Samuel Palmer at Chew Valley Lake and Compton Martin

The plan was to drop Son the Actor off on set and - given that I'd only picked him up from there six hours earlier - return home for a nap. But the glimpse of the lake from the causeway with reflections like marbled endpapers looked so beautiful ... 

... that somehow I found myself parked up at Herons Green Bay, watching egrets. Which weren't quite as exciting as the badger and two foxes we'd encountered on our home journey during the night, but pleasing all the same. 

And the sun bursting through cloud wouldn't have disgraced a painting by Samuel Palmer. 

I decided to pop to nearby Compton Martin and see if the village Church, called - possibly slightly confusingly - St Michael and All Angels was open. (Apparently, Martin comes from Robert Fitz Martin, who inherited the Manor from his grandfather during the reign of Henry I.)  

Clearly it was  still too early, which was a shame as it's one of only three surviving Norman churches in Somerset. Nevertheless, there was enough of interest on the outside of the building to ensure I'll be back down to see the inside in the by and by ... 

... like the carved corbels on the clerestory that so reminded me of the (rather more spectacular) ones at Kilpeck in Herefordshire. 

Can't quite make them out?

I'll take some better photos next time.