Twilight...

I enjoy doing twilight shots. There's a brief window of opportunity - only a few minutes - to get the shots. Licensed these two pix this week...

A fenland surprise...

Stayed in a fenland campsite last night, near Littleport. Reception took just a few seconds. No formalities; the guy just wanted to see the colour of my money. Having edited and uploaded a backlog of pix, I walked along the riverbank of the Great Ouse to a nearby pub and ordered a drink and a meal. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spied two familiar faces: Jean and John, who used to run the Hourglass Gallery in Hebden Bridge. They’re living in fenland now, and don’t look a day older than when I saw them last… maybe 15 years ago…

Great egret...

Had a couple of hours watching birds at Fen Drayon Lakes, one of a number of nature reserves in and around the Ouse fens. It was good to feel the sun on my back, though the birdlife wasn’t too exciting: grebes, wigeons, tufted ducks, etc. I saw a great egret standing close to a heron, and noticed how similar in size they were. In a couple of years these egrets may be as common as little egrets have become, and won’t even be mentioned in dispatches by those twitchers who are only interested in rarities.

Photogenic light this afternoon, so I’m shooting pix by the quayside in St Ives…

Heading north...

Visited sister Kari, to coincide with her last day of chemotherapy. Then Kevin, in a little rural idyll near Hitchin. Now heading north through heavy rain…

Saint Agnes...

At the halfway point of my walk around Pagham Harbour was the diminutive church at Church Norton. Inside I saw a rather crude memorial to John and Agatha Lewis, Lord and Lady of the Manor, and, next to it, in an alcove, an equally crude relief sculpture which stopped me in my tracks. A woman, nearly naked, was flanked by two men, armed with tools that looked like Mole grips, which seemed to be fastened onto the woman’s bare breasts. I went back to the van, for my camera and tripod, and took a pic.

The woman, as I subsequently learned, was another Agatha, who lived in Sicily during the 6th century AD. In a time of persecution, she vowed to remain chaste and dedicate her life to God. One man, a local judge, wouldn’t take no for an answer, and had Agatha arrested. Though she was tortured, she refused to renounce either her Christian faith or her chastity. One of the tortures that she is thought to have suffered was to have her breasts cut off, and she is often depicted carrying her breasts on a plate. She died while being tortured, and was subsequently raised to sainthood…

Pagham Harbour...

There was a pool table in the pub last night, and I was playing ‘killer’ with the locals, which meant I woke up this morning with a sore head. So I went for a walk this morning around Pagham Harbour, an RSPB reserve. I saw a kingfisher dive into a river and, moments later, a stoat swam across it. I watched a big, noisy flock of brent geese on the saltmarsh, interspersed with redshanks, oystercatchers, curlews and whistling wigeons. I spotted a pair of pintails, a small flock of grey plovers and, best of all, a great white egret in flight.   

Bird watchers are friendly folk, on the whole, happy to chat, share their finds and point out some rarity to the uninitiated. But this morning I found the exception. “Have you seen the grey plovers?”, I said to a guy looking through binoculars. He looked at me with utter contempt. “They’re everywhere”, he said. “That’s like saying you’ve seen a sparrow”. I hope Santa brings him something nice for Christmas, like a sunny disposition...

A silence shared...

Went to Quaker meeting this morning in Littlehampton. It’s easy to find a meeting: just go onto the ‘Quakers in Britain’ website and type in your location. Armed with the postcode, the satnav lady does the rest. The meeting was typical; with my advanced years and mud-coloured clothing, I fitted right in. Chatted afterwards to a few friends, including an ex-nun from Leeds (and that’s a sentence I might never type again).

I always leave a meeting feeling ‘settled’. That’s ‘settled’ like the contents of a box of cornflakes, which, according to a panel on the box, may ‘settle’ during transit. It may seem strange for an atheist to enjoy an hour of silence with - mostly - believers, but Quakers don’t pry about your beliefs or lack of them. I also like their lack of evangelical zeal; they won’t come knocking at your door and try to convert you to their way of thinking. This also means, however, that friends are dying off quicker than new friends are recruited… with predictable consequences...

Lombard Street in Petworth...