I've always enjoyed mucking about in gullies and ditches – from my early
days living on the farm at Bratton, where I used to spend several hours
walking along small streams, under bridges and past overhanging
branches, seeing just how far I could go without encountering a block or
obstacle – a sort of miniature explorer I suppose!
In those
days hedges and ditches marked the boundaries of fields – these
delineations were set down many years before, all clearly defined and
named on old maps. They either separated your own land into manageable
sections, or provided a border with the next farm and had to be well
maintained to prevent cattle escaping... My father was a keen tender of
hedges and ditches and part of his annual farm maintenance was to check
that they were all OK, no gaps or weak areas and the ditches cleared of
debris. Sometimes this meant he had to 'lay' a hedge all over again,
and I often accompanied him around the farm, helping to sort out the
wood and branches into different piles to be loaded onto his trailer and
taken back to the farm. Bean sticks, pea sticks, trunks to be sawn
into logs – all were collected, bundled neatly and carted away –
originally by a horse and then by tractor. The whole process was an
important part of yearly farming routine in the 1950's and '60's.
It also started off my love of wood – but that's another story...
So,
many years later in France, it wasn't surprising that I quickly
discovered the pretty Colmont river running through the valley down the
hill from our house. We saw it in all weathers, at all times of year,
and it was always a delight to walk beside or cross on the Pont a Buty.
Big
rivers, although impressive, have never appealed to me in the same way –
I can admire and gaze at them, but for me they lack the charm and
personality of their smaller tributaries.
Cycling along beside
the Mayenne river, walking through the woods by the Colmont, or
splashing about in my wellies all those years ago – these are still my
favourites and appear in my photos to accompany this Blog.
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