A visit to Golden Valley and Abson, and a 93% solar eclipse

Finding myself to the north-east of Bristol, once again on plant-watering detail for the son who has more holidays than a member of the Royal Family, I decided to walk Cwtch at Golden Valley nature reserve at Wick, a place that was new to us both.

The River Boyd is a tributary of the Bristol Avon, and this section of its valley was once home to a red ochre mining operation. 

Although we were there by half past eight in the morning, it was already very hot, so Cwtch and I abandoned the route we'd had planned, which was steep and quite strenuous, and decided just to potter about in the woods instead.

wild cyclamen, a sure sign that autumn is on its way

the weir

buzzard feathers, a jay tail feather, goldfinch and sparrowhawk

Before it got dangerously hot for a fur coat-wearing little collie, we left Golden Valley and headed for our plant-watering job, stopping off on the way for a quick look at the exterior of St James the Great in Abson, which I remembered visiting with my friend Dru many years ago now. 

Saxon knotwork

See the tiny figure to the left of the window? A closer look reveals a male sheela-na-gig or exhibitionist. (It was good to see him again.)

Back home Cwtch tried on her eclipse glasses, but we decided it was going to be far too hot for her to watch - a forecast 32°C - so they were donated to my non-holidaying son, who accompanied me up the Field of the Hollowing Oak to watch. 

It was the first time I'd been back there since spring of last year, when the neighbouring golf club rented it for five years as a practice field and trashed its assiduous efforts at rewilding itself. It was only the fact it has a fine view westwards, where the partial eclipse would be happening, that prompted me to brave the devastation, and as we walked up the lane to the golf course, I tried to prepare myself for the horror of green striped, close clipped lawn where once there were thickets of bramble and blackthorn, and self-seeded oaklings and dog roses, ant hills and tussocky grass. 

But the golf course, like everywhere else this summer, was a desiccated yellow, and I decided it mightn't be quite as distressing I'd feared. In fact, when we got there it was clear the field isn't being used for practice at all, as it's mowed to stubble rather than a playing surface.

To be honest, I have mixed feelings about this. If it's not being used, there's a chance the lease won't be extended and the field will be allowed to rewild itself again. But all that damage to what was a haven of bio-diversity for nothing, in a wider area where 6,500 new houses are being built, is really upsetting. 

the hollowing oak

looking over to the rookery

I do feel I might be able to walk there every now and then, however.

A very poor photo of the eclipse seen through my eclipse glasses ...

... and through my eyes. (Don't stare too long at the sun, it will think you're creepy.)

As my holidaying son said, it was cool but not as cool as 1999, and I agree. But it was well worth watching, and a great reminder of how amazing the total eclipse was back then - and how much has changed in the intervening years. We were on Holcombe beach that day - a family of six holidaying in our biscuit tin by the sea, which was right at the edge of the path of totality. To our left, Exmouth and lemon-coloured light like dawn; to our right, Torbay in darkness and thousand cameras flashing. The wind rose in a rush and a flock of discombobulated seagulls settled on the sea to sleep.

Back To Earth

Eclipses, eh? You wait 16 years for another one to come along and it's still cloudy. Or rather hazy.  

In 1999, during the total eclipse, we sat on Holcombe beach in South Devon and though it was too cloudy to see the sun at all, it turned very dark indeed and all the sea gulls went quiet and settled on the sea.  And a wind arose and it felt somehow like we were on a rollercoaster.

Anything less than 100% totality lacks drama, but even 85% merits some sort of commemoration. Liza, Jennifer and I gathered in Bristol and went up the park.

'Don't stare too long at the sun,' warned Liza's friend. 'It'll think you're creepy.'

Today was always going to be special.  With the eclipse comes a new moon, of course.  And it's the Spring Equinox when I have to try very hard not to think about how the getting lighter part of the year is half over already and embrace the next six months of light instead. So yes, welcome to the light half of the year.  Plus, it's a Friday and I am Friday's child.  And finally, it's Friday the 20th, so it's doubly my day. 

 

Therefore,  I took advantage of all of the above and did something long mooted, symbolic and timely in the company of those who shared the bad times with me.    

Not so much ashes to ashes, dust to dust as back to the mud it came from.  













The eagle-eyed might have noticed names and a date engraved inside my accurst wedding ring. It is my fervent hope that it makes its way down to the earth's molten core to heal a tiny wound there, rather than get swallowed by a fish who is subsequently caught and gutted by a do-gooder who makes it their lifetime mission to get the ring back to its grieving owner, studying marriage registers and calling in documentary film makers, etc, in the process. Because if they do, when they turn up on my doorstep with cameraman in tow, the programme will suddenly become unsuitable to be broadcast before the watershed.

Before you say as if, when I was 11, I threw a message in a bottle into the middle of the North Sea, only for it to wash up years later and for me to get loads of letters from Danish pre-teens.  So I have form.