This afternoon we both collected our new specs from Boots, then drove into the dreary, drizzly forest.
Along Undershore there stood an example of the broken trees on soggy terrain that currently proliferate in the woodlands.
There wasn’t much sign of life until we came across cattle wandering along Sowley Lane.
Owner’s tags, as always, adorned their ears as they stared us out.
Several calves were left to their own devices, although by and large they stuck to the verges. One chewed its tail;
tried on a new necklace;
and indulged in a bit of grooming.
One seated adult turned her clarty back on the proceedings;
another had dried her hide after a mud bath.
Crowds of crows took to the air overhead.
Ponies on the corner of St Leonards Road were equally mud-caked;
one somnolent group dozed beside
a weedy winding winterbourne stream swiftly swirling,
sweeping loose leaves and flexing fixeded grasses while surging to a tunnel under the road.
As may be imagined from its name, such a watercourse flows only during the winter months.
The terrain at this junction between St Leonards Road and that to East Boldre becomes a similar pool during very wet weather. Today a passing cyclist was reflected in it.
He clearly had no use for his steering bars as his hands were otherwise engaged. I hoped he was the only one going round the bend.
This evening we dined on belly of pork, roasted long and slow in order to drain away the fat; firm roast potatoes and parsnips; crunchy carrots and tender cabbage, with which Jackie drank Hoegaarden and I drank Carenina El Zumbido Garnacha Syrah 2018.