Sunday 26 April 2015

Where We Went Last Sunday - The Village


From the majestic pear tree (see last picture of last post) we walked up the hill on a path that wasn't exactly a road, but we wanted to enter the village from the back and not on its main road.

Here are our first glimpses:
A strange collection of wooden poles, old rooftiles and... an upturned tombstone, of all things. Very unexpected!

This friendly little fellow spent a few minutes with us, letting me stroke him or her (I didn't check) and getting my hands all dusty from the earth it kept itself rolling on. In Germany, three-coloured cats are called "Glückskatze" ("Lucky Cat") not necessarily because they themselves are luckier than other cats, but because they are believed to bring luck. It's rubbish, of course, but I still like the term Glückskatze.







This was the building the cat had come out of. It almost looks like a piece of art, as if the plant growing from its brick wall was put there deliberately. A fascinating example of how nature gets where nature wants, if left undisturbed.

It was now about 1:00 pm and we had been walking for about an hour. Breakfast was hours ago and so we had a short rest on this bench, eating our savoury biscuits and some chocolate and drinking water. Friendly people with bikes and dogs passed us, and as you do in such instances, greetings were exchanged (never happens in town, does it).

We were ready then to explore the village. There wasn't much to explore - it's a handful of houses, and I'm afraid we were rather disappointed - not by the size (because we'd of course seen its size from afar and knew it was really more a hamlet than a village), but by its looks and condition.

Really only a few buildings were as handsome as the ones you can see here; old, traditional barns with their timberwork, large gates and sturdy stone foundations.

There was a general air of shabbiness about the place, a bit sad to look at. Many houses had been either built or renovated during the 1960s and 70s, and it showed - the style of those decades simply does not look so good in the countryside, and you could tell that nothing had been done to those houses ever since. A select few houses had been built or renovated recently and looked new, neat and clean, with solar panels on the roofs and decoration around their front doors making it obvious that here was a young generation leaving their mark on the village, but even those houses somehow lacked character.

Does anyone know what this tree is? Not even my Mum was sure, and she is usually very good at trees' and flowers' names.

We were soon finished with our exploration of the place. Leaving the village, we both agreed on that we still wanted to walk on and not return to the allotment already. Instead, we walked down the hill again and on towards the woods.

Nearly at the same time last year, I posted about spring in the woods; there is something so wonderful about the atmosphere in the woods at that time of year.



But we weren't there yet. First, I had to be daft and have my Mum take pictures of me:





We entered the woods from this path, going slightly uphill. It was wonderful! The ground was covered in anemones, but they had their petals half closed, as if it were already evening, in spite of it being maybe 2:00 pm.




This one is for Kay :-)




The last stretch of road back to the allotment felt the longest... We had been walking for three hours, and were ready for coffee and home baked muffins with my Dad.



It was a good day, and I know more of the same (or similar) will follow.

14 comments:

  1. OH, beautiful. My favorite is the part of the walk after the village/hamlet...I wanted to be there!

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  2. That unknown tree......The green on it looks like what we would call a sort of "witches broom" which is a parasite like mistletoe. If you come and look at it in a month you may see something quite different that would help you identify it.

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    1. My Mum has done some research and the tree appears to be an Ohio Chestnut. The green bits were not parasites like mistletoe, they are the tree's own.
      I am sure you would have loved the walk, Kristi! It truly was so wonderful in the woods.

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    2. Ohio chestnut. I wonder what that is.....? All the chestnut trees in this part of the world were killed by a blight in the 1930s. Very sad.

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    3. Ah, do you mean a Buckeye tree, the state tree of Ohio? It is similar to the horse chestnut which is not closely related to the true edible chestnut. But this picture doesn't look exactly like that. I think when the leaves are out you will be able to tell better.........

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    4. That was the name my Mum came up with when she researched the tree, "Ohio Chestnut". Don't know whether it is what you call Buckeye tree - and I think we will indeed have to go back in a few weeks to look at the leaves and take another picture!

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  3. Another wonderful walk if slightly disappointing so far as the village was concerned. However the picture of the tree growing out of the was amazing. As for you turning upside down that makes me feel light-headed. I can't turn upside down with either being sick or passing out.

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    1. Turning upside down or doing quick spins (as on the dance floor) does not affect me negatively. I have, however, experienced motion sickness with certain computer games (!) when movement was too quick from one camera angle to the other.

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  4. Another lovely walking post. I liked the picture after the cat - of a barn or storehouse with a climbing plant that has over-reached the building. And I also like your shadow when you were hanging upside down like a bat in the rafters. Your shadow looks like some kind of troll from a fairytale!

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    1. You are right! I did not notice it until you pointed it out, but it really looks like some pesky little troll sitting on a fence.
      The old barn with the climbing plant was first spotted by my Mum. I was too busy playing with the cat.

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  5. Sundays are made for those sort of meandering, peaceful walks. I agree, the woods in the spring are beautiful, closely followed by the woods in the autumn. I am fascinated my how nature reclaims buildings once they are abandoned. If you google something like "nature reclaims buildings" there are some wonderful and startling images. x

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    1. I do have a thing for abandoned places, reclaimed by nature. Such places have an irresistible pull on me! This one wasn't really abandoned, though; it was still part of a working, living farm. From what we could glimpse through a gap in the gate, it was mainly used for storage of farm equipment - and cats :-)

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  6. I like the idea of "lucky cat', and that building that looks like it grew up out of the earth, that the cat came out of.

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    1. It was amazing, and I am glad my Mum looked up and spotted it!

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