East Coast Nature Notes 26/08/2011 (South bound)
The Jacques Cousteau Edition
There needs to be a stronger word than “rain” to describe what is currently falling in Leeds. Rain is far to short and friendly to describe it. The word needs to be longer and harsher and more full of the cold, penetrating, lingering and soul wrenching that this rain is capable of.
We face a bank holiday weekend, the train is busy, and already the faces of the passengers are warped by the usual despondency that accompanies the misery of a long, wet journey on what should, in theory, be about the best weekend of the summer. If this continues all the way to London I have doubts we’ll see anything other than some fish or a possible shark washed up by the side of the track.
Something very damp to the point of looking drowned is perched on the power line case we splish splosh into Wakefield. The weather is very bad but I suspect it is either a porpoise or a pigeon. I think that the porpoise is the more likely as there was a shoal of herring seen near here earlier today and I don’t think pigeons, even tough Yorkshire ones, hunt herrings.
Is the rain easing off? Or are the clouds just taking a deep breath to ready another deluge upon the just and the unjust alike?
The raft of weeds on the river has grown since last week but there was no sign of anything frog-like waiting for a (very wet and stupid) princess to come along and kiss it.
The train picks up speed and scatters clusters of yellow leaves, mostly from the silver birches that look like they have given up on the idea of summer and are planning to settle down for winter and to slumber in sylvian dreams until the next year arrives and with it hopes of warmth and rich soil.
There are more damp shapes on power and telephone cables, with a few resting on slate grey roofs that had been power washed clean of the dirt of the ages. No clouds of seeds from the rose bay willow herbs today. No sign of farmers bringing in the crops - which seems to suggest that farmers are more sensible than the general population.
There are a few domestic animals visible in the fields, trying to get whatever shelter they can. Be it a tree or a fence or a hedge, they seek that little comfort to mitigate the rain. Smaller trees and shrubs in places look like they have been beaten down flat by the H2O onslaught. As we come closer to Doncaster a pigeon does the breast stroke to get out of our way.
Somehow the audio switching to Don Henley’s “The Boys of Summer” must have been a selection from the Department of Intended Irony.
That has to be the tallest RBWH I have even seen. We are waiting to get a platform that is not underwater at Doncaster and this one is easily twice as tall as any of the others and towers over some of the bushes and shrubs. Without exaggeration it has to be about 10 feet tall and may be a little more.
After a long and unexplained wait we finally slide into Doncaster like a large and grubby swan and find its platforms to be washed clean of rubbish and only the hardiest of passengers who have clung on, limpet like for our arrival. I’d like to say that the puddles make interesting patterns but that would be a lie. They look ugly on the grey cement floor of the platforms and signify another failure of the weather to live up to even my limited expectations.
The buddleias remain in flower as we leave the station. Their short stature protecting them from the weather far more effectively than most of the plants seen so far today. Okay you know it is bad when the waterfowl at the pond south of the station are hiding from the rain.
Now we move into the - it’s not really raining (for the moment) part of the journey and a couple of swallow like birds skim low over a mall pod. As we reach the 250 miles to Edinburgh a few sheep head out from the edges of the fields to graze.
A small apple orchard is littered with small bright red apples.
That was probably Retford. A swan, flying lonely above it. Dark shadow against a darker sky.
Over Newark, by the river, a grey heron flaps through air almost as damp as the river below it.
Now we have just passed Grantham on our journey south. Trouble is we should have been best part of the way to
Stevenage by now.
Oh dear. Poor Peterborough. It sits on the horizon, engulfed by dark, rolling waves of rain fat clouds. Just add
some choral German music and four horsemen and it could pass for the end of days.
The swans at Peterborough are all sheltering under a bridge. They aren't stupid!
There needs to be a stronger word than “rain” to describe what is currently falling in Leeds. Rain is far to short and friendly to describe it. The word needs to be longer and harsher and more full of the cold, penetrating, lingering and soul wrenching that this rain is capable of.
We face a bank holiday weekend, the train is busy, and already the faces of the passengers are warped by the usual despondency that accompanies the misery of a long, wet journey on what should, in theory, be about the best weekend of the summer. If this continues all the way to London I have doubts we’ll see anything other than some fish or a possible shark washed up by the side of the track.
Something very damp to the point of looking drowned is perched on the power line case we splish splosh into Wakefield. The weather is very bad but I suspect it is either a porpoise or a pigeon. I think that the porpoise is the more likely as there was a shoal of herring seen near here earlier today and I don’t think pigeons, even tough Yorkshire ones, hunt herrings.
Is the rain easing off? Or are the clouds just taking a deep breath to ready another deluge upon the just and the unjust alike?
The raft of weeds on the river has grown since last week but there was no sign of anything frog-like waiting for a (very wet and stupid) princess to come along and kiss it.
The train picks up speed and scatters clusters of yellow leaves, mostly from the silver birches that look like they have given up on the idea of summer and are planning to settle down for winter and to slumber in sylvian dreams until the next year arrives and with it hopes of warmth and rich soil.
There are more damp shapes on power and telephone cables, with a few resting on slate grey roofs that had been power washed clean of the dirt of the ages. No clouds of seeds from the rose bay willow herbs today. No sign of farmers bringing in the crops - which seems to suggest that farmers are more sensible than the general population.
There are a few domestic animals visible in the fields, trying to get whatever shelter they can. Be it a tree or a fence or a hedge, they seek that little comfort to mitigate the rain. Smaller trees and shrubs in places look like they have been beaten down flat by the H2O onslaught. As we come closer to Doncaster a pigeon does the breast stroke to get out of our way.
Somehow the audio switching to Don Henley’s “The Boys of Summer” must have been a selection from the Department of Intended Irony.
That has to be the tallest RBWH I have even seen. We are waiting to get a platform that is not underwater at Doncaster and this one is easily twice as tall as any of the others and towers over some of the bushes and shrubs. Without exaggeration it has to be about 10 feet tall and may be a little more.
After a long and unexplained wait we finally slide into Doncaster like a large and grubby swan and find its platforms to be washed clean of rubbish and only the hardiest of passengers who have clung on, limpet like for our arrival. I’d like to say that the puddles make interesting patterns but that would be a lie. They look ugly on the grey cement floor of the platforms and signify another failure of the weather to live up to even my limited expectations.
The buddleias remain in flower as we leave the station. Their short stature protecting them from the weather far more effectively than most of the plants seen so far today. Okay you know it is bad when the waterfowl at the pond south of the station are hiding from the rain.
Now we move into the - it’s not really raining (for the moment) part of the journey and a couple of swallow like birds skim low over a mall pod. As we reach the 250 miles to Edinburgh a few sheep head out from the edges of the fields to graze.
A small apple orchard is littered with small bright red apples.
That was probably Retford. A swan, flying lonely above it. Dark shadow against a darker sky.
Over Newark, by the river, a grey heron flaps through air almost as damp as the river below it.
Now we have just passed Grantham on our journey south. Trouble is we should have been best part of the way to
Stevenage by now.
Oh dear. Poor Peterborough. It sits on the horizon, engulfed by dark, rolling waves of rain fat clouds. Just add
some choral German music and four horsemen and it could pass for the end of days.
The swans at Peterborough are all sheltering under a bridge. They aren't stupid!