Orchards

As I drove over the small bridge at Abridge this morning I glanced down at the river and spotted a Little Egret! nice one.

Anyway the National Trust is reporting that 60% of Orchards have disappeared since the 1950's this means that local varieties of apples, cherries, pears, plums and damsons under threat. Also you try and get any local varieties of fruit from a Supermarket, not a hope its the same brands time and time again.

Pressure from commercial growers has meant that many smaller orchards have been converted to other uses. This is sad as the trees provide habit for species such as the noble chafer beetle and lesser spotted woodpecker. Orchards offer sources of pollen and nectar to bees.

The Trust is launching a £536,000 drive to reverse the decline of the orchards and has teamed up with Natural England to launch the project to promote local fruit varieties.

The scheme was launched at the Trusts Killerton estate in Devon, surveys have found insects including the orchard park beetle and the apple tree lace bag. The orchard was also shown to be a feeding ground for long-eared bats. The Killerton Orchard has two varieties unique to the estate.

If you walk around any Orchard owned by a Heritage organisation or by a landowner interested in Historic Varieties you will see many varieties of fruit that will never make it into a supermarket or green grocer. This is rather sad because traditional varieties normally have much more flavour than the bog standard varieties that supermarkets stock. Of course they won't look so pretty!

Some books read

I didn't bound out of bed with quite so much enthusiasm today, can't think why.

Besides taking and posting ridiculous numbers of photos (I know I should post less but I'm not a good self editor and I do like showing you where I've been) I managed to finish the book I was reading when I left home and finish two others.

Val McDermid - Beneath the Bleeding: The latest in a series of books about profiler Tony Hill and DI Carol Jordan (you know the series now filmed with Robson Greene). I've thoroughly enjoyed previous books in this series (the first two The Wire in the Blood and The Mermaids Singing were real "page turners")I'm unsure what to make of this, a bit of homegrown terrorism seemed a bit passe or perhaps too much like the news. I also had problems with just how Hill can go on the net and "suss" details out and work out peoples personality almost by looking at them.

There are the odd twist and turn but it doesn't strike me as a wow book. More of a yeah ok not bad book. Even so it zipped on a long at pace and I'll give it *** but for those of you knew to McDermid start at The Wire in the Blood (and avoid the Lindsay Duncan novels).

Patricia Highsmith - The Talented Mr Ripley: The story of how the totally amoral Tom Ripley insinuates himself into Richard Greenleaf's world and his impact on it. Told from Ripley's perspective Highsmith does a good job at making us empathise with someone who is a "nasty piece of work". A crime novel? yes! but also so a study of human character and morality. *****

Agatha Christie - Death on the Nile. Oh come on you know it Poirot on a boat down the Nile. A woman is killed and the obvious suspect has an airtight alibi. I have a problem rating this one, I've seen the film many times so its not as suspenseful as it may have been coming to it afresh. Still it is a much better book than the Murder on the Orient Express but not as good as her classic The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. We'll say ****

Curious really how Christie has dominated English crime and her contemporaries have vanished without trace.

Homeward bound

So I woke to find it was time to head home. I considered going to old Sarum but decided to just go straight home and see how Rye Meads was looking.

loads of flutters







Female Gadwall


Blackcap in fine voice.

Tuesday Ah it’s sunny! LOL

I could go tick a church or birding?

I went for the church!

746 All Saints Chalbury









To be fair I could still could have gone birding but instead I headed to the lovely market town of Sherbone








And to show you its wonderful church, which was once an abbey.



























I then went to Sherborne Castle which was built by Sir Walter Raleigh

I didn’t actually go in (been in twice before) as the weather was lovely I walked around the lake and admired the views, the wildlife, a solero ice cream, a large piece of Dorset Apple Cake, read some of Death on the Nile and soaked up the sun. BLISS!!!
























These are Green Sandpipers. Curiously there Common there as well. Told by white wing bar and no white rump when in flight.



This must have been the best short break I’ve had in years. Wiltshire and Dorset are lovely, I was chatting to a couple from Sussex in the pub who were amazed how nice the countryside is here. Well please don’t come here go to Bath no better yet go to Spain, Italy anywhere leave it relatively unspoilt and all to me :D