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Tuesday March 30, 2021
The other end of the Hogsmill
We met up again as the day was predicted to be another sunny one - offset by dire warnings about the weather prospects over the Easter weekend. We walked to the little pond along part of the river which was cleaned up with help from the National Lottery. The wild flowers are lovely - celandines, wood anemones, and these periwinkles. Rob introduced me to the three-cornered leek (triangular stem) which I'd never heard of and is delicate and beautiful - but smells of onions. [Probably some sort of metaphor for life but I can't think of it].
On the way, there were some scrubland bushes full of house sparrows. These are sufficiently rare these days to be worth having a proper look at (and taking a photo).
We went along the river walk and crossed the A3 (subway), viewing a nest hole Rob had spotted some days before...
..and we were suddenly surrounded by these impossibly cute tits which stayed by us for ages, but were too nippy to get any perfect photos.
We came back on the other side of the river and were suddenly faced with a dead end. So being intrepid - whilst at the same time realising it was not a really sensible thing to do - we went through a very large gap in the fencing and made our way through a relatively wild environment - I have to say in our defence that we were not the first and followed a pretty distinct trail. After walking through some tall grasses, we found Rob's jumper to be covered in extremely tenacious seed heads, reminding me of the Burry Man.
However, eventually, and fairly predictably, we ended up in a private area with a padlocked gate barring our way on to the A3 side. I was a bit unwilling to go all the way back in order to cross back to the sanctioned side of the river - although we had mentally prepared to do so - but luckily we found we could exit across a private driveway (hardly any trespass at all...) and out onto a residential road. From there it was easy to find our way back.
It wasn't until we were back at our cars that we discovered that I was also a Burry Woman.
Posted by Christina at 11:44 AM. Category: Days Out
