Blogtober 2022 : Day 13

Well, that was fun, wasn’t it?  I did enjoy reading about what you were having for dinner yesterday, thank you, and there are a few suggestions if you are short of something to go on your menu this week 🙂 !  I thought that Jess’s idea of cooking with a friend whilst their children played together was a great idea too!

Tonight, we’ve had shepherd’s pie, although it should probably be called something like poultry keeper’s pie as we swapped our lamb and beef mince for turkey years ago.  I’ve made extra to go in the food flask for not so small daughter tomorrow (she sent me a text today telling me that she thought the flask was the best thing we’d ever bought as her soup was still warm at lunchtime) so we’ll see how that goes.

It was foggy this morning when the dog and I set out.  Where I wanted to walk is a short drive away and we were sitting at traffic lights when a motorcyclist came towards us, and then suddenly fell off his bike as it slipped sideways!  Oh goodness, it was lucky that the huge lorry in front of us hadn’t moved and the van behind the motorbike stopped – the rider picked himself up and ran across the road quickly; I’m assuming it must be a safety technique to get yourself out of the road as soon as you can because it’s better for your bike to be squashed than you.

I was about to get out of the car when I saw that there was a couple with some large dogs helping the rider so I didn’t need to.  Someone else picked up his bike, the lorry had stopped the traffic until it was all safe and when I drove past, the young man was sitting on the floor next to his bike, surrounded by people helping him.  I was sorry that he’d had the shock, but it made me happy to remember that despite the news headlines which make you think that there’s not much to be happy about, the world is full of good people who want to help others.

By the time we got to the place where I park the car, it was still foggy and I wondered what on earth I was going to talk to you about today – and then I remembered that my blog’s strapline is “Looking for the extraordinary in the everyday” and that’s what I would do.  (Putting my specs on helped 🙂 )

There’s something about walking along paths into the mist; eerie and exciting at the same time.  It was quite noisy too, a constant dripping sound as water dropped from the leaves.  There were a surprising number of people out walking and it was odd to see them on the path and then just disappear as the mist swallowed them up.

There were so many cobwebs this morning and they looked beautiful.  They were everywhere – they probably always are but you don’t notice them when they’re not outlined by drops of water.

It was even misty in the woods, and that felt quite odd, as if the trees were somehow lower than usual but of course they weren’t.

Out of the woods, we made our way across a large expanse of grass.  There’s a pond behind those trees but you can’t see it today.

Even the bandstand looked ghostly.

As we headed for home, we crossed the bridge where I’ve taken a few photos recently.  I like seeing the same view in different weathers – one of the photos from my first Blogtober post was taken here and it looks like a completely different place!

I had just got my camera out when the swans swam out from underneath the bridge.

It was so still and so quiet, and their reflections in the dark water looked lovely.

There’s another bridge at the other end of the footpath which we had just crossed when I noticed that more of the disused canal seemed to have been cleared.  A few years ago, there was awful flooding in this area and since then, there has been work done to clear the overgrown disused section of the canal that links to the bit that you can see the swans swimming in.  The plan is that if the brook ever floods again, then the water can flow into the old canal and it has somewhere to go that isn’t into people’s houses.

I hopped over the fence to take a closer look, having checked that it was safe to do so.

I’ve never noticed this part of the old canal bank before.  That wide stone section is part of the canal structure.  It’s lower than the section that I was standing on which I think might have once been the towpath and was probably built as an overflow for the canal.  On the right is where the water used to be and that’s where the flood water goes, and on the left is a brick slope and that goes down into another overflow channel – I had always wondered what that channel was for!

It’s all full of leaves now because it’s not in regular use, but you can see the overflow channel at the back of the photo underneath the bridge.

And look what I saw when I turned around!

I’ve been walking this path for over 11 years now and I’ve never noticed that before!  That was what made me sure that this section of the canal had been recently cleared – I’m sure I’m not so unobservant that I would never have seen it.  Wow, it felt a bit like finding treasure, even though it’s there for everyone to see.

That properly made my morning, I can tell you!  🙂

I hope you’ve had a great day today and noticed something extraordinary too!