Confession time...

On an unseasonably warm December day like this; all I really want to do is ride my bicycle.

The oaks still have their leaves on; these linearly aligned ones were once part of a Devon hedge bank; it's since been let go; and the trampling cattle have worn the soil down; so the exposed roots look like gnarled fingers gripping the earth.

The temptation is just to keep rolling on...

I realise it is almost exactly thirty years to the week since I first arrived to work and live in this valley; the plan was to move on after a years work experience. But plans are of course what we make; whilst life happens to us...

Not such a dreadful place to get stuck I think you'll agree.

And I've been cycling up and down this lane for work and pleasure ever since; and herded sheep; bedded sows; tended vegetables; and made hay in many of the fields besides it; along the way.

I did have a reasonable reason to be out whilst right hand Wednesday girl was industriously harvesting the Cavello Nero.....Apparently the blood test shows amongst other things; that I have the kidneys of a twenty year old...
A good thing; one hopes....Or was the doctor suggesting I might like to lay off the ale??

And you can breathe easy now; the balmy temperatures; and the rain in abeyance meant that I did get those last few handfuls of ryecorn tickled into the old pig ground...The corvids hadn't found all of it.