Martin's Mag.

A sculpture, Ruth, in AWT’s Bennett’s Patch nature reserve, by the Portway alongside the Avon Gorge. The sculpture commemorates the role women played in the second world war. It was created with habitats for birds, bats, invertebrates and amphibians.

This week’s sunniest day looked like being … WEDNESDAY! So we parked by Cam Peak, north-east of Dursley in Gloucestershire, and walked through the town and up to Stinchcombe Hill following a loop in the Cotswold Way around Stinchcombe Golf Club. It’s a nice seven or eight mile walk with fabulous views over the Severn to the west and Cotswolds to the east. The actual loop around the golf club has, probably, the best views (but not many shown here as grand views never work well, for me, in photographs). On our way back to Cam Peak, a passing dog walker told us that legend has it that the devil was walking past one day with a wheelbarrow of soil to dam the Severn Estuary and asked a local cobbler how far he had to go. The cobbler replied that he had worn out all the shoes in his shop through walking to the Severn and back, as it was such a long way. At this point the devil gave up and emptied his barrow there, which is now this hill. Country folk, eh? Believe anything. Apparently the hill is covered with bluebells in the Spring, so will return.

After our walk we drove a mile or two east and parked at the viewpoint, and long barrow, at the top of Frocester Hill (last picture) for coffee and cake.

On the day when, apparently, more rain fell in the United Kingdom than on any since records began (and what a day that was!) I decided to go for a cross-country run. Partly due to The Virus, I haven’t been running so much lately, but decided to join this trek from a lay-by off the A37 south of Bristol. Glamorous, or what? Part of the route had to be abandoned due to flooded lanes. As it was, we had to negotiate this usually-docile distant tributary of the River Chew.

Picture by Cheryl R.

I like equinoxes and solstices as they have real astronomical significance. Today was forecast as being the last of our Indian Summer, so we had a really nice walk around a loop in the River Severn starting at Fretherne, west of Frampton-on-Severn. Eight or nine miles, with lunch at what used to be The Old Passage pub at Arlingham. Rain clouds on the horizon presaged autumnal days to come.

On our way back from Lyme Regis we stopped for lunch near St Mary’s Parish Church in Brean, on the Somerset coast. Lucy had a run on the beach near a familiar shipwreck which, I’ve only just discovered, was a Norwegian barque, the SS Nornen. The boat ran aground in March 1897. The ten crew, and their dog, were rescued by the men of the Burnham lifeboat the John Godfrey Morris. And here it has been for the last 123 years…