Technology, you either love it or hate it, I love it when it works and hate it with a passion when it doesn’t and this week it’s been one of those weeks, technology failed me miserably mid week and only today has it decided to play ball and allow me to write again.

Earlier in the week I posted that our local Country Fair was about to take place. Well, the big day arrived and with it came a change in the weather, it had been forecast so we were well warned but all the same there was a distinct damper on the beginning of the day. Despite the best efforts of the rain the crowds were still in evidence by mid morning, country folk are hardy stock, and despite gloomy, grey, rain laden skies it seems that a good time was had by all.

We are very much in an ‘up and down’ cycle it seems, one day fine, dry and sunny, the next a very different affair, damp, grey and dreary. There are remnants of the harvest to be completed in fields about and the local landowners will be hoping to get the wheat in and be ready for the maize crop shortly, there is still much to do before the season ends. This midweek show was a welcome break for all, despite the weather, and with the Autumn months approaching there will be no let up in the activity on the land.

There are more than a few, since Wednesday I have been unable to progress my Blog via WordPress, technology seems to have the upper hand at the moment but we’re working on things….it may take a while but I am trying.

Well, this afternoon we’ve visited the showground, found our space in the Craft Tent and Helen’s all set up and ready to go. We weren’t alone, it seemed that a good number of others had the same idea and the marquee was full of familiar faces, all intent on getting a head start for tomorrow’s grand affair.

Outside on the showground the trade stands obviously had a few days head start on everyone else, the heavy agricultural machinery, much in evidence, was set out in impressive style. Not that it could fail to be impressive given the size of much of it, I’m sure that the machine’s size would be duly mirrored by it’s cost, a small fortune no doubt. Everything pristine, shiny, polished to within an inch of the sales staff’s life and awaiting customers who will need an equally impressively sized wallet or cheque book in order to make a purchase.

It’s a far cry from days of my childhood when my mother and grandmother would take us children to the market town of Hereford on a Wednesday where the highlight of the day would be a visit to the local livestock market where I would be allowed to sit on the tractors, all of which seemed impressive to a pre-school child but would be dwarfed my these incredible machines today. Simply put, things have moved on, progress comes in many forms but touches all walks of life including that of the countryside, but whatever the size or cost of the machinery there is still a connect with the past, the agricultural show is still alive and kicking, making memories for a whole new generation.

We are gearing up for the annual country show. Well, my wife is, she’s a regular whirlwind at the moment, as much as anyone who sews or paints is a whirlwind There is material, there are pins, needles, thread, a veritable cornucopia of wonderful things packed and ready for the table this coming Wednesday at our local show.

Tomorrow’s classed as ‘set up’ day, a chance to get ahead of one’s self, get your pitch set up and looking good in anticipation of eager customers. It’s the opportunity to fine tune, to place items strategically, to create an ambiance and an impact for the benefit of the crowd and a crowd there will undoubtedly be. It’s only a one day show but it’s ‘our’ one day show so the great and the godly and everyone else in the district will be out to parade, to see and be seen as it were.

All we need now is the weather gods to shine on us, the forecasters aren’t promising us anything special, in fact they are promising us some miserable weather but we’ll be in a marquee and if it rains that’s where a good amount of the paying public will be as well, trying desperately to stay out of the wet weather. It’s an ill wind that blows no-one any good as they say.

Whatever the weather, rain or shine, everyone who attends will be looking for the same outcome on the day, to have a great time, eat good food, drink fine ales, be well entertained and spend a little cash, it’s what makes the day go with a swing whichever side of the counter you’re on.

The summer flowers are on the wane, they are being replaced by the last of the colourful blooms, the Chrysanthemums and the Dahlias are showing well in gardens here in the town, they make a wonderful late summer, early Autumn show. They remind me of cold, crisp morning walks to infant and primary school in the company of my sibling sister and my mother. Do children walk to school anymore? It seems more the case that they are transported from door to door by car. I wonder what their memories will be?

As the summer blooms fade away they sometimes leave behind them evidence of their former glories in the form of seed heads, often as beautiful in their construction as the flowers were themselves. Poppies , an annual wonder, are a prime example. Beautiful in flower, sculptural in decay, Nature continues to offer the viewer entertainment long after the first spectacle.

The hedgerows and the field margins will show the spectacular heads of cow parsley, a brittle, straw like structure that will withstand the winds, rains and , eventually, the frosts, sometimes apparently held together by the gossamer strands of a spiders web designed to capture unwary flying things and the icy crystals on frosty mornings making miniature chandeliers to decorate the dawn.

The summer flowers may be on the wane but there’s still plenty to see and admire, if only we take the time to look…..

Those of you familiar with the old ‘Fawlty Towers’ classic in which John Cleese takes a branch to his errant, non starting motor car will appreciate the title of the picture accompanying today’s musings . For those of you who aren’t, believe me , it’s a classic, it portrays the eccentricity of the British and, sadly, the quality of some of our engineering of the time.

Today we are well and truly suffering with the wind, if you’ll excuse the phrase. It blew in yesterday afternoon as forecast , accompanied by some very heavy showers and it’s continued to try and blow itself out this morning. So far, it seems to have failed miserably and the trees and hedgerows, all of which are heavy in leaf, are taking a prodigious battering, they are having a ‘damned good thrashing’! At the moment we seem to have been lucky , here at least, there doesn’t seem to be too much, if any, damage as yet. No doubt there will be some poor unfortunates elsewhere.

My early morning Saturday stroll along the old track bed was a quiet affair, the weather seemed to have discouraged the dog walkers, cyclists and other fellow strollers, unsurprisingly. That said, the weathermen have said that despite the high winds there’s every chance of a relatively fine day and so no doubt the hardy souls who normally frequent the trailway may surface later in the day. They may have to pick their way around and over the limbs and spars of broken trees but at least they’ll be able to do it in the dry. For myself, my wanderings are done for the day, getting up and out relatively early is always a bonus, too much human contact isn’t always an entirely advantageous thing!

…. A Day Makes. It’s a great song, I’m particularly a fan of the late, great Esther Phillips version, it’s a Northern Soul thing from my youth. It’s still one of those songs that I hear now and then which has the ability to transport me back to a particular location and a long gone friend. It was a song that defined a particular passage in time which I will never forget.

That’s not the emphasis of today’s tale for all of that, no, I was struck by the change in the weather overnight and popped out to record what, if anything, was left of the current harvesting operations that had been so evidently in full swing yesterday and the day before. The answer this morning was an emphatic….nothing. Fields that had until very recently been heavy with the wheat are now empty, devoid of anything but the stubble and the tracks of the machinery, in most places even the bales have been gathered in.

Stood in the middle of the empty field under the dark rain laden clouds I was reminded that Autumn is on it’s way, there was such a marked difference in the weather this morning. I’m not complaining mind you, there is no more beautiful a season than Autumn. There is still light and warmth to enjoy but there is also the promise of cooler, crisper mornings, incredible cloud inversions in the valleys hereabouts, the turning colours of the leaves and the wild fruit in the hedgerows. It’s a time of plenty and holds such promise. Even the wet, windy days have a richness of colour, a fragrance all of their own, I can’t wait for the first ploughing of the fields, the damp fresh smell of the rich earth turned skyward and waiting for the planting cycle to begin again.

No doubt there will be times when I shall write about the incessant Dorset drizzle, rain that sleets sideways across the hedgerows and open fields, but even on those occasions and while I am apparently complaining, there is a beauty in some of the silent solitude that such a day can bring to the countryside. Bring on the Autumn I say, I for one can’t wait.

A relatively early start this morning found me at the local fishing lakes, not as an angler mind you, no, I only act as chauffeur on such occasions but it does offer me the opportunity to take the odd photo or two in the process. I have never been an angler despite being taken and taught the art of fishing by my father many moons ago. It’s never been something that floated my boat ( excuse the watery pun ). I prefer my fish topped, tailed, battered and accompanied by chips on a plate thank you very much.

I have to admit I’m not in the least bit envious of those that choose to sit all day on the bank side pitting their wits against a fish though I do admire their tenacity on doing so at times. I can appreciate, however, the peace and quiet attached to the sport, the ability to remain motionless for hours on end while waiting for said fish to attach itself, kamikaze like, to one’s hook is an art form all of it’s own and observing some anglers in their rituals it becomes positively zen like. Something akin to raking gravel in a Japanese garden.

I have to admit to needing a more immediate ‘hit’, not for me the hours of inactivity, despite my sloth like nature. I prefer to ‘ see it, do it, get it over with and move on’. maybe I should cultivate a little patience, at the moment the closest I get to patience is waiting for a three minute long exposure to complete. Three minutes, 180 seconds of time compressed digitally and recorded for posterity, or , more often than not, consigned to the waste bin once I’ve had a chance to examine the result after editing.

That said, I’m more than happy to do my ‘chauffeuring’ and availing myself of the photographic opportunities, I console myself that I’m at one with nature when I’m out there with the camera…which probably puts me on a par with the angler…and often with the same degree of success I don’t doubt.

I was rather taken with the state of the machinery yesterday, well, to be honest living here in rural Dorset I’m always taken by the machinery hereabouts. It’s massive, positively gargantuan, certainly not made for Dorset’s quaint but creaking infrastructure. One of these beasts on the majority of the county’s roads causes untold havoc with traffic tailed back as far as the eye can see.

I guess it’s just another indicator of how everything seems to be geared for profit. The field that this monster was cutting yesterday was enormous, it’s not hard to imagine that not so long ago in the past it would have been three or four fields but over time, as farming has intensified, the hedges have been grubbed out to increase the size of the field and accommodate larger yields. The landscape has altered in my lifetime but given the increase in population and the need for food production that’s hardly surprising. We have to feed and be fed so the chain is consumer driven as much as farmer led.

It all comes at a cost though, our quest for cheap food seems to be taking a toll on the planet, experts queue up to advise us that our farming techniques are costing us dear without, it seems to the layman, any real thought to what might happen if food production doesn’t keep pace with demand. It’s disappointing that for all our ingenuity and skill we cannot find a balance between ourselves and the natural world. I cannot imagine that anyone would want to see a world devoid of nature and all it’s wonderful plants and creatures, at the same time no-one can live without the bounty of the land and so we go on, round and around in circles, a bit like this monster in the cornfield yesterday.

The harvest is in full swing. I’ve been keeping my eye on several fields locally, waiting for the combine to arrive, hoping that the wet weather won’t spoil the opportunity to catch the activity in full swing. This afternoon I was pleasantly rewarded. The incessant hum of machinery filled the early afternoon air and the chase was on. The sound, borne on the wind, suggested the activity was in a huge field just the other side of the river from where we live. However, just the other side of the river is a mere five minutes in the car but a good fifteen minute brisk walk across the town bridge and back along the road to Shillingstone…ah well…nothing ventured nothing gained. The exercise was well worth the view, or is it the other way round? The walk to the field took me all of the fifteen previously mentioned minutes and arrival revealed that there was definitely harvesting going on, not that there was any evidence of the harvester, I could no longer hear it but it was obviously somewhere in the vicinity as the great swathe of cut grain stretching up the field evidenced. The field is immense, it rolls, rises and dips into hollows, it hides machinery and deadens sounds. Nothing for it but to walk the field, find the leviathan and hope that it hadn’t decided to crop an adjoining field with no road access, despite the pleasant weather this afternoon I didn’t really want to trek half the county in pursuit of my shot. Fortunately my walk to the top of the field provided dividends though it wasn’t the sight of the machine that first greeted me, rather it was the smell, the smell of the grain, cut and thrashed and the dust, fragmented and carried on the breeze reached me before the machine lumbered into view, labouring up the hill, mowing all before it.