This is the weather the shepherd shuns.....

From "Weathers"

This is the weather the shepherd shuns,
And so do I;
When beeches drip in browns and duns,
And thresh and ply;
And hill hid tides throb throw on throw,
And meadow rivulets overflow,
And rooks in families homeward go,
And so do I.

Thomas Hardy






"When beeches drip in browns and duns...."




Sweet chestnuts fall.




"Drops on gate bars hang in a row..."




Breakfast and shelter from the rain.


Awoken by the splatter of heavy rain on rooftiles, we abandoned plans to walk and have been sorting out some of the old boxes of books and other odds and ends that remain from our parents` lives.

It has been strange over recent years to have shuffled further up along the ladder of life. Now we are the Older Generation in our immediate family. Both my OH and I are only children, so there are no siblings to share memories of early childhood. My mother`s elderly sister in Lincolnshire is the last survivor of her generation. The "Last Rose of Summer" as she calls herself.

Out in the morning rain to feed the animals, I took my camera and looked for ways to capture the greyness and wetness of the day. Sheets of fine rain blew in across the fields on a warm south westerly wind. Gusts made the trees dip and sway. Leaves fell into hedge bottoms and wet grass in the paddock slid underfoot. Water dripping down the gutters of their winter coats, ponies whinnied and stamped as I threw hay to them in their shelters or under the trees. Tramping home through clouds of rain,it was time to go inside, to get out those dusty boxes from the attic. Time to spend a day in the past.