The above pics were taken during my walk yesterday morning. The water meadow beyond Glebelands was flooded in places and sticky with Oxford clay nearly everywhere. The higher fields weren't much better. Some strikingly vivid skies, though.
Today I went on my first cycle ride of the year. I didn't go out on the bike before now because of the frosts that seemed to coincide with the weekends when I could have gone and because of the lovely long walks to Clanfield J and I did every Sunday for the past three weekends.
Today's cycle was pretty short - just towards Brize (via the allotment), to Lew and back to Bampton over Mount Owen. The last of these was a touch challenging but I have to say that when I got back I knew what I had been missing. Wonderfully energising and refreshing exercise!
It was also great to see the landscape again from the perspective of a cyclist. Was intrigued to see some more hedging being done along the western edge of a paddock at the bottom of Mount Owen road. The person does a little bit every year - see post of January 2012 - and has now almost finished the whole hedge.
On the allotment, all is pretty much finished now. I pulled some beetroot last weekend but only one was any good - the others had been too badly frosted. Carrots have been eaten by rabbits and the slugs are getting everything else. Still, it was fun going to the shed at the house earlier for pink fir apples, kestrel spuds and a squash from the hessian sacks hanging from the rafters.
