Blipmeet #5

You can count on finding colour at Westonbirt Arboretum at any time of year, and this was certainly true of my first visit of 2013, which incorporated a Blipmeet in the afternoon with Clean Steve and Woodpeckers.

I'd arrived at 1235 hr and had a walk around the Downs and Old Arboretum with my cameras before sitting down at a picnic table to consume a Wiltshire Wallop baguette (bought at Sam Widge's in Calne before setting out) whilst listening to a Grateful Dead 3CD set, to try out my new Sennhuiser headphones.

Buying the CD had been problematic at every turn. I'd ordered it online from the Grateful Dead site and the browser had frozen during the final stage and I'd had to reboot and start again, only to get two confirmatory e-mails and had to cancel one purchase. When it arrived the puzzled courier had the wrong invoice but we established there was a hefty sum to pay in import and delivery charges, so I wrote a cheque. He said he would forward the right invoice but it never came. Meanwhile, the vendors e-mailed to say I'd been wrongly billed and sent a refund, which halved the excess I'd paid, but on my next bank statement I saw the couriers had cashed £50 more than the sum on the cheque. Two trips to the bank resulted in them telling me to contact the couriers, who acknowledged the error and said they'd correct it - but haven't as yet. Happily, despite all this, I still enjoyed the CDs very much!

When I met up with Clean Steve and Woodpeckers we set off to Silk Wood and took in the newly coppiced lime that I'd blipped on my last visit as I wanted to see the art work that had been commissioned from the coppiced poles. A kind of open-topped circular hut that one could enter had been created by Richard Harris, and already new sprigs were sprouting from the poles. We continued exploring the Silk Woods and found lots of acers, of course, and this magnificently old copper beech (Fagus sylvatica Purpurea Group).

From there, we headed towards the bird hide beyond a gassy slope, but it yielded only one chaffinch. However, further along the valley side was the herd of mixed rare breed cattle that I had wanted to see and photograph, so I was pleased we had taken that route. From there we ambled back through the Old Arboretum to our cars, with them returning to Stroud and me setting off for home with a planned stop at Malmesbury along the way.

I took a number of shots of Malmesbury Abbey and The Old Bell, and one quick street scene on the way back to the car that, bizarrely, got picked up by Explore on Flickr. It had received 1,000 views in a couple of days, whilst the coppiced lime pictures had achieved 0 views between them. You never can tell what will be liked.

L.
6.5.2013

Blip #994
Consecutive Blip #008
Day #1154

Alternatives:
Acer Leaves
More Leaves
Dandelions
Rare Breeds

A Day At Westonbirt, 22 May 2013 (Flickr set)

Lenses: Pentax 12-24mm, Pentax 17-70mm, Sigma 70-300mm

Westonbirt series
Blipmeet series

Lozarhythm Of The Day:
Grateful Dead - Dark Star
(recorded live, Fox Theatre, St Louis MO, 2 February 1970, from Dave's Picks Vol. 6 3CD, released April 2013)

One year ago: More Beech Leaves (coincidence!)