It’s official…

Thursday is now photography day.

Outside - 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and inside.

I am also now officially bored with LAF, and I think I will abandon it at the end of the month. It’s too uniform, and printouts don’t have the same connotations as all those lovely envelopes.

 

 

Something else is happening outside.

We have had problems with our soakaways –we are not on mains drainage so getting rid of rainwater into the sewer is not an option.

Given that said soakaways are probably about 60 years old at the back of the house, and 90 at the front, and that the pipes turned out to be full of tree roots, this is not surprising.

We have had a hole, a spoil heap, some pipes, and a skip full of chalk. Those of you who are gardeners will have realised instantly that we can’t grow azaleas – given that we only have about 6 inches of soil on top of the bedrock, we can’t grow much of anything. However chalk soils are very good for soakaways – once you’ve dug a big enough hole and filled it with gravel. Two fit young men [in both sense of the word ‘fit’] laboured mightily in our back garden and the job is now finished. Then they are on to indoor repairs.

I have preserved a little of the chalk for drawing purposes, plus this, which the younger FYM thinks is a fossil.

 

 

 

Yesterday we left them to it, and went down to Stourhead, because W. wanted to look at the trees. We were a bit too late to see them in their glory but there were still some leaves on the trees – and some lovely reflections.

  We also indulged in a little retail therapy in the excellent Stourhead Farm Shop.

We spotted some more colour on the way home 

 

 

 

 

 

and some people standing in a field with a lot of old stones.

A bit bigger than the ones in our skip, and definitely not chalk.

The last two images were taken from the moving car, so a bit blurry, I’m afraid. We didn’t stop because we’ve done the old stones before and I always find them disappointing – I think the scale of the landscape is such that the true size of the stones is lost. The landscape, on the other hand, is stunning – chalk is also very good for hills.

Today has been much less exciting – catching up with POT and LAF, which got neglected yesterday, and another session of ‘add glue and wait for it to dry’ on a little book of photos of tubes. Don’t suppose much will get done tomorrow either as we have a VIBP [very important birthday party] to attend. A home made Thomas cake is promised – can’t wait!