Yeo Valley and Chew Valley

Tags

Black-headed gull, Bristol Water, Chelsea Flower Show, Chew Valley, Chew Valley Lake, mallard, moorhen, Salt and Malt, shoveler, Yeo Valley, Yeo Valley Organic Garden

Anyone following the Chelsea Flower Show this autumn (it’s normally held in spring) will be familiar with the name, Yeo Valley, makers of organic dairy products. Their organic garden won the People’s Choice Award for large show garden this year, not bad for first-time participants.

I had visited their garden, with my friend, Zoe, previously – it is situated roughly halfway between the homes of each of us – but the weather had been miserable on that occasion, and we didn’t get as much from the outing as we might have done. Our birthdays fall close to each other, and, for our October birthday ‘first Friday’ monthly walk, we decided to visit the garden, and make a day of it, visiting other places in the area afterwards. We went on the second Saturday, as in October the garden only opens to the public on Saturdays, and this was forecast to have better weather than the first.

In fact the weather was gorgeous. The autumn mist above us allowed the hazy sun to bless us early in the morning, and had disappeared entirely by lunchtime. My camera clicked away – I couldn’t restrain it. In the order I took them:

At the entrance – some of the plants returned from the Chelsea Flower Show, awaiting the reconstruction of the Show Garden

Sarah Mead, head gardener, resident for 25 years and original developer of the garden

On 23rd November, I shall be ‘going to’ this talk by Sarah Mead and designer Tom Massey, on how the Show Garden came about.

One of several metal sculptures in the garden

We are approaching the café where we will stop for coffee

View from the café’s terrace

The egg is that featured in the show garden, though I imagine this may only be a temporary placement

Blagdon Lake in the distance

A small woodland area

Closer inspection of the egg when occasion offered

Zoe told me that this building has some connection with the planning in BBC2’s ‘Your Garden Made Perfect’.

A small boy and a big girl play with the mirrors

Given that it was getting on for mid-October, there was an amazing amount of colour.

At midday our allotted time was up, and we had seen just about everything there was to be seen. Zoe knew of a great fish and chips place, Salt and Malt, by the side of Chew Valley Lake, just a short distance away. Alas, I took photos of neither the view nor the fish and chips, but both were very good.

We drove round the Lake to the next car park, intending to do the short ‘Grebe Walk’, which would take us firstly through some woodland, and then along the lake to see, theoretically, grebes among other birds.

But on the return leg we saw nothing but reeds in the lake at that end. Whether this was deliberate cultivation for wildlife reasons, or because of Covid-related (or other) neglect we could not tell.

We walked on beyond the car park to see what we could see. We couldn’t get closer to the lake than this.

Zooming my camera showed me that the boats were colourful.

And, looking back, gave me the chance to see some unidentifiable birds.

We had no desire to find ourselves back at the fish and chip place, so turned back to where our car was parked, with a view to winding down from our day’s outing. The drive back to Zoe’s, where my car was, took us along a quite busy road, which serves as a dam of the lake, and which is actually a reservoir owned by Bristol Water, the fifth-largest artificial lake in England. The lake is also a nature reserve and an SSSI.

There were many people leaning on the rail, but the birds were unfazed.

Mr and Mrs Mallard

Black-headed gull in winter plumage keeping watch while his friends take a nap

Shoveller duck – eclipse plumage – and ?young moorhens

Moorhen

Zoe and I had not quite finished putting the world to rights, so before I got into my car, we had a cup of tea in her garden, and I admired the mini-woodland she and her husband are creating there.

Travelling again – 12. Hanbury Hall, and home

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Emma Vernon, Hanbury Hall, moorhen, National Trust, Vernons of Hanbury Hall

Faced on Saturday, 19th June, with another long day’s drive, from West Yorkshire to home in Somerset, I planned to stop off at a National Trust property for a bite of lunch. I remembered to book (Covid-required) entry in advance.

Digital aids told me I would need about three hours to get to Hanbury Hall, in Worcestershire, so I added half an hour for luck, and booked for 1 pm, which was precisely the time I drew in to the car park. (The clock below appears to belie this, but it has just an hour hand.) I reckoned I could spend about 90 minutes there before I wanted to be away for the final leg home. I called at the front door of the beautiful Queen Anne house just to ask where the Stables Café was, since the fact that would be open had determined my choice of stopping place.

Having partaken of a delicious vegetarian pasty, I prioritised a stroll in the grounds over a house visit. Here is a map of the property, though I did not have it available at the time. I reckon that nevertheless I covered most of the grounds, though it would have been nice just to sit down and savour the views for a little longer.

The formality of the gardens, recreated from original drawings in the 1990s by the National Trust, was very soothing.

I didn’t get to visit the Orangery. Indeed, I’m not sure it was open.

A moorhen leaves her chicks on the pond and crosses the bank

I had 20 minutes in hand, so went into the house. They were obliged, because of Covid restrictions, to monitor the numbers entering very carefully, and I was fortunate.

Only the ground floor was open to the public, presumably because they could not manage a one-way system on the first floor. I whizzed round, taking photos rather desultorily.

Various members of the Vernon family built, at the beginning of the 18th century, and over the centuries adapted and converted, and finally transferred the property to the National Trust in 1962. (Talking of ghosts, Emma Vernon is said to haunt the grounds between the house and the church.)

But the whiteness on the left-hand painting is reflection, not a ghost…

This is a Monteith punch bowl.

Usually formal dining tables are furnished with eating paraphernalia…

I arrived home, where Tilly was awaiting me, at 5 pm, Bella to be collected from the cattery the following morning. I had been away for 13 days, 12 nights.

I saw this poster at Hanbury Hall.

I feel that with this trip I began to collect the fruits of enforced patience over the previous 15 months, and certainly appreciate my ability to have done so. The weather was cold to indifferent, and I missed a heatwave that had occurred in the south. (Some would envy my having done so, but I would have enjoyed it.) I had 13 wonderful days of seeing friends, wildlife, countryside – spectacular at times – and manmade constructions ranging from a 12th century abbey, through a 16th century castle, to a 21st century bridge. Eaten excellent food, met new people, and driven some huge distances. I didn’t make a note as I went along, but retrospective calculation makes it about 1400 miles (2250 km) in total.

What an adventure, and I’ve been reliving it through doing these blog posts, which have taken longer than usual because of Wimbledon.

What am I going to do tomorrow?

PS Yesterday evening I watched on Channel 4, ‘A Lake District Farm Shop’, the first of four programmes about the enterprise behind the Tebay Service Station on the M6 where I stopped on Day 2 of my trip. It focussed on several of the local providers and described the ethos of the founders, and showed much of the beautiful Lake District scenery. All four episodes are available on All 4.

Last post, for now

Tags

birds, blackbird, Caerlaverock, Carlisle, chiff-chaff, Eskrigg nature reserve, lapwing, linnet, Lockerbie, Lockerbie disaster, mallard, moorhen, Peter Scott, redshank, swallow, swan, willow warbler, WWT

I had not looked round Lockerbie itself yet, so on Friday morning took a stroll round the town centre on foot, including a visit to the library for information on the Eskrigg Nature Reserve nearby. Lockerbie’s handsome buildings are also of red sandstone.  The parish church, which was closed, was enormous.

So was this building, which I assumed to be the Town Hall, though, other than a minuscule plaque commemorating the town’s (and others’) disaster of 1988, there was no other sign attached to the building at all.  I had to go inside to confirm that my assumption was correct.

Nearby were these and five other sheep

I decided that my day would be best filled by a trip to Caerlaverock, to visit the Wildlands and Wetlands Trust reserve, and the castle if there was time.  This decision had the advantage of taking me though more glorious countryside.

Having studied the plan of the WWT site over coffee, I started my tour of several of the hides. At one, I was grateful to a couple who visit most days for pointing out where the linnet and the redshank were to be seen.

Swallows discussing whether they should be thinking about returning south for the winter

Lapwings and starlings

Lapwing

Linnet

Redshank

Martins’ nests, either beloved or hated by householders, but very welcome at the WWT

I believe the correct collective noun is a ‘murder’, but I prefer, here anyway, just a ‘row’ of crows (with a cow behind them)

Wagtail

A chiffchaff, or a willow warbler? Or something else? Comments welcome please.

The reserve is on the edge of the Solway Firth, so that’s the Lake District in the distance.

It is bounded by farmland on one side.

Unlike the Lockerbie sheep, these were living.

I had been told that there was ‘nothing’ to be seen at the Sir Peter Scott hide, by which my informants must have meant nothing unusual.  I took pleasure nevertheless in sitting there after lunch watching swans, mallards and moorhens.  And learnt that when mallard is occupying a place where moorhen wants to be, it gives way, smartish.

Then I decided to do the ‘summer’ walk, not available the rest of the year because of overwintering fowl.  It was delightful,

especially as for at least five minutes two blackbirds insisted on showing me the way as I strolled along.

The swans I’d seen earlier also seemed to want to keep an eye on me.

I enjoyed looking not only at wildfowl but plants as well.

I was nowhere near a hide when it started raining again, so my new umbrella came in useful. By the time I got back to my car it had stopped, but I heard the castle calling.

There turned out to be a wedding going on there, but visiting was not restricted. Glaring guests just didn’t appreciate how discreet one was trying to be. (One was not dressed suitably.)

In one tower, there were some young swallows practising their flight in anticipation of their long journey to come. As long as I kept still, my presence didn’t seem to worry them.

Accompanying the wedding was a bagpiper.

Hers was not the only kilt around, but I didn’t dare point my camera at the others, much as I’d love to have done.

The next day, it was time to go home to the cats, by train from Carlisle.  Somehow my camera forgot it was no longer on holiday, until we had left Cumbria anyway.

So ended my trip up north.  My next big trip is in September, wildlife in the Pantanal, Brazil, largely by river boat, but perhaps I’ll find a pretext for posting photos again before then…