The only place to be in extreme heat is under cover, so when I've taken a break from walking Bristol's feral woodlands this summer, it's been to visit more woods a little further away ...
... like Westridge Wood, up in Gloucestershire, which I last visited with the Northerner in 2017, when his knees still worked after a fashion.
Westridge Wood has the bonus of a hill fort within its confines, the pleasingly-named Brackenbury Ditches. The view from it these days is of trees, but in the late Bronze Age/early Iron Age, when it was built, it would have had a commanding view of the Vale of Berkeley and the River Severn.
Dead Man's Fingers
There are a lot of splendidly-shaped beech trees in the wood.
Speckled Wood
As well as the lovely wood, I was also there for Tyndale Monument on Nibley Knoll, which I can see from my bedroom window on a clear day, but which I also need to touch every few years or so ...
woolly thistle
sloes
piece of slipware found in the wood
Wotton-under-Edge quarry
And ore recently, given that it's now cooler but still quite humid, my friend Liz and I put off our planned church-hopping trip in south-east Wales until not-summer and decided instead to go for a walk at Weston Big Wood, just outside of Portishead.
The disused Black Rock quarry, where peregrine falcons nest
The ruins of Manor Farm
Nightingale Valley
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