Weekend Walking

Arrrrrrrrrgh! I've just spent an unhappy hour cleaning out the freezer. It packed up over the weekend and now we face days of inventive cooking with the unplanned defrost. Not quite sure yet what to do with all the red currants that have now formed a red pool ina plastic bag, jelly anyone. 

What I don't quite understand is how does it get so dirty? Everything in there is wrapped, or bagged. Must be too many cartons of ice cream and pizza - doh.

The man who came to fix it suspects somebody didn't close the door properly, (you know who you are) which confused the temperature sensor, defrosting everything! . .

I could have done this yesterday, but it was so glorious I went walking with Chris instead.

The Ridgeway near Aldbourne is one of my favourite places. It's a great place to put everything into perspective and I quite often come up here on my own. 

When I'm up on this downland it feels distant from, and untroubled by the world. I find it peculiar to think that Aldbourne is where the US Army 101st Airborne Division was based in the weeks before D-Day in 1944, and three hundred years previously in 1643 during the Civil War Prince Rupert and his Cavaliers fought the Parliamentarians very close to this spot. 

. . . . Conjures up an image of an effete chap in a feathered hat, leading a small rabble of sweet (but wayward) dogs.

When I remember to, I log walks on our OS maps, it helps when I'm making prints and books, otherwise I find time becomes concertina'd - and then when I start a piece of work I really can't remember any points of reference.

I love the way this dilapidated shepherds hut sits in the landscape, falling slowly into decorous decay and each time I pass by I look for further signs of disintegration. 

I think it will make a good subject for a series of small abstracts.

So far this autumn, the weather is wonderful and the low sun on empty fields makes it look as if they're covered in stripes of bright green velvet.

Both the two photos above and below are taken from about the same place, one in January, one in October. Fab, don't cha think!?