The 99 Yews of Painswick St Mary's

The ping of the iPhone woke me this morning, to tell me my dentist was unwell and my treatment was therefore cancelled subject to rebooking. Oh joy. Not that I was looking forward to it, but I am tiring of living on paracetamols. I'm now rebooked to early May, subject to our dentist feeling more chipper.

The other job of the day was a lively ride up to Cheltenham Triumph, to pick up a new front brake disc for Morrigan. Some time ago I forgot to remove the disc lock prior to pulling away and, well, she is eager for the road... it only put a fifteen thousandth of an inch aberration into the disc but that is hard to ignore after a while.

It's rather an expensive mistake to make, but I guess it will teach me to pay more attention in future. And it'll be one more thing I've done myself - assuming I can get the old one off and the new one on...

On the way home, avoiding the bumper to bumper M5 - everyone rushing off to the Mall at Cribbs Causeway, no doubt - I headed up over Birdlip and down the A46 and home via Painswick. The church goes back to about the ninth century and has the wackiest hundred yew topiaries in the churchyard. The wacky sky is the real one, albeit rather heated up in post.

Legend says if 100 yews are planted, the church will fail. Yew trees were planted at pagan religious sites pre-Christianity, and are often still found in churchyards, sometimes predating the building now stood on old gods' land. Perhaps this many is excessive. The hundredth yew was planted in 2000, and in 2007 one of the others died. Just saying'...