Bleurgh
I'd been feeling a bit bleurgh all week, both physically and mentally. I put off walking on Monday and Tuesday as my legs seemed unusually sore, and I was working Wednesday and Thursday. Usually I'd be itching to get out by the Friday, but even going five days without getting out wasn't enough to pull me out of my slough of despond. So this morning I had a stern word with myself, and after a hearty breakfast of bubble and squeak with a couple of eggs fried in sausage fat, I was off.
I chose to start from Yarpole again, partly because it was the shortest planned route that I had in the back pocket, and partly because it meant that I would finish all the possible paths in that section of the map. It was a fairly straightforward loop, around Oaker Wood, which meant heading towards Kingsland before circling the wood and returning. I'd walked much of it before, but there was enough new path to pique my interest!
Walking out of Yarpole, I was due to stay on the Lugg Green Road for some distance, with the exception of one field that I had to take a triangular path across. The path took me right through the crop, but with careful footwork, I think any damage my crossing could have caused was kept to an absolute minimum. I was feeling pretty smug, looking at the crop, and thinking, 'hmmm, looks like broccoli, or some variant'.
So, to make sure I was correct, I took a picture of one of the few flowering plants, which had this lovely, yellow bloom.
Turns out, I was talking out my arse. This is in fact Rapeseed. From my youngest days, when I could look out of my school window over fields and fields of pungent, yellow crops, I've known about Oil Seed Rape, but I've never got this close to them. To be fair, looking at that wikipedia page, it does say that they are brassicas, so you can see why I might have thought them broccoli.
The new path took me across some pretty fields...
...and then one which was... different. The grass was very yellowed, but not in a 'not getting enough light' way. It was very short, so it had recently been mown, or populated with grass eating animals, but it was all just weirdly yellow. Having come from a very green place, it was a bit disoreientating, and played tricks on the eyes.
There was one patch, behind a tree, that showed just how different this was, and looking at this picture, there is of course a big stripe of green from the next field which also contrasts. Still, no idea what's going on here.
So past the sheep, I climbed up the hill which brought me out in a patch of scrubland. Trying to follow the map on my phone, it did eventually bring me out on a fairly defined path.
However, it wasn't going to be that easy! The actual public footpath is not that obvious, gravelly path on the left of the picture, but in fact runs between the trees in the center of the above photo. Back through scrubland. As I was approaching the next field, I could see the remnants of somebody's birthday balloon, on the ground, littering the countryside. It's similar to the issues around chinese lanterns, in that they're lovely to watch soar away into the sky, but the reality is that they fall back to the ground, at best littering the beautiful landscape, and at worst being ingested, and thereby killing livestock. OK sermon over.
Following on from amamama's picture of LIverwort, I've been keeping my eyes open for purple flowers, and I keep getting excited every time I see one, but without fail all I seem to be coming across are common violas. Not that they aren't very pretty, because they are.
One of the fields I had to cross I remember well from the last time I was here. I had decided to go around the field, rather than follow the path because in those days I didn't know how much it would annoy me to see my path deviate so much from the registered path when reviewing my walks later on. Yes, I know what I sound like, and I hate myself for it, but I doubt I'm going to change now. So here, instead of going around the outside of the field, I wanted to take the path that took me to the tree in the middle of the picture below, before heading for the tree on the left. Which meant more wading through rapeseed. On the plus side, this one had been planted earlier, so I could tell straight away from the colour and the smell what the crop was. On the down side, this one had been planted earlier, so I was wading through plants that were often above my waist. It was slow progress, but I made it through!
I'm not a fan of the colour when it's spread out across large areas, but the individual plants and their flowers are actually quite pretty.
From there it was back to the road for the rest of the return journey to Yarpole.
Music Played
Goodbye To Love - Carpenters
Goodbye To My Loving You - Jackson C Frank
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - Elton John
Goodnight, Hollywood Blvd. - Ryan Adams
Goodnight Irene - Michelle Shocked
Goodnight Irene - Tom Wiats
Goodnight Ladies - Lou Reed
Goodnight My Friends - They Might Be Giants
Goodnight, San Francisco - The Bittersweets
Goodnight, Sweetheart, Goodnight - The Dells
Goodnight Vienna - Chemical Alice
Gopak from Sorotchinsky Fair - Mussorgsky
Gordon's Gardenparty - The Cardigans
Gorgeous George - Edwyn Collins
Gorgeous Inca - Frank Zappa
Gorgo - Frank Zappa
Gospel Train - Tom Waits
Gospel Train - Larry Sparks
Gospel Train / Orchestra - Tom Waits
Got Glint? - The Chemical Brothers
Got No Strings - Michelle Shocked
Got To Get You Into My Life - The Beatles
Got To Get You Into My Life - Montbleau Band
Gotta Go Places And Do Things - Cab Calloway
Miles Walked Today - 5.5
Miles Walked In 2021 - 218.3
I chose to start from Yarpole again, partly because it was the shortest planned route that I had in the back pocket, and partly because it meant that I would finish all the possible paths in that section of the map. It was a fairly straightforward loop, around Oaker Wood, which meant heading towards Kingsland before circling the wood and returning. I'd walked much of it before, but there was enough new path to pique my interest!
Walking out of Yarpole, I was due to stay on the Lugg Green Road for some distance, with the exception of one field that I had to take a triangular path across. The path took me right through the crop, but with careful footwork, I think any damage my crossing could have caused was kept to an absolute minimum. I was feeling pretty smug, looking at the crop, and thinking, 'hmmm, looks like broccoli, or some variant'.
So, to make sure I was correct, I took a picture of one of the few flowering plants, which had this lovely, yellow bloom.
Turns out, I was talking out my arse. This is in fact Rapeseed. From my youngest days, when I could look out of my school window over fields and fields of pungent, yellow crops, I've known about Oil Seed Rape, but I've never got this close to them. To be fair, looking at that wikipedia page, it does say that they are brassicas, so you can see why I might have thought them broccoli.
The new path took me across some pretty fields...
...and then one which was... different. The grass was very yellowed, but not in a 'not getting enough light' way. It was very short, so it had recently been mown, or populated with grass eating animals, but it was all just weirdly yellow. Having come from a very green place, it was a bit disoreientating, and played tricks on the eyes.
There was one patch, behind a tree, that showed just how different this was, and looking at this picture, there is of course a big stripe of green from the next field which also contrasts. Still, no idea what's going on here.
So past the sheep, I climbed up the hill which brought me out in a patch of scrubland. Trying to follow the map on my phone, it did eventually bring me out on a fairly defined path.
However, it wasn't going to be that easy! The actual public footpath is not that obvious, gravelly path on the left of the picture, but in fact runs between the trees in the center of the above photo. Back through scrubland. As I was approaching the next field, I could see the remnants of somebody's birthday balloon, on the ground, littering the countryside. It's similar to the issues around chinese lanterns, in that they're lovely to watch soar away into the sky, but the reality is that they fall back to the ground, at best littering the beautiful landscape, and at worst being ingested, and thereby killing livestock. OK sermon over.
Following on from amamama's picture of LIverwort, I've been keeping my eyes open for purple flowers, and I keep getting excited every time I see one, but without fail all I seem to be coming across are common violas. Not that they aren't very pretty, because they are.
One of the fields I had to cross I remember well from the last time I was here. I had decided to go around the field, rather than follow the path because in those days I didn't know how much it would annoy me to see my path deviate so much from the registered path when reviewing my walks later on. Yes, I know what I sound like, and I hate myself for it, but I doubt I'm going to change now. So here, instead of going around the outside of the field, I wanted to take the path that took me to the tree in the middle of the picture below, before heading for the tree on the left. Which meant more wading through rapeseed. On the plus side, this one had been planted earlier, so I could tell straight away from the colour and the smell what the crop was. On the down side, this one had been planted earlier, so I was wading through plants that were often above my waist. It was slow progress, but I made it through!
I'm not a fan of the colour when it's spread out across large areas, but the individual plants and their flowers are actually quite pretty.
From there it was back to the road for the rest of the return journey to Yarpole.
Music Played
Goodbye To Love - Carpenters
Goodbye To My Loving You - Jackson C Frank
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - Elton John
Goodnight, Hollywood Blvd. - Ryan Adams
Goodnight Irene - Michelle Shocked
Goodnight Irene - Tom Wiats
Goodnight Ladies - Lou Reed
Goodnight My Friends - They Might Be Giants
Goodnight, San Francisco - The Bittersweets
Goodnight, Sweetheart, Goodnight - The Dells
Goodnight Vienna - Chemical Alice
Gopak from Sorotchinsky Fair - Mussorgsky
Gordon's Gardenparty - The Cardigans
Gorgeous George - Edwyn Collins
Gorgeous Inca - Frank Zappa
Gorgo - Frank Zappa
Gospel Train - Tom Waits
Gospel Train - Larry Sparks
Gospel Train / Orchestra - Tom Waits
Got Glint? - The Chemical Brothers
Got No Strings - Michelle Shocked
Got To Get You Into My Life - The Beatles
Got To Get You Into My Life - Montbleau Band
Gotta Go Places And Do Things - Cab Calloway
Miles Walked Today - 5.5
Miles Walked In 2021 - 218.3