I got as far as uploading my photo yesterday and then broke off to finish cooking our meal before going to hear a talk by Sally Sallett, `Never underestimate an old woman with a camera!’  Sally shared her journey through photography with us in her usual informal and irreverent manner and we had a great evening.


Back to the image,  I’d just walked across the field beyond the fence which had been planted with oil seed rape in the summer.  Back then it had grown so tall it was almost impossible to find the path from the far side and yet here it was still, not the ploughed field I’d expected, but a rain sodden field where ice crunched underfoot in the puddles.  Before I moved here this field had been an open-cast coal mine (one of a series around the village) and it brought back to me my school geography lessons about the way coal deposits on the edge of the Pennines were close to the surface.  Having grown up to the east of here, where deep mining was the norm, I don’t think it ever occurred to the school aged me, to think that I’d come to live in this area. A place that was once at the heart of Britain’s industrial story and which is now one of the most beautiful places to live in South Yorkshire.

And I walked a slightly different route through the wood which gave me a new angle on some of the trees, which I think I can add to my tree project collection.