Harvest at the double

It's been said before of course, but one of the things I like about Blip is the way it encourages you to go out looking for a suitable photo, even at times when - without the 'need to blip' - you just wouldn't bother crossing the door.

Today was such a day. Like many, or indeed most parts of the country, we had sunshine and blue skies - and it was also warm enough for shirt sleeve order!!

As I was quite busy today, I decided to wait until after tea to go on my blip hunt but, by then, it was getting very overcast and rain was surely in the air.

Without blip, I would simply have called it a day, but I was determined to go out looking. Indeed, I even had a plan. When I did my 'blue sky and barley-field' blip on Saturday, I noticed a combine harvester in the field opposite. And, as there were two other adjacent fields also untouched, I was aiming for shot of the combine in action.

What a surprise then to find all four fields had been completely cleared, with not a single stalk standing.

By this time, it was getting quite dark and raining quite heavily so I turned to head home, moving as fast as I could!!. It was then I saw this lone tractor ploughing one of the newly-harvested field and ran to catch it before it disappeared.

Now, I'm not one for looking back but Mrs T and myself used to enjoy the BBC period drama 'Larkrise to Candleford', set in Victorian England and I remember one episode set at harvest time.

It took dozens of workers days to harvest a field, and here were four fields cleared in 48hours - probably by a handful of workers - and one of the fields already being prepared for the next crop.

Oh well, back to 2012!!