Run to South Muskham

Not the most inspired title I've ever come up with, but it's a hot day and my brain has fried a little bit, beyond the production of dazzling titles. Running to South Muskham today is what I did.

It's a pretty village, but the tun there is less so involving as it does going past the sugar factory whose slurry pits are still emitting a horrendous stench despite the fact that production is not taking place at the moment.

The caravan park is empty, but the grassy stands are still mown immaculately.

Across the Trent next, and a little egret was hunting on a gravel spit in the low lying river.

Then there is the sterile space that is the fishing lake, where on a Saturday many years ago the water would be covered in colourful sailing boats racing round the buoys.

Then the village of South Muskham, where the gardeners have gone to town on the flowers, the church clock is wrong and there is a telephone box stuffed full of DVDs and books for everyone.

And where everything seemed totally normal.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 30.05.20

Around the Villages by Bike

After a wet, miserable day yesterday where there was barely any light to take a photograph all day, today was rather better and despite quite a fresh wind I was determined to get out on the bike and have a bit of a ride around.

I say determined, this wasn't quite the reality. I like riding my old mountain bike, but some days I'm a bit nervous about it - Will I puncture? Will any of the roads be dangerous? Will I get rained on and end up like a drowned rat with an annoyingly wet backside?

I decided I would be OK, and headed out in the opposite direction from normal, out to Kelham and the villages to the north of Newark. There are some narrow roads and some nasty blind corners, but I took it easy, taking in the views of the lowering sun and the  power station, the hills around Kelham and the various churches on my route.

I only did 20km, but you take in the villages of Kelham, Little Carlton, Bathley, and North and South Muskham on this route, and there's stuff to see all the way along; folk like to have cute summer houses in their gardens in these villages, and there are birds to see; fieldfare in the hawthorns, crows in the fields, and an echelon of big waterfowl overhead; no idea what these were and my photo will not help identification!

I had a look at North Muskham Lake, where a cormorant was doing its pterodactyl wing drying thing out on a raft in the middle of the water, and compared those waters to the sterile building site that are the waters of the former sailing club.

I hate what the fishing club done to that place.

Si

All text and images copyright 02.12.18

Bicycling Misadventures

Well, today was every bit as gorgeous as I was expecting it to be, and I was determined not to waste it. I'd pumped up my tyres last night in anticipation of going out for a longish cycle, with perhaps a sketching interlude.

It didn't really work out that way.

I'd barely got 2 miles when going over the top of the new cycle path bridge I noticed there was a fair bit of broken glass on it. I thought I'd missed it, but on the way down I heard a horrible flapping noise, and eliminating the thought it was my shirt, I knew I'd punctured.

Yes I've supposedly got self sealing Decathlon inner tubes, but most of the pink gloop had been splattered on my frame rather than stopping the leak.

But I was prepared! For the first time ever.

I tried to pump the tyre back up with my new mini pump, but a hissing leak like a hurricane indicated I was going to have to change the inner. Did I have a new inner? I did indeed.

I also had tire levers, and allen keys. For the first time ever, I was going to attempt to fix my bike on the road.

As ever, it took a lot of heaving, cursing, mess and general physical incompetence, but I managed it! I did it! I was so proud of this nothing task, I even took a picture of it.

I couldn't pump the tires up much with a mini pump, but it was enough to get me back home, where I pumped the damn thing up fully and set off again.

I rode off to Kelham, and flushed with the weather and my rare success, I tried to go up the steepest climb in the area. I hammered up the lower bit, then really had to drop through the gears, and change down onto the middle ring and burn my legs out to get up. Unfortunately, I also burnt out my front shifter, which became totally stuck and left me fixed on the middle ring.

Ah well, I kept going at a slightly daft high cadence, but it was fine and I was able to do 20km, taking in the sights - the first orange tip butterflies, chiff chaffs singing loudly from every stand of trees and a sun shining out of a cloudless sky. Up on top of the hill, there were some amazing views, and the first fields of oilseed rape are giving the land its colour patchwork quilt appearance of spring.

I didn't see any swallows though - I looked on all the telegraph wires and they were all devoid of the twittering African visitors. Very disappointing.

Tomorrow? More of the same I hope. Then cricket nets in the afternoon. Get some colour in my cheeks, and some UV on my exczema ridden body.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 08.04.17

Last Glimpses of Cicero's Twitterer

It was either the swift or the swallow that the Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero referred to as the "twitterer", a harbringer of spring, in a letter to his great friend the businessman Titus Atticus.

These particular twitterers gathering on the telegraph wires at South Muskham last week were signifiying only the coming of autumn, as they fed off insects and preened their wings ready to fly for Africa. They were a very noisy bunch of about 25 birds, scared off the wires by passing cars, but soon settling again, constantly twitching their tails and stretching their wings!

They too, like the summer, are now gone.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 20.09.16

Swallows and Kestrels on a North Muskham Run

I realise that I haven't provided you with any more adventurous content for a while, winter makes cycling and longer distance cross country running rather tricky. My run along the Farndon river stretch partly made up for it; today I went further afield, out to North Muskham Lake.

This is on the very fringe of my running capabilities, I'd say, being not far off 5 miles from home.

As it turned out, it was a day for looking up, rather than looking down. I thought there would be a lot of flowers out at Muskham Lake, but as it turned out, aside from a few cowslips and beautiful willow blossom, there wasn't a whole lot to be seen.

But the sky, well the sky was busy with life. Two male buzzards were spiralling up on a thermal by the Great North Road, while a clumsy human on a motorised paraglider surrendered to gravity in my same field of view. South Muskham church was being used as a watchtower by at least three, and perhaps even four kestrels, which flew off the south face of the clock tower as I approached, scalpelling the air with molecule thin wings.

And then, after a circuit of the lake, and an enjoyable run along the Muskham Ferry stretch of the river, I saw it. A bird on a wire, by the big barned farm at the entrance to North Muskham that always seems so attractive to birds. A small, dark bird, but a highly significant one.

The first swallow of the year, glossy black blue plumage and tail streamers like stilettos. Red face plain as a robin's breast. Sat quietly watching me, waiting for the precise moment I deployed my camera-phone to fly off south with that beautiful, powerful flight.

April 7th. I remember my first swallows and sand martins of last year. They all descended upon Kingsmill Reservoir on the same day, probably a week or two later. Remember it well, my mother was in hospital there for a month. A time of stress, relieved by my walks around the water.

So though it was only one swallow, it was seen in rather happier circumstances.

Si

Bonus bee fly at the start of my run

South Muskham church tower

Ancient tombs

Berries, blossom and church, North Muskham

Celtic cross in North Muskham churchyard

Willow flowers, North Muskham Lake

Across the water

Cowslip

Docked conveniently close to the pub

First green alkalet of the year

South Muskham dovecote, sans doves