I have, at last, crossed the line. I am now well and truly on the downhill slope, having set out to post daily for a whole year I have gone beyond the halfway point. Things should get easier from herein….said no-one ever! How on earth do writers manage a whole book? I sometimes struggle with the meagre few lines I manage to concoct, meagre is an apt definition as well, I am never going to be a writer! Writing daily has been somewhat similar to the progress of a river running from source, it’s also a useful analogy given that we have a river running through the town here and the county in general, the River Stour flows nearby, wending it’s slow and langorous way to the sea. Both the river and this blog have begun as a trickle and then grown, sometimes there have been periods where there has been a flood, a torrent of words and ideas matching the fullness of the waters after storms or heavy rains, at other times there’s been a drought, where getting ideas to flow has been a struggle. There have been times where it’s been plain sailing and times when the course has taken innumerable twists and turns, just as with an old river, where the flow has been restricted and choked and then cleared the obstruction and flowed on again, slowly and inexorably towards it’s final destination. So it is with my meanderings, slow, slow, quick, quick, slow, like a foxtrot, there is a rhythm, a cadence, a pattern, all designed to take me on to the next post although , like the river, there are often meanderings and obstructions along the way.

Nothing romantic like the bridges of Maddison County. Nothing particularly soft or rustic about the counties many bridges hereabouts. Rugged, no nonsense structures built, or faced , with local stone and designed to carry man, animal and material across the county of Dorset on foot by vehicle or by train. A good number of them still bear the county plate advising the unwary traveler that should they deface or damage a bridge they will find themselves liable to transportation, a vivid reminder of our colonial past. The road bridges are well maintained, I would imagine at considerable cost, but suffer on a regular basis from damage wrought by vehicles whose size and weight was never envisaged at the time of their construction and, at times, are hardly suitable for some of the county’s main arterial routes. In an age not so far distant a good amount of heavy freight would have been transported from the southern coastal ports through the county by rail, sadly that’s a time that has come and gone. The bridges over the River Stour at Blandford and Sturminster Newton bear testament to the passing of the railway by displaying the immense remnants of structures in the riverside meadows, still standing strong and serene but no longer, or ever again, it seems to carry rail despite the aspirations of a local steam preservation society at Shillingstone. At Blandford the old railways arches stand on the edge of the Stour overlooking the slow old river as it wends it’s way slowly on towards the sea, a reminder of past glories set in stone for all to see.

Saturday morning in Sturminster Newton can be a strange affair. Small and rather rural, the town attracts it’s residents early, those visiting shops for early morning papers and weekend shopping, those attending to see what bargains ‘Dave the Toolman’ might have in his Alladin’s cave of a van, they get in, quick, decisive and then they leave just as quickly. For some it’s a ritual, for some a necessity, a thing to be done on a Saturday morning before anything else takes precedence on a weekend but something that takes place every Saturday morning as regular as clockwork. Once a month, usually the first Saturday of the month, things are a little bit different, we have a meeting of car and motorcycle enthusiasts who descend on the town, not necessarily in droves but enough to add an extra level of entertainment to proceedings. It began rather humbly with a midweek meeting which was moderately attended but showed enough promise to warrant a move to a Saturday morning where the owners could meet and display their mechanical delights to all and sundry and, on the face of it so far, it’s been well received. It’s certainly added a shot in the arm to a Saturday morning, the town has an added attraction, there are fresh faces on the street and those faces, together with the regulars, seem to linger a while longer. There is chatter, social interaction, a marked absence of mobile phone usage, people speak to each other, they enjoy coffee and breakfast, visitors are welcomed warmly, it’s all very friendly and civilised. Local crafters and artisans have now begun to attend adding more to the event and to the atmosphere, now it’s not just a ‘ petrol heads’ event, there’s so much more to entertain the rest of the family, the ladies, the children, it’s no longer just the province of the male of the species and all the better for it. Today we were well entertained by a very able and merry pianist and his violin wielding compatriot, a musical accompaniment to the coffee, cake and breakfast roll, all in all a thoroughly entertaining start to the weekend. Here’s to the next one I say!

There’s nothing quite like the peace and quiet of the countryside at the beginning or the end of the day, the serenity is something rarely experienced in a large town and definitely never in the city. There’s always someone, or something, about when you live in the urbane world, late night revellers, all night shoppers and then as night turns to day the army of workers who help to get the place ready for the new day, postmen, milkmen, bakers, any amount of trades that start their day while the great majority are still fast asleep. It rarely happens like that in the countryside, well, in my corner of the countryside. We obviously have the postman, the milkman is almost a thing of the past nowadays, the only other thing that moves in the wee small hours are the milking herds, and it seems that they are becoming ever increasingly rarer. I’m not complaining mind, I know that’s a rare concept, me not complaining, but I like to revel in the peace, if I’m able to get out with the camera as well it’s a bonus. Not to be woken by the cacophony of emergency service sirens or just the constant drone of traffic all night long is a blessing I’m happy to enjoy. On the odd occasion I get to the lake or riverside at dawn it’s a pleasure to be able to share it with nothing more than a few anglers and the wildfowl cruising the lake at the start of the day, moorhens, a couple of coots, swans and a grebe of two amongst the reeds not to mention the ubiquitous ducks who seem to spend half their lives with their bums in the air. Bottoms Up…I’ll drink to that!

Both on the part of the bees and by myself. I’ve spent a leisurely hour in the garden this afternoon watching the bees and doing my damndest to photograph them in their element. Not an easy subject I have to say, and not particularly my forte it seems. They alight on a flower and within seconds they’ve done the necessary, completed the task and flown on, all in the blink of an eye, while I’m still struggling to latch onto them let alone finding a point of focus. As for composing a reasonable picture, well, forget that. I take my hat off to friends and aquaintances who have the patience and the ability to record the ‘little’ things, equipment might go some of the way to getting a better shot but there’s no substitute for ability and it seems, in this genre, I have little. Mind, I can think of a whole heap of things I’d rather not be doing than sat in a sunny garden, drinking tea and shooting bees, if you’ll pardon the expression.

I’ve just noticed that I’m almost halfway through this task of posting every day for a year, I’m sure that when I tally things up it’ll take just over the year as I’m sure I’ve missed one or two days but in all honesty it will only have been one or two. I’m currently on 181 posts and still going relatively strongly, my ability to talk gibberish about a seemingly endless stream of odd things has no bounds it seems together with an innate ability to find an image to accompany said gibberish. I have to admit that tonight’s little epistle will be just that, little. Short and sweet, an accusation rarely levelled at me, will be the order of the evening because….there’s football to be watched on the television. Come to think of it the title of this little discourse could also have served as a timely reminder that the new season begins in a little over a week, well, the Premiership does, other forms of football can be found starting this coming weekend and , personally speaking, it can’t come a moment too soon, you’ll have to excuse me a moment of ‘macho’ here. For me the return of the football on the small screen will be a welcome rescue from the soaps, the reality shows and the repeats of everything under the sun. Well, having got that off my chest I can happily say that normal service will be restored in due course but for this evening it will be all about the football here.

Rain, rain, and then a drop more rain and some of it has been torrential today! So much so that , as yet, I haven’t ventured out with the camera, I’ve trawled the back catalogue and found nothing overly inspirational either and while I’m sat writing this the rain is dancing off the conservatory roof so it may be a while before I get to go out yet. Having said that , we do need the rain, after the recent long hot days the ground is parched and dry, the garden’s wilting and the countryside looks a little tired and weary. Hopefully today’s deluge will have gone some way to redress the balance. The rain won’t necessarily be universally welcomed no doubt, the farmers will be glancing skywards and hoping things pick up as they’re busy, or have been , cropping. The wheat and barley’s ready to come off in most places and while a great amount is safely in there is still quite a bit waiting to be cut. While I was out wandering yesterday I watched a contractor cutting and baling grass for animal fodder, I would imagine he’s thankful that he did it yesterday, ‘ make hay while the sun shines’ never rang truer. Speaking of ‘making hay while the sun shines’ I’ve just managed to get out in a brief lull in proceedings, in so much as the rain has temporarily called a halt to the deluge. Thank heavens for the few blooms that are still in the garden, combined with a few raindrops they illustrate today’s weather while offering a colourful distraction from what’s been a very dull, drab, damp Dorset day so far. Oh well, tomorrow promises to be far, far better, hurrah!

So said the White Rabbit in Disney’s film ‘ Alice in Wonderland, and yesterday I had a ‘White Rabbit’ moment in as much as I left it too late to post as I wanted to try and take the fullest advantage of the late evening sunshine and capture the sunset. In one respect it was irritating in that I failed to post, the whole purpose of this ‘blogging’ thing being to photograph and post daily where possible, while on the other hand waiting for the sunset was quite rewarding. I have to admit though that I’m in danger of becoming a ‘one trick pony’ in that I have , unwittingly, found a ‘go to’ location to capture the sunset. The far end of Ham Lane in Marnhull affords an expansive view north and west across the vale and into neighbouring Somerset, at the moment the immediate field holds a crop of bearded barley which undulates across its length and breath in the breeze, swaying and dancing, it makes for an interesting foreground while the sun sets in the west. Over recent weeks I’ve photographed the scene in various conditions and at varying stages of the crop, firstly under heavy and unpredictable skies when the crop was young and green and lately, on two occasions now, when the crop has ripened and under the setting sun in the late evening. Last nights visit revealed the crop to be almost, if not entirely, ready for harvest and surely within the next few days the field will be no more other than stubble which will offer another opportunity perhaps. Yesterday’s visit was once again well worth waiting for, my apologies to anyone who checked my site only to find there was no post but I’m sure you’ll agree the waiting was worth it purely for the photograph alone. I’m sure there will be many more visits to this location.

Do your own thing, be your own master, tread your own path. There are a host of similar quotes advocating the advance of one’s independence which is odd given that human beings are, in the majority, gregarious. We like to socialise with others, very often of our own ilk or persuasion, we are also tribal. From religion to politics, football to …well…you name it and as a species we’ll pigeon hole ourselves in the name of whichever group, team or persuasion takes our fancy. Odd that we should take such store in esoteric phrases when we spend much of our time seeking company, and given that it’s the recognised medical leaning of the day that isolation and loneliness is a major source of the current mental health epidemic that seems to blight our society at the moment. As with all things I would imagine it’s all a matter of balance, those wise old Victorians would have had an adage for it, I guess ‘ a little of what you fancy is good for you’ would encompass things in as much as it’s fine to have your own ‘ thing’ whatever it might be but not necessarily at the expense of everyone or everything else, ‘no man is an island’ springs to mind. So, in as much as it’s fine to be your own man, woman, person for some of the time it’s also equally fine to be one of the herd.

…but pictures, leave nothing but footprints, kill nothing but time” . I have no idea where the phrase comes from but it’s a perfect and pertinent reminder to us photographers, in particular, and to the wider public in general. We are blessed in that our countryside is some of the finest and most photographed in the world, some counties and locations more so than others but in general there are views to be had and photographed in almost every corner it seems. While there are a seemingly endless stream of opportunities it still falls to some to want more and in that search for more it seems that some will go to any length to obtain that ‘killer’ shot, regardless of any boundaries whatsoever. Much has been made locally in recent weeks of several local sites that attract a regular host of photographic visitors, all on private property, all bounded by hedges, fences and gates but, it seems, the province of all and sundry armed with a camera regardless of any thought or consideration to the rights and privileges of the landowner. In general most landowners, though not all, are amiable to walkers ( photographers in this instance are nothing more than walkers armed with cameras ) traversing their fields along recognised footpaths or bridleways as long as the individuals in question stick to the appropriate routes. Where they take umbrage is when they find said individuals rampaging amongst their crops, leaving gates undone, breaking down hedges, lighting fires and generally abusing the goodwill of the landowner without any thought or consideration. The thoughtless actions of a minority in the search for something out of the ordinary then results in the loss of opportunity for the greater, more considerate, majority. In my ramblings, and as a country boy, I am very conscious of the country code, take nothing, leave nothing and close the damned gate if you had to open it. Simple considerations that go a long way to enabling us all to enjoy our beautiful outdoor spaces.