Its that time of year again, when the Fen wakes misty in the morning, pale, golden, warm or cold it is never the same. The subtle shades of wetland mist are far more complex than those of the dry, rolling counties. In these mists lurk tales of malaria, miasmas and murder. The ditches are as full of mystery as they are water, in the dead of Winter, shrouded in heavy fog many a man has lost his way and slipped silently into the blackness. Do not stray from the pathways in the dark, tread confidently on the high ground and hurry home to the warm fire and the light.

Sunset in a muddy puddle, when life gets you down always remember that pleasure is often found in the most unlikely places. The drove leading up to our home is rough, scared with the daily abuse of tractors, combines, potato wagons and the sharp pointy hooves of countless horses. It undulates with the Fens rise and fall and in the 8 years we have been here it has cracked and drifted, been patched up and filled on an annual pattern of repair, though never as far as our house which rests just beyond the reaches of the councils loving care. Outside our house at present is a sweeping road scape that if you were to lie down, as I did for the photo, the fens transform themselves into the Lake District, all be it a tarmac’d version with black muddied waters.

The wind howled and the rain fell continuously for hours and hours and when on the second night of our stay in Angelsey, tent smashed and sleeping in the van, the winds mighty hand tore down our friends tent, they left in the dark of the night, in the driving rain, home to the more temperate weather of Northumberland. With their evacuation the sun peeped causiously over the horizon, crept up the slopes of Snowdon and down onto the Menai Straights. The wind warmed and dried us as it gathered up the suns glow, glistening and azure blue the sea rose and fell and the waves cut deep into the island but Wales’ magnificence again blew me away, almost quite literally.

An extensive patch of little daisies is growing out the back of the house, left to run wild it has rampaged up into the hay stack and seeded miraculously into the surrounding gravel.

I rose early this morning and ventured into town to sketch. I sat in the churchyard looking at and drawing a wooden framed Tudor building but when I had finished I noticed the Roses and Hollyhocks growing around the gate and took this photograph.

The wildlife photographer is in our garden again, sneaking through the undergrowth. I was sitting in the front room doing a spot of surfing when the birds of the garden erupted into panic mode, squealing and crowing, so I stood up to look out thinking the small black cat from up the drove was passing through. I was shocked and delighted to find, almost face-to-face, a beautiful red Muntjak staring back at me. She turned and bounced off across the garden. I found my camera and took this shot as she grazed without concern behind my overgrown veggie patch. Although some may choose to be negative about the arrival of such a munching machine in the domestic setting I am rather excited. This may prove to be premature joy and if she chooses to stay or revisit I may have to watch the destruction of plants I like, but is that a unreasonable price to pay, maybe not, we spent too much of our precious time being far too precious and should practice going with the flow.

I took this photo hanging over the high rise walkway in the Grand Arcade in Cambridge.

 

The gate to King’s College is often swamped by the mass of King’s Chapel which looms over it like a possessive parent and so I wanted to isolate it to enable it to speak for itself, people pass by it in droves, they look up at the chapel and marvel but miss the comparatively small towers that are as equal in detail and as deserving of appreciation. If you wander down the passage behind Senate House and alongside Gonville and Caius College the road leads right and off to the left is a narrow road to the river. The picture above right is a shot from river level looking up stream towards St Johns, punt free and smooth in the early morning it is an excellent spot to reflect on complex metaphores of life.

Early on Friday, in the clear blue skied morning, the parents of the graduates of Cambridge had risen early and dressed in their finest to parade the wakening streets. Paired and posturing they streamed toward The Senate House to witness their sons and heirs and filly legged daughters take the cap and the gown, to be processed as thousands before and released onto the world bright eyed, sharp minded and, as statistics suggested, most likely privilleged.