaching you. Then wait and jump up only to dash off in another circle...

And oh, oops got my finger in this one, SILLY me....

What will grow here next time we visit?

And it was windy and dry but with an AMAZING sky: LOOK!!! The sun popped out for the occasional 5 minute visit but mostly there were these massive castles in the sky: cloud city scapes...

This oak tree was just soooooo GREEEEEEEN, and also I want to draw the squiggly wiggly outer lines of those leaves. In out in out and and shake it all about....green fingers.....

Where'd they go? Pippa and daughter had walked on into the wood. Not so obvious here but there was this eye catching RED tree in the middle distance.WOW.

Come ON mum, this is a walk remember?

Pippa chased a few squirrels but luckily gave up when they ran up the trees and jumped from tree to tree- such fun to watch! Pippa was NOT amused. They were too quick for my camera with it's 7 seconds minimum warm up time....

After extracting Pippa from a mudbath ( she went straight into the shower when we got home) we walked across this field: curving to the right and with Izzy worrying about bulls....

I love this: a glimpse of a path but no more: a hint of mystery: WHAT lies beyond the gate?

There were no bulls and the cows just watched us pass by, Pippa behaved herself and ran past too. Then looking back we saw they had calves! The sweetest looking jet-black calves - on the far left in the photo they moved from a side view to walk away from us.

That was it : a lovely short circular walk from Thame to Moreton and back across the fields to the TLC.

BLISS.