A Winter Solstice Advent Calendar ... and a road trip to Wiltshire and Wales

I suffer with the dark in winter, and December can be a real struggle for this and other reasons, so this year I decided to post a Winter Solstice advent calendar on my Facebook, to keep myself focused on the brighter days.

Here are the photos I chose, all taken in Bristol: at Blaise, Stapleton, Badock’s Wood, Horfield, the Floating Harbour, Filton, Purdown, Eastville Park, Lawrence Weston moor, and Three Brooks nature reserve in Bradley Stoke. 

The astute will notice there are only 20 photos and this year’s winter solstice falls on the 21st. This is because on Day 6, I couldn’t resist posting my little video of the Santas on a bike in the Floating Harbour.

One morning there was a stunning sunrise. I was headed due east and utterly mesmerised by it, but couldn’t take a photo because I was driving. Here’s what it looked like at daybreak, just before I left home.

I was on my annual Christmas trip to Wiltshire, to pick Jinny and her dog Millie up and take them to meet her parents at Pont Abraham Services in Carmarthenshire, who would drive the third leg of the journey to New Quay. 

By the time I arrived in Hilperton, the sun had risen into the thickening cloud and it looked a lot less stunning, but the canal, and Jinny and Millie's company, was anything but drab. 

It was great to be on a road trip and outside of Bristol for the first time since August, when my shoulder flared into huge pain that lasted for weeks. Sadly, there are no more photos, mainly because I was driving, but also because the weather took a drastic turn for the worse, and by the time we passed Cardiff, a very wet and sticky rain was falling - the sort that throws up a blinding spray and requires you to put the windscreen wipers on at full speed. At times standing water crashed across the carriageway like Hokusai's wave, but my charges were deposited safely and I made it home in one piece too. 

Millie, who is a very good dog indeed

Walking to the end of summer

My left shoulder decided to go on a pain spree at the end of August, since when summer's sloped off and autumn's feet are firmly under the table - at least as far as I can tell from the Settee of Suffering, where I've been stranded for the last two and a half weeks. And since I can't get out and about, I might as well the post the last few photos of our summer walks around the Rivers Frome and Trym in north Bristol ... 

... though this is Ashton Court, and not near either, being above the River Avon as it slithers through its gorge to the Severn estuary. You can see from these photos just how dry it's been.

Ancient oaks in the fallow deer park

Good to see what remains of the Domesday Oak still going strong, though.

It's been equally dry up on Purdown, to the north. While we were away on holiday, one of my favourite trees, a large horse chestnut on the edge of Hermitage Wood, dropped a huge branch, much to the consternation of locals on Facebook.

And people picnicking just below Barn Wood were forced to call the fire brigade when they accidentally barbecued a large part of the hillside.

Conkers were falling a month early ...

... and this empty nest box looked like a harvest hamper.

The woods were lovely, dark and deep, though ... 

... and my favourite tree on Purdown - this lovely oak - seems to be in good spirits. 

There are few flowers about now, but nearby, in Wickham Glen, I found these wild cyclamen growing high above the River Frome.

Because the last time I'd been there was with Ted, our old dog, I decided it was high time I took Cwtch the Collie to see Wickham Court, just in case she ever has to sit any history exams. She was interested to learn it's where Oliver Cromwell held a council of war with General Fairfax in 1645, prior to the Siege of Bristol, and added that although she's far from being a Royalist, the Cavaliers did have the best clothes and her plumy tail being like their plumy hats makes her feel some sort of allegiance to both sides. 

From the River Frome to the River Trym/Hazel Brook, a few miles to the west, which we've mostly visited on their respective ways through the Blaise estate. 

Blaise Castle

View from Coombe Hill to construction sites at Catbrain and Brabazon 

Some lovely big bits of hoggin found in the woods

Hazel Brook

My favourite part of the Blaise estate is Kingsweston Down; in particular, the long earthy paths along its north-western flank that reveal, in glimpses, its previous life as a hill fort.

mallow

The woods are cool and dark in the summer, and are less frequented than other parts of the estate, and there are lots of little meandering paths that take you into the ditches between banks. It's a place of ghosts.

late summer fungi

While my bad shoulder means I'm missing the end of feather hunting season, I have to concede I've probably found enough this year.

tawny owl, green woodpecker, ring-necked parakeet, buzzard, sparrowhawk, jay,  crow, great spotted woodpecker, magpie, songthrush

this year's moulted jay coverts 

This is the poor dead jay I found in early July, after several weeks spent under a weighted pot in my garden. Now zombie jay. (And yes, that crackling sound is authentic.)

Fox skull from Barn Wood, Purdown

Dog Days in the Frome and Trym valleys

I love woodland in summer; how it's different each time you walk through it, and as it's the holidays, I can be as leisurely as I like, wandering around Bristol's urban woods. I've even found myself feeling happy on occasion, which is quite unprecedented. 

I made a vow this summer to explore parts of the Frome and Trym valleys that I don't know, as well as the more familiar paths, and in the case of the Frome, it's been fascinating to see the extent to which it impacts the city's topography, even though for the most part it's invisible, either deep in its gorge or culverted. 

Having tried twice before - and failed - to reach Bury hill fort at Frenchay from Winterbourne viaduct, I was really pleased to get there on a couple of occasions, once with Cwtch the collie, and once with Cwtch and my old friend, Liz.

stone stiles

The hill fort was constructed in the iron age, but earlier flint chippings and an axe head discovered there attest to earlier occupation of the area. Cwtch and I had a wander through the ditch between banks on our first visit, and saw two roe deer in their red summer coats, leaping through the bracken and brambles.

A couple of miles downstream are Lincombe Woods in Downend, through which a fork of the Frome runs down to the river. The Frome walkway is on the opposite side of the river at this point, but you can still walk a short way north-east, and south-west down to Frenchay bridge, at the top of Snuff Mills. First, though, a detour to nearby Britannia Woods, so called because in 1957, a prototype Bristol Britannia aircraft crashed there, with the loss of all of on board - fifteen people in total. There's a plaque commemorating the incident on the wall of Lincombe Barn.

There's a big dip in the wood, and I couldn't help wondering whether that was where the plane came down, though it's situated on a hillside anyway, so maybe not.

I'd been intending to visit for a long time, as there was a strange sort of family connection to this event, in the form of an anecdote my mother told about how she'd dreamt the Britannia crashed just a few days before it did. She a said she always felt guilty for not telling anyone the authorities, but of course it's highly doubtful anyone would have taken any notice of her. The strangest thing about this story is that my mother had no interest in the subconscious or the supernatural; it really was an aberration as far as her mindset was concerned.

Lincombe Woods

Where fork meets Frome

A piece of hoggin bolstering the path between Lincombe Woods and Frenchay bridge. More about hoggin later.

Frenchay bridge

Quarry in Oldbury Court estate

I've also been walking along paths on the opposite bank of the Frome from the tried and tested footpaths. It's funny to see familiar sites from childhood from a new angle. 

Poor Cwtch was less impressed, as she mistook the leaves and dirt up against the barrier - you can just see it at the far end - for dry land and fell in the river.

'Can you please stop talking to that tree and get on with my walk?'

'No, cream first!'

School Lane, Stapleton

There were more familiar spots seen from the opposite bank from usual when we headed down the Begbrook to the Frome and walked as far as Glenfrome weir.

The island, covered in Himalayan Balsaam

Part of Glenfrome weir from the back

High above the Frome is Purdown, part of  Stoke Park estate, and Cwtch and I have been up there a fair bit this summer, skulking in some of the less frequented parts of the wood on the hunt for moulted feathers.

Having just thought to myself how good it would be to add a few more Great Spotted Woodpecker feathers to my collection, I did come across a sparrowhawk predation site early one morning, with a full quota of twenty wing feathers, plus a few tail, feathers, and red head and rump feathers. A question of being careful what you wish for. 

More about feathers later.

Autumn coming on apace

A felled ash refusing to die

Yum!

Strangely glittery purple poo

We've also been walking a lot at Blaise Castle, above the Ruver Trym, trying different starting points at the various entrances to the estate.

Tree on Castle Hill 

Giant's Footprint

Bridge on the River Trym

Sheltering from torrential rain one Sunday morning

Knobbly roots

'Observe a tree' carving

Up on King's Weston Down

There are lots of Mr Bumps, painted by Bumpsy, in the areas neighbouring Blaise, as well as on the estate. This one is near Henbury golf course.

Fewer flowers than earlier in the summer: here's (clockwise) yarrow; great burdock; fleabane; cuckoo pint; great willowherb, wtih escapees crocosmia and evening primrose; cyclamen; burnet-saxifrage; and ragwort as tall as me

 

fungi

Clockwise: the ladybirds were swarming mid-July in the hot, dry weather - I hadn't seen so many since the drought year of 1976, these on a stone in the middle of the River Frome; female beautiful demoiselle; hogweed with ladybird, red soldier beatle, narrow-barred fusehorn, large ectemnius and ichneumon sarcitorius; noctua pronuba; ladybird on great burdock; buff-tailed bumble   

hoggin, which has been harder to spot than usual with the leaves falling early following the hot weather

TOP ROW: blue tit; magpie, tawny owl, jay covert, goldcrest; jay covert and primary; 2 x buzzard, magpie, and 2 x jay secondaries; magpie, jay and great spotted woodpecker tail feather; magpie, goldcrest, 2 x jay coverts, mistle thrush, great spotted woodpecker; jay primary and secondary; buzzard, magpie, jay tail feather, tawny owl

MIDDLE ROW: 2 x buzzard, 2 x tawny, jay primary; magpie, tawny and blue tit; 2 x tawny, magpie, jay covert, buzzard; magpie and jay tail feather; 2 x magpie, 2 x jay tail feather, 2 x jay primary; jay tail feather; green woodpecker, jay tertial and tail feather, 2 x magpie; wren primary

BOTTOM ROW: tawny secondary and primary, green woodpecker, sparrowhawk, 4 x buzzard including primary and tail feather, 2 x jay primaries; 2 x jay tail feathers, buzzard, sparrowhawk and tawny; 3 x buzzard, 2 x magpie and a jay secondary; jay primary and covert, goldfinch and tawny; tawny and jay tail feather; magpie; jay tail feather

A dou-blue-n!