Up on Swallow Heights

it was our last Sunday game today, and we found ourselves out at Oxton, a ground we played at last year with the world's most ramshackle pavilion that was wetter inside than out in the rain, and sheep baa-ing right up to the boundary edge.

Well this year a new pavilion has appeared, with nice tables and a nice kitchen and dressing rooms you aren't at risk of drowning is, but of course progress means we means a bit of charm.

It's still a sunning setting, above the Tolkien sounding Green Dragon pub, with the constant twitterings of swallows and house martins as they feed up for migration around the ground. THere are trees and open fields, people going for walks, and a dog who decided to field the ball for us and cover the ball with slobber.

Oddly enough our young leggie bowled his best ball of the day after that.

As ever, it was a long old slog in the field, but our heads never dropped. As captain, like I was today, I'm not bad at this aspect of the job, although I'm tactically probably quite hopeless. Our Under 15s had a lot of energy today. Ah, I wish I was young again.

So, they got 290. Ahem.

So we batted, and I did my nature walk. Not much to see, apart from a giant parasol mushroom one of our team insisted I took a look at. It was markedly warmer than yesterday, thank god.

We batted well, for all our 40 overs. One our number, our only senior team player, got 64, and even I hit a boundary in scoring 6. Slightly annoyed by my batting partner running me out trying to give me the strike though. That was my highest score since May.

Great day though, enjoyed myself, and the Oxton chaps said we were a credit to our club. Can't say fairer than that really.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 20.08.17

Gold Glows the Fields of Barley

Is that a Sting song? Who knows.

Yes, a gentle run tonight, more for guilt at having eaten a huge buffet at work today - and another one tomorrow - to commemorate inmates of long service without getting any sicknesses. I tried to compensate by only having a small supper, but no, with my back feeling relatively OK I thought I needed to get out there.

It doesn't have to be super warm to be a glorious evening - it was one tonight even though there was a slight ambient chill. But the sun gave just enough heat without causing discomfort, and I made the most of it.

Tonight I set off across the grange road fields, listening to Sussex playing cricket on the radio, looking over golden fields of barley as Sting would have it - pretty sure it's wheat actually - over towards Hawton Church, and wishing there was someone selling lemonade from the roadside stall much beloved of those HSBC adverts featuring the snake loving child.

Non-such alas, but at least idiots on quad bikes or scramblers weren't charging about and the path was reasonably clear of the excrement of Welsh cobs for a change.

Take pleasure in the small things.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 12.07.17

Running in the Mud

Without there being any super heavy rain, the persistent mizzle has gotten the ground very heavy, and I've been running about on it, in the dark, like any not very sane man would do in his middle 40s.

The urban farm along Clay Lane is a real squelch of a place, but then highland calves are getting stuck into their feed having been moved across the lane, and the horses are happily stuck into their bales of hay.

On other farms, the beet is in and the ground seems to be being reseeded with bright orange seeds that look rather like lentils. Either beet seeds do indeed look like lentils, or the farmer in Hawton is trying a radically new cash crop, as well as planting his agricutural vehicles smack across the path and forcing me to go ankle deep in the heavy Nottinghamshire soil.

Lovely! But I'm used to it.

I hope you have all found a way of keeping active in this misty, wet time. Last night the Geminid meteors were clouded out, tonight the moon shines bright through the window. Venus is becoming more and more dominant low in the west in the early morning. The robins have started to sing at night.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 14.12.16

Well I wasn't Expecting to see that!

Off my poor achey legs today, and on went my bum onto a bicycle seat. I headed off through Claypole, Stubton and then onto Fenton, with its attractive village pond acting as a home to a pair of moorhens.

I've run past Sutton earlier in the year, but it is actually off the road. The next village I came to was Beckingham, one of the larger satellites of Newark with a population of over 1000, a fine tower church, a pub, and a couple of very strange animals I cycled past in a field by the road.

"What on earth were they?" said my brain to itself when it had processed the white flashes I had seen through a gap in a hedge. I let the bike coast to a halt, turned around, and went back to have a look at what I had initially thought were a couple of alpacas - an increasingly fashionable item of livestock to keep around here - but soon turned out to have the wrong number of legs.

For in this field were standing two tall, creamy white birds with long necks, feeding with their backs to me. They were a little way off, but they appeared to be easily five feet high, with legs like Usain Bolt. On closer inspection, a chick could be seen feeding with the two adult birds.

I took some photographs of these birds - clearly rattites of some description, and carried on my ride, an enjoyably sunny 40km trek around these villages of the Lincolnshire - Nottinghamshire border. Pondering on these birds, I didn't think they were large enough, or indeed black enough, to be adult ostriches but thought they might be immature birds.

It was when researching this piece, that I remembered the large flightless bird that had made the news nationally when it escaped from a farm in North Nottinghamshire. The picture with this article identified the bird straightaway for me.

Have you guessed yet?

It was a rhea!

Rheas are normally dark in colour, but it seems that leucistic white birds are common, and cursory web research indicates that they are becoming increasingly farmed in the UK for their meat, with chicks on sale for £65 and adult birds £200 or over.

Whether these birds were pets, or for the pot, I have no idea.

I wonder if any of my steampunk friends would be interested in their feathers?

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 02.10.15

Fenton village pond

The church is hiding

The Beckingham "alpacas"

In this shot you can see the two toed hoof

Sorry these aren't the clearest shots

Beckingham church

The view deep into Lincs. The photo just does not do it justice, it was magnificent

Public footpath to certain death

Out in the sticks

A barn fit for swallows

River Witham at Stapleford

I love these village boards

Onion harvesting. The smell was quite something

Lanky bike rider

Ridge and Furrow Cricket

Had a fabulous day today up at Great Dalby near Melton Mowbry, playing cricket for the thirds, and although we got beaten in the official league match (but not in the 20 20 beer match that followed it) - the tea was great, and the late summer weather lovely.

It was the ground that made the day though. Not only was it a beautiful setting on a hill getting towards the Vale of Belvoir, but we were playing on a bit of history.

Initially the pitch had the look of some kind of neolithic burial site, and when you went to field on it you felt like you were wearing some kind of gravity boots as you undulated like a drunken sailor in a storm. Luckily our team had a geography teacher on hand to explain that we were playing on a rare surviving example of ridge and furrow farmland, dating back to the 17th century at latest. Apparently the farmer who owns the cricket ground is subsidised to maintain the site as it is.

It certainly made fielding very interesting, as the ball ran up hill and down dale, although it didn't excuse my missed catch. That was caused by the ball coming out of a tree, or course. Nor my playing all around a straight one while on a colossal 8.

An 8 that raised my final season's average to an impressive 6.00.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 29.08.15

We're here

Roller porn

Old tractor porn

Preparation

The opening skirmishes

The charming little pavilion

Ridge and Furrow expert

Not the best of starts

More cricket

A defeated batsman returns

What happens when a cricketer touches an electrified fence

Spot the ridges and furrows

Undulations

More hot action

Crowd prepares to riot