Hello! Howdy! Good day! And welcome to a shiny happy blogalongathonthing, with the photosnaps cuz that’s my thing, it’s the thing I do to ‘create’, you know? Yeah, my art drawings were never up to much, and painting? Only if it’s emulsion, bishbashbosh, loadsadulux! So here I am, writing again. Although I s’pose I could try collage….pictures innit tho?

I’d write more often but, ya know, mentalistic Reasons, lockdown nerves. Anyhoops, it’s March 2521, we’ve been in Lockdown now for half a millennia, the oceans are now teem with carnivorous plastic fish, Buck Rogers, first President of the United Starbucks is now HeadTwat of the UNMen, whilst Wilma Deering has created a successful Antarctic Utopia (cuz, ya know, Women organised it, so it’s bound to actually work and flourish, hashtag Jacinta Ardern) however Covid Zombies (Moonbeez) have colonised the Moon and Villa are going for their tenth straight Premier League title (Manchester Utd, managed by the Resurrected Ai-Lex Fergusononon, are squeaky bottom of the league) oh what a year that wasn’t. Yeah. Difficult times for all, I won’t belabour the point, the previous year sucked and this year hasn’t improved much on the previous (aside from getting the vaccine).

I’ve struggled with the mental odds and sods during the Lockdowns (something I touched upon in my previous Blog entry) and mustering up the wherewithal to write has escaped me much of the time – the crummy thing is I do really enjoy writing, it is an escape and offers me a way of thinking things through and true, out loud virtually, moulded into salient points that might make sense if someone else wrote them with clarity of thought but instead ended up meandering on and on and on like this sentence has. In many ways writing about my photo walks helps me make some sense of how I’ve been feeling and what I’m trying to do creatively. Or sometimes it’s just nice to write about the journey there and back again, without any profound insights, just a knowing nod to the reader, on occasion.

Being stuck at home hasn’t done me well at all, so I’ve been out for a lot of walks in my locale. A lot. An awful lot, to the point where I’ve developed a problem with my right foot, so I have to nurse that and hope to see my GP sometime in the next decade. Enforced solitude isn’t kind, I miss my family when they’re out at work and school, I miss the comradeship and banter of friends – Zooms have helped so much, I am so grateful to those who have kept up with me and buoyed my spirits with the balm of friendship and solidarity. You know who you are.

In that spirit I hope, dear Reader, that I find You in good health, fine spirits and positive of mind. You are so welcome here, I hope my paragraphs and pictures give you some form of enjoyment and don’t cause that awful form of gastroenteritis like the last time…… My Blogs are a verbal extension of the wanderings that I take with my camera around the City that I live in, my beloved Brum. Birmingham. With regular lockdown walks keeping me in some form of fitness I could talk about the many little side-quests and diversions, and indeed I plan to do so a little more freely in future. However, I have found the ‘sitting down’ and the ‘writing’ have been problematic acts for many reasons during these long dull Lockdowns, partly because it means yet more sitting down and staying inside….. But for this Blog, recent walks have inspired me somewhat, I don’t know why, call it Kismet, call it being arsed, but for whatever reason, let’s do this!

If you follow my photography at all you may have observed that I enjoy people photography and shooting around the city, capturing urban life (whatever that means…) the odds and sods that I see during my city sojourns. Lockdown exigencies have kept us all local, and even then there’s that paranoia that you’ll get your collar felt for wandering too far. I’ve gotten into the habit of tracking my exercise walks with a phone app, just in case the local Fuzz feel the need to stop this beardieweirdie for being out out. In fact I’ve been stopped twice now, masked car cops with no semblance of social niceties, never a polite hello, just abrupt direct ‘What are you doing out here?’ I’ve shown them my phone, my route map and where I live. Nnaaaah naaah nanaah na, see I am a local and I’m not from Swansea see? Britain doesn’t feel like a friendly, kind place anymore, especially for those of us who need the outdoors to simply roam and release that mental pressure.

It became apparent during the long first lockdown last year that local parks and open spaces were to be avoided like the plague (fnurrrrr fnurrrr…). I ended up walking everywhere that wasn’t a public open space, streets and suburbs around where I live. Ultimately I found myself walking further afield, stretching my gaze outward to embrace the green rims of Brum (as I’ve sort of dubbed them, just now). I live on the south side of the City, edging towards Worcestershire and the Black Country in equal measures (they’re that close either way, go figure dat yo?). The vastness of Bartley Reservoir makes for enjoyable solitude, just thousands of gulls and me orbiting it’s ring-fenced shorelines. It’s not open to the public like that slag Edgbaston Reservoir, oh yeah that beast has everybody bobbing about joylessly along its rims, such a needy slag that one!….. I…I… I don’t know why I said it like that, it just sort of came out Sir (fnurrr fnurrr…). I need a hug, and perhaps a tissue. Please.

So yeah, errrmmm, I’ve walked around the Reser’ quite a lot during the lockdowns. It’s a ten minute walk up the road from my house. Walking down the council house-lined Merritts Hill you’re channeled between a dense tunnel of trees, abruptly transitioning into Frankley Lane, snaking around the shores of the Reservoir as suburbia (and pavement) suddenly falls away. Fields and hedgerows open out around and sky, lots of sky to lift your gaze up, and spirits too. It feels wonderful, even on a dull day. Those foggy days over the Winter I’ve loved the most, losing myself in a haze of cold climatic amnesia, leaving those troubles that ail and flail behind me. These walks have never become boring, repetitive perhaps, but I’ve always found something to focus on. I look for little compositions as well as the grander views. I’ve grown very fond of shooting double exposures, but I keep those for myself and I don’t share them on my social media, nor here, so there. They’re my own private Idontknow, kept for a rainy day.

I’ve also been shooting some film, which has been tremendously interesting. It’s surprised me, such a different way of taking photos. Each shot is precious, once it’s gone, it’s gone, used up, committed. So I have to be sure, to be sure, to be absolutely sure that what I’m looking at is what I want to capture. It’s surprising how often I haven’t pressed the shutter button. I’ve shot 42 film photos during Lockdown, I’ve still to finish the second roll (Agfa Vista). No doubt they’ll be terrible photos, but I’m quietly thrilled by the film process in a strange unknowable way. I’m using a Canon eos300v, a relatively modern film slr with autofocus, great for novice bucketheads like me. Recommended to me by that iconic Brummie Tog, and all round excellent (Villa Bhoy) gent Ross Jukes. Loading the film is wonderful, it winds the film to the end when loaded, so you work back from the end to the beginning where it ends. A brilliantly simple innovation and completely non-fiddly. The whole process of shooting film has been quite revelatory, despite being crap at it. You do in fact, really slow down, no spraying and praying shots in that false hope of capturing something amazing. It’s careful, considered but sadly Film isn’t cheap. I am not minted, so flirting with film won’t lead to a full blown affair, not yet anyway. That said, I do have some Ilford super xp2 400 b&w film to use up, so the flirtation ain’t over just yet 😉

Anyway.

There are ongoing issues with these country walks. Fly tipping is common, as is the carelessness of drivers who take no prisoners for those forced to walk on these pavement-less lanes. The rubbish in the hedgerows is depressing, as are the burnt out wrecks of joy-addled vehicles dumped on Scotland Lane….. but, BUT, looking past all that, it is a lovely place to walk around, wildlife comes at ya, bolshie and oy, you’re not from round ere, get off my land, and then there’s a score of old country footpaths to explore across the expansive fields (just ignore the squeaking coming from those dark windowed vehicles parked up in the shadows, yeah you know what’s going on there, best not to mull that over and for heaven’s sake don’t make eye contact!).

So, my walks have been taken me far AWAY from people, avoiding the very subjects that I thrive on photographing. But as time has gone on I’ve found new joys in these solitary ventures (such as discovering film and tracing the network of local paths and how they connect). I’ve photographed a lot of foggy mornings around the Reservoir (and the suburbs around where I live). It wasn’t intentional, at first, but as time and lockdowns have gone on, I guess these pix have acted like a (terribly unoriginal) metaphor for how I’ve felt this last year, and I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling that way. At times I’ve felt absolutely compelled to grab every opportunity to capture fog or mists. It’s weird how thrilling it felt being out in it, yeah weird, I am completely aware how that statement sounds, but walking out in the fog felt incredibly liberating, because nothing was apparent, literally nothing, so nothing mattered, the familiarity of my location became completely unfamiliar. The vagueness, the lack of clarity, the mystery and emptiness, all felt very right and creatively I’ve responded to that by capturing images that speak to how I have felt. I wouldn’t claim they’re particularly original, but they’re mine and of this time in my mind and my place.

But whether it’s foggy or not, I’ve come to love walking around these parts, and every walk has offered new gifts, especially as the weather has warmed up and Mother Nature has started from her slumber. My roams have taken me further and further out, across farmland and into hamlets like Illey and Romsley, that dot Brum’s green rims. Beyond the Reservoir, up past the tiny church of St Leonards and the nearby remains of an ancient Moat (that belonged to the long since lost Frankley Hall) you head up past Frankley Green. Beyond here, and under the motorway it’s fields carpeted green all the way to Kidderminster…..

But soft, train one’s eye on the landscape as you walk slowly down yonder country road towards Romsley and Hunnington, you might notice something not quite right, glimpse something….. artificial hiding in plain sight amidst this green and pleasant landscape….. Oh but, hang on. Hang on, hold up, hold your horses, I think I need to back track a little here for some context. In one of my previous Blogposts I detailed a wonderful little excursion I went on with my friend Christian, back in 2019, when we walked along a derelict section of the mothballed South Staffs Railway line, between Parkhead Viaduct in Dudley all the way out to Wednesbury, including a memorable jaunt through the Dark beneath Dudley, the Dudley Tunnel.

So, you know I LOOOOOOVE old railways, and you may also remember, if you’re a regular, that I also really enjoy exploring abandoned places, like that wander around the derelict Kingwood Heath medical supplies factory in Deritend that I wrote about in another Blogpost last year…..

Okay then, you can see I’ve got form for going off the beaten track a bit, especially with this darned prose malarky, Mildred. So, whilst out walking along one of the many spidery footpaths that circumlocute the fields out past Frankley Green and Illey, I noticed amidst the undergrowth a rickety post with an old roundel sign labelled ‘The Illey Way’ on it (I had to scramble in to get up close to snap this, got beastly scratches for it).

And on it, a steam train. Huh? A footpath with a steam train, whutchu talkin’ about Willis? Ain’t no trains round here, no sir’reee! Oh now hang on, it’s a steam train, not a new train all shiny and lectric like, it’s a steam train, all old and sepia like your greatgreatgreat Granny innit, no longer around, kaput, deceased, Gone. So what’s that doing all the way out yonder, when there’s nothing to see but fields and sky. Which got me finking. And reading. And down down, deeper and down I went into that bloody google rabbit hole.

And this is what I found – I am indebted to the good people at the Warwickshire Railways website whose pre-eminent documentation on our local railway history I have summarised here. A railway branch line from Halesowen to a junction at Longbridge, near Northfield, was built in 1883 as an independent branch extension of the Old Hill to Halesowen Line (1878), jointly operated by the Great Western and Midland Railways. A Great Western and Midland Railways Joint Committee then ran the line from May 1894. The Great Western allowed the Joint Railway the use of their Halesowen station at a rent of £250 per annum. The railway was jointly vested in both companies from June 1906. Passenger services between Longbridge Junction, Halesowen and Old Hill were popular with local workers especially to the busy Longbridge factory and the Bluebird Toffee works at Hunnington. Sadly the railway was never a lucrative enterprise, and fell quickly into decline after the first world war, with passenger services ceasing as early as 1919. However both railways found better fortunes in goods services, especially during the building of the Birmingham Corporation’s reservoirs at Frankley and Bartley Green. The railways also ran unadvertised workman’s trains to Longbridge from around 1917 until 1960, with the line eventually closing in 1964 as a result of the Beeching Cuts.

The Halesowen to Northfield branch line had six stations at Hunnington, Rubery, Frogmill Crossing, Austin Works, Longbridge and Halesowen Junction (Northfield). Of particular note on the route was the single track Dowery Dell Viaduct between Hunnington and Rubery. This monumental construction was remarkable in being the tallest example in Britain of a lattice girder viaduct supported across the valley on ten huge iron piers. A similar construction, though much shorter still exists at Bennerley Viaduct over the Erewash Valley in Nottinghamshire. The viaduct spanned 660 feet across Dowery Dell and at it’s highest the viaduct soared 108 feet above the diminutive river below. What is deeply sad (an act of architectural vandalism IMHO) is that after the closure of the line in 1964 the viaduct was swiftly torn down for salvage, despite local attempts to save it for posterity.

Reading about this vanished piece of West Midlands history had me deeply intrigued, especially when I saw that some remains do linger on today. So, despite ongoing issues with my right foot, I set out to find the Illey Way to Dowery Dell. The Dell isn’t that far from Frankley Green, where I had walked too many times during Lockdown, it’s literally just down the hill, under the motorway and across a nearby farm. To make it interesting I tracked down a PDF of the old Illey Way pamphlet published in 1996 so I could trace the walk across Brum’s green rims. The Illey Way (now largely subsumed by the newer Monarch Way) runs from the Waseley Hills near Rubery through Frankley Green, Illey and around to Woodgate Valley Country Park. It is a largely rural route that includes some of the route of the old railway. I figured if I could walk the route and retrace some of the railway then I could walk home relatively easily from there…..

Walking down from the Waseley Hills it’s a gentle meander, hedgerows and telegraph poles punctuate the fields whilst the weather was kindly and mild. The views across to Turners Hill in Rowley Regis were quite lovely (whilst the sun was out, wink). The path was well marked but not intrusive on the landscape and fellow walkers were rare (I saw two people, or perhaps it was the same person twice… shrugs). The path took me slowly down hill towards a dark wooded expanse at Long Saw Croft. The increasingly muddy trail passed through several well oiled gates and over sturdy stiles, I was glad I had good solid boots on. Despite the dim roar of the M5, it was incredibly quiet and still. But as I approached the mass of Long Saw Croft the air began to liven with birdsong and that smell of hosses dumping in a nearby field.

Ahhh but what soft noses these fellas had, so gentle they were too. Not a nip or nudge from the pair of them, just quiet affection from my nose scratches. At Long Saw Croft the path diverges into the woodland or around it. I kinda did a bit of both. I love wandering through woodland, there is something so ancient and primal about losing yourself amidst. A deeply rutted, mud-strewn path into the woods goes off at right angles to the Illey Way. Trees crowd the path inwards and the light reduces substantially as you proceed. It was soon apparent that this wooded area is an old plantation of sorts, the trees all seem of a similar age and size, if latterly unkempt. Walking through it a hundred yards or so the old path quickly deteriorated beneath my feet, other paths were blocked with fallen trees, the whole place felt neglected and generally in a poor state. I thought, nah, not today.

A Volte face from me had me trudging back through the mud and out into the airy afternoon once more. I immediately felt lighter and that I’d made the right decision. The path skirts Long Saw Croft and onward to the wildflower meadows at Penny Fields. Before the meadows the path took me into another wooded area, Ell Wood, which immediately felt much older and more like real untouched woodland (although it really isn’t).

It’s a gentle amiable walk, nothing demanding about it aside from taking it all in, the skies were bubbling nicely with fluffy white clouds. I imagine it would be an easy bike ride too, if that’s your thing. The path descends downwards into the river valley, though it’s much more of a cheerful stream. There was zero evidence of an old railway hereabouts, although I did see some large red stone blocks amidst the undergrowth, which are apparently boundary stones that mark the lands once under the dominion of the Friars at Halesowen Abbey (dissolved by old Henry Eight back in the day). Ell Wood is classed as semi-ancient woodland, big old huggable native trees infiltrated by conifers planted by idiot humans and divided by a Hollow-Way, a medieval cart road made by medi-evil idiot humans back in the days of Yawn.

At the Hollow-Way, or Green Lane – yeah muddy brown more likes, dear Reader – you cross over the cheerfully busy stream where you can walk aways north, south, east or west as the paths suddenly proliferate. I found the Illey Way roundel, quietly blessing the peoples who’d nailed it to the post, I was on the right track. Ahead of me a pleasant wooded path, the stream to my left and fields to my right (insert obligatory song lyric if you must).

I glanced at my Googly Maps here and thought, hang on, is that it? I knew from doing my Internets beforehand that the line of the old railway suddenly becomes apparent near here. Looking to the far right of the above picture you can just make out a line of trees (well, there’s quite a few of them around them parts, but yeah, trust). I walked up hill aways here toward Brookhouse Farm, off the Illey Way to get my bearings.

Looking up towards Brookhouse Farm I could see a straight line of trees going off at right angles to the green lane. Looking closer, I could see amidst the trees the old railway embankment! It’s there if you look closely. Oooh, I was a bit excited, I might have done a little yip. I had a drink of pop and stopped to count my blessings. Can life get better than this, tracing old railway lines out in the Rurals? Probably, but you know, Lockdown limits, and all that, so this was IT for me. I thought, I’ve got to get up there, at least walk on a stretch of it, but how? There’s bloody barbara wires everywhere…..

I rejoined the path, crossing the bottom of a wide sloping field burgeoning with cereal seedlings, the railway embankment tangibly close but unreachable it seemed. Along the way on the left-hand side a trail takes you towards the stream and a gate marked Stop, you shall not pass, or something. There’s a sunken heap of concrete here, the bulky works of the Elan Aqueduct that channels welsh water into our english bellies. Moving on I met a kindly pair of gents who advised me there was no permissible path up onto the Embankment. Shumissible permissible blah blah blah, I had my eagle eyes on now, looking for fence gaps and the dark tell tales of footsteps on the embankment. I was so close.

The sloping path eventually brings you near the foot of the embankment, where Birches throng like stalkers all up in your face, almost overwhelming the view upwards. Passing over a stile you’re back in the woods, another semi-ancient woodland, Twiland Wood, which spans the entirety of Dowery Dell. The ground is saturated with run off from the looming embankment, up close you’re always looking upwards at this monumental construction. Despite many years of being colonised by the expansive woodland, up close you can’t fail to be impressed by the sheer ambition of the Victorian builders. The embankment literally towers above, it just goes up and up and up, but how do I get on it? Barbara wire fences were everywhere, even now official peeps aren’t keen on us unofficial peeps getting up on these places.

Aha! At last, I spied a gap amidst the soggy bottom. And looking down, amidst the wispy ferns and burgeoning blades of wild garlic, a narrow, darker path of trodden steps, yeah peeps have been up this way too. I have to walk quite a way inwards, scrambling me olden leggies, it’s very steep, the embankment is literally shale and aggregates, finding safe footing is difficult and slow going despite the visual assurances of the beaten path. Thankfully the thronging Birch and Crack Willow saplings provided ample hand grabs and foot wedges. Slowly but surely I made me way up, zig zagging like a no-pro…..

Suddenly a hoofin great concrete sleeper, just lying there, beached as Bro. A few others littered the slopes amongst the ferns beyond. Still, there was precious little evidence of a railway here after 50 years. I had a breather then stumbled on like the old fellow that I am. And then I was up, yes! I’d made it….. and looking around, well, ahhhh. Yeah.

Underwhelming I guess you could say, like climbing to find a scenic view and only finding a dead end road. with a scattering of rubbish. Time had robbed this place of all that was interesting, sadly there’s very little left up on the embankment itself. I had hoped to find something tangible, a speed limit sign perhaps, anything, but there’s sadly very little to see.

The views around and across the valley have been thoroughly populated by the ubiquitous birch and willow. The old line exists now as an irregular unofficial path pre-trodden by history geeks and local pot-heads dodging between the trees, with the odd concrete sleeper poking out the undergrowth. However, walking towards where the viaduct once dashed out over the valley high, large brick abutments still exist, hanging like unwanted high-fives amongst the trees. Standing atop it is quite vertiginous looking down, so I didn’t hang for long, preferring instead to sit like an unfit gentleman who was quite out of breath.

The photos earlier on in this blog of the viaduct (by DJ Norton) demonstrate just how high up the viaduct really was – my photos don’t do it justice at all – mainly because standing down the embankment to look back up and take a photo is both dangerous and difficult to get an unobstructed view with all the trees. Even standing on the abutments, looking across was impossible, whilst looking down only hints at the true height.

I sat and ate my lunch, slightly grumpy that there wasn’t a lot to see, wishing I’d brought a wider angled lens along perhaps. But as my hunger faded I reflected upon my journey and cheered myself with the positivity gained from getting to where I was. I was on the railway after all, sitting on a piece of forgotten history, the ghost of an engineering marvel, the Dowery Dell Viaduct! In that recognition I found joy, it’s one of the things that Lockdown has taught me I guess, learning to count my blessings, embracing the fact that I’m lucky to have what I have, a life, my Love and my Family. Everything else is a bonus. Being creative is a bonus, being able to capture how I see and experience the world is a bonus, being here at the place was a bonus. I found there was no need for any disappointment, it was what it was, there was no need to begrudge time and memory, it was simply inevitable. Sitting there I drinking my pop, I took in my surroundings and simply enjoyed them. The lack of a clear view or more tangible railway infrastructure didn’t matter, because it has gone. So I found myself imagining what it must have been like to have been a passenger on those trains that passed so high over this quiet rural valley. Who were those people, what lives did they lead, did they enjoy the journey? What did the viaduct sound like as the trains carefully travelled across? Now all that remains is birdsong and the breeze.

Now I had to make my way back down, oh such fun dear Reader. I’m not at all athletic, with legs like sleepers and a wobbly belly (not forgetting the sore foot!), well I was as careful and slow as you can probably imagine a tall lumbering fellow like me can be….. I knew that progressing further down into the dell, more evidence of the old viaduct awaited, so when I finally regained the path I fished out the camera for a final few shots. It’s actually not far onwards, looking up above and below as the path snakes downwards to the streambed, large blue-brick foundations loom. After all this time the birches and crack willows have reclaimed these broken spaces too, with saplings sprouting inevitably from all angles of the brickwork.

Nature has been allowed to take back this place from the ravages of Victorian industry, and a jolly fine job it’s doing too! I walked up on a couple of these huge brick plinths that step up and down the valley sides like giant stairs. I was chuffed to find a bit of history lingering on here, large metal stumps of the vast vertical girders that once held up the viaduct. They’ve been cut through unceremoniously without much care, the viaduct was sold for scrap after all. But it’s a tangible relic and, as is my wont, I placed my hand on it.

Further down there were even some very decrepit wooden sleepers tumbled down from the viaduct track-bed itself, one imagines. I couldn’t see any markings on them but I was intrigued by the huge bolts sticking out of their sides, perhaps they were for holding the sleepers in place (??). Whether they fell here or were placed doesn’t matter, I was glad to see them there, memorialising what has passed but going back to nature as is fitting.

The valley descends steeply to the stream and a wooden bridge crossing. It was here that I would turn around and head for home, as the afternoon was trudging on inevitably. Going onward from here towards Illey and Woodgate would have been going far out of my way! I shall walk that side of the Illey Way another day. However I still had some time to just enjoy being there, listening to the waters running beneath me, the wind in the trees, the throng of birdsong in the air. I had the entire valley to myself, I hadn’t seen anyone for well over two hours and indeed saw not a soul as I left.

As I walked back up the stepped path I noticed this chain like ‘sculpture’ almost hidden in the undergrowth off to the left as I went up. I was so absorbed in looking at the big brick peers on the way down that I’d completely missed this large wire chainlink fing. To call it ‘wire’ is a bit like calling BMW’s modern version of the Mini a small car…. these wires were inches thick and coiled into the shape of chain. I’m only guessing that it’s a sculpture, perhaps a memorial to the old viaduct or to the Black Country tradition of chainmaking- although I could find no record of it on site or online. If you, dear Reader, know what it is and why it’s there I’d love to hear from you.

I retraced my journey back out of Dowery Dell feeling pleased that I’d found my way and the paracetamol was taking the edge off my pained foot. The lure of an afternoon cup of tea and choccy bickie at home was too much to resist now, so I set off on the slow walk home. Much of the journey was familiar now, but as I walked out across the farmland back towards Frankley Green, the path brought me under the embankment itself. By Brookhouse Farm is a bridge relic (the bridge itself is long gone). Two twenty feet high walls hold up the embankment on either side of the green lane, they’re very recognisably railway bridge walls. On one side the private farmhouse hugs the embankment, the other side holds more of the Elan Aqueduct infrastructure, a small modern building all green and ugly as, quite aggressively at odds with it’s bucolic surroundings, poorly executed concrete (as much as I adore it) with bad attitude isn’t worth photographing, so no photos were taken of it!

The gap where the old rail bridge was neatly the frames the view out towards Romsley and Hunnington. What isn’t apparent in the picture is the farmer’s dog, off camera, who really didn’t like me being there!! So I didn’t linger. I walked a ways onward, to almost the end of the farm road where it meets Frankley Green Road and took one last look back. The line of trees covering the embankment on the left looked rather nice framing the view towards Rowley Regis and Turners Hill in the distance. Gotta love those fluffy clouds!

And there (aside from my slow trudge home) my journey ends for this photoblog entry. I hope, dear Reader, you’ve enjoyed this rather different journey to my usual urban meanders that I’ve written about before. The times have dictated this, those Lockdown strictures we’ve all lived and worked within. My walks have well and truly been my saving grace during this time, so writing about this one, in particular, seemed a natural way to remember and take some joy from this time. I can’t precisely say why, I wouldn’t say my photography offers anything new or original on this subject or indeed within landscape photography as a whole. I’m not a landscape photographer, although I do enjoy taking landscape shots, but I don’t have the drive or the need to make something more of that, I don’t need to find those unique peaks or glorious waterfalls that you see the greats going after. I’m just happy stumbling upon what’s here before and around me. I like local, I like discovering its history and the journey there and back again (despite the persistent foot pain!).

I hope you, dear Reader, have been able to get out there and enjoy the world around where you live during the Lockdowns. I’m hoping, technology permitting, to write another Blogalog soon, once the dust has settled on this tome. Thanks for stopping by and indulging me by spending some time with me, it means a lot to me. Thank you. Goodly bye-byes for now, Jay