Adlestrop - Part 2

This is a picture which I drew from the photo of Adlestrop below. It took a long time because of all the detail.  

Adlestrop - Part 1

This is Adlestrop, a charming little village in Gloucestershire. Its main claim to fame is a poem which was written about it in 1914 by Edward Thomas, a poet who was killed in the First World War. I drove through the village in the early 1990s and took this photo.

Yes, I remember Adlestrop -
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No-one left and no-one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop - only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

The station where Edward Thomas's train stopped has gone, but the village name which he saw on the platform from the train has been put up in the bus shelter instead. A bench in the shelter has a plaque with the poem engraved on it.

Rufford Old Hall

This is Rufford Old Hall, built in about 1530 for the Hesketh family and until 1936 was owned continuously by them. It is now a National Trust property. The black and white timbered Great Hall is the only part which survives from that time - other parts were added in the 17th century. It is about 5 miles from Ormskirk, West Lancashire.
The gardens have an excellent collection of rhododendrons and also some topiary.

Portraits of rhododendrons

Piglets

 I photographed this litter of piglets fast asleep in the straw, at a farm in Herefordshire which was open to the public. The piglets were all very friendly and when they were awake they enjoyed having their backs scratched and so on.

More patterns in Nature

Young ivy tendrils winding their way around a tree. The tree has some pale green lichen on it. Lichen prefers to grow where it is damp and you can often tell by looking at the bark of trees which way the prevailing wind blows, because it brings more rain and more lichen, and also moss, will grow there.

Patterns in Nature