Laburnum in Gunhouse Lane

I have been walking up and down roads and paths dropping my election leaflet into hundreds of letterboxes. I chose to start with the most distant from our house, which took me from posh detached homes to rundown estates.

Gunhouse Lane is an old trackway, which now leads only to the old big house across the valley. I can see it now from my desk. Thrupp House was owned by the landowner who controlled most of everything I can see, about two hundred years ago.

The laburnum was growing on the top of an old woodbank which is now all that is left of the woodland. I think it must have wandered here accidentally. It looked stunning to me and even better now that the exposure has drawn out the blue sky magically. I'd say that was the essence of azure, one of my favourite colours, especially when I could see it as I looked down at the azure Mediterranean from the Maures hills between Toulon and St Tropez. At least it is like that in my memories of the 60s, when I spent every summer holiday there for a decade.

If I had lowered my lens from this near vertical position, I could have photographed our house on the hillside about half a mile away. It all looks stunning today.