At the end of the lane

I visited John and Liz this morning at their home on the side of the Painswick valley just outside Stroud. It was good to meet up again after a couple of months and I came away with a huge bag of plums from their tree, which I hope to convert into chutney. Liz was in the middle of cooking a large pot of plums which will become a wonderful red jelly, which she has given us to enjoy in previous years. I seem to remember blipping the light through one such jar of jelly in one of my very early blips.

I also saw the collection of stitched textile art she was framing for an exhibition at Westonbirt Arboretum early in October, which I will try to visit. Her website gives you an idea of the amazing things she creates.

I asked John about a good place to take pictures of the farm across the valley where someone I met recently breeds alpacas. He suggested going dow the nearby track to another farm near their house, so off I walked on my way home.

The weather turned very dark and then rain fell, so I cut short my expedition down the bridal way. But I did walk on the path through the old farmyard which now seemed disused. There my attention got caught by the various cracks in these buildings, both old and new, They indicate the landslip problems endemic to these hillsides where the alternate layers, or strata, of clay and limestone mean the land gives way quite often.  This most often is observed in some roads which crack and slip away downhill, but a lot of the sloping fields also show slippage and make them unsuitable for any arable farming. Hence they become farms where cows and sheep graze happily as happen on these slopes.