The power of a burst of sunlight

The snows fell again yesterday afternoon and evening. But as I sat at my desk this morning looking out across these fields and slopes to Thrupp and Minchinhampton Common, a little illumination from the far too absent sun raised my spirits. I had been told that today's sunrise here in Britain would be eclipsed, but hadn't expected to see any sign of it. And I didn't.

I grabbed the camera and managed two shots before it had gone again. This was the first. I know this snow won't be here for long, but I still like the effect of a fresh covering, especially when it is over my favourite view.

It also helps me to see the shape and outline of the old 'holloway', which you can see as a dip in the ground on the slope running down the lower part of the picture. My thesis is that it may be a very old trackway, leading down from the hilltops to the Bowbridge, a version of which still crosses the River Frome. The track would then have lead up the other slope of the Golden Valley to Rodborough's Iron Age camp, just out of shot (the location, that is) to the right. I think the Romans moved on the Iron Age dwellers a few hundred years later, about 100AD. William the conqueror apparently gave most of the hilltops up there to his sister, who was a nun in Normandy, before about 1086 when the Domesday Book was recorded.

I expect the badgers have been here as long as any of them. Our house is built on an old field with the name Brockwell, 'brock' being the old name for a badger. No wonder there are so many around here.

Helena has just said, 'The sun didn't last long! Why do I think it is like the end of the day again?' That is why I want to Blip this shot, to remind her, and probably many others, that it might be possible again one day.

ps
Helena just told me that her online friend Duncan has just joined Blip today and has posted a shot of the Eclipse this morning. See it here 'A Solar Eclipse'.