A window in the weather.

Having seen the week’s weather forecast on BBC’s Country File programme I made the decision to stuff washing the car and instead find somewhere outside where I could enjoy the brief spell of usefully dry weather while it was available. (i.e. the rest of the week’s weather is forecast to be rubbish!) So, then I had to try to work out where to go.

I came to the conclusion that the Ridgeway would be too wet and anyway I’ve been up to that stretch of byway by the White Horse a couple of times already this year. I really wanted somewhere with a bit of elevation and to possibly have something to photograph. I decided upon Wittenham Clumps as I’d never visited them even though they’re only about 10 miles away.

I was pleasantly surprised by the place. In between the droning of light aircraft (the worst of which are modern aircraft with high speed propellers which are loud even when the aircraft is miles away, unlike the old cessnas and pipers) it was pretty peaceful with lots of birdsong in the woodland and around the meadow with only the occasional bang of a shotgun, posisbly trying to kill the said birds, who knows.

I was glad I had thought to take along with me my binoculars and my camera and had a thoroughly enjoyable couple of hours of more solitude than normal. (And I worked out that the worst culprits for south Oxford aircraft noise were air cadets.) By the time I’d got back to the car park at about 3pm cars were literally queuing to get in, so if you want to visit, go early.

Here’s a taster of what I saw:

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