Mono Monday: Earth

Middle Earth, in this case.

It's widely believed that Meon Hill on the Warks/Glos/Worcs border was the inspiration for Weathertop in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.  This isn't as far-fetched a claim as you might think - though born in South Africa and raised in Birmingham, Tolkien knew this part of the country well: he said of Worcestershire "Any corner of that county (however fair or squalid) is in an indefinable way 'home' to me, as no other part of the world is."  He had relatives in the Vale of Evesham (one of his nephews still runs a plant nursery at Blackminster), and his Aunt Jane (his sister's mother) had a farm at Inkberrow in Worcestershire, which she called Bag End. And as a final (and I think irrefutable) piece of evidence, I defy you to walk down Bridge Street in Evesham on any day of your choosing without seeing at least a handful of hobbits.

It was a lovely spring day today, and I decided to begin it by completing the weeding, edging and mulching of the rose bed - a task which I thought would take me about two hours. Two hours and three barrow loads of debris later, I was still stuck in one corner of the bed and had to accept that it was a bigger task than I'd imagined, and would probably take several days. I was quite tired and grumpy by this point, so I awarded myself a blip break, got the car out and went off to Dover's Hill, the highest section of the Cotswold Edge, which has an excellent view across to Meon Hill.

The shot I had in mind was a clear and detailed vista with a few fluffy white clouds adding interest to the sky - but as with the gardening I discovered that I'd misjudged the light: it was bright, but so hazy that I could barely see Meon. After tramping about for a while, changing lenses and trying different filters (and attracting the amused attention of a canoodling young couple lying on a blanket on the edge of the escarpment, who clearly thought my activities rather middle-aged and sad, unlike their own), I gave up on Dover's Hill and drove down to Kingcombe Hill, just above Chipping Campden. There's a point on Kingcombe Lane which has a good view of Meon - I've blipped the view from there before - and because it was closer there was less intervening haze and I got a better shot. This still required quite a lot of tweaking though, to bring out some detail - the original colour version is here, so you can see what I mean.

When I got home CH and I sat on the patio in warm sunshine and enjoyed the first sloe gin and tonic of the year, which put me in a sunny enough mood for two more hours of gardening this afternoon. So a busy day, but quite productive. I hope you enjoyed Easter Monday, in whatever way you celebrate it!