Saturday 20 June 2020

A Season in Quarantine - Day Ninety Seven (Last Post)

It's day ninety seven, midsummer day, the first day of summer and the last day of this blog post series. That doesn't mean there will be no more walks for me (I'm sure my walking buddies will still require my presence), or no more photographs; just that this is the last of the daily-walk photographic diaries.

I began this series on 18 March 2020 . The aim was to create a photographic diary of my daily walks during lockdown and to record spring evolving. I planned "to use this blog to capture an essence of my strolls out and about... to be a record of my experiences and the changing seasons in this little corner of South Cambridgeshire. While we retreat into our social bunkers, the world is growing onwards beautifully." I though that I'd be capturing the early growing of spring - not all of it. But here it is, summer and although the lockdown is lifting, it's not yet over, but spring is.

I thought I should commemorate the last post in some special way and what better way than to greet the midsummer sun as it pours itself all over Cambridgeshire. As a natural owl, it was going to be a challenge. My one and only early morning photo journey was on 3rd October 2015 , five years ago, and it wasn't as early as it looked. It was therefore going to require a significant effort on my part, but I set my alarm for 4am and waited to see if I could go through with it.

The alarm went off, I got up, pulled on my clothes, picked up my camera and fell out of my front door.

The outside world was both familiar (I've lived here a long time) and yet different: it looked different and it even smelt different. I met a fox, but it was too quick and the day was still too dark for me to photograph it. I staggered up the field and along the top road to my chosen view point and then I waited (and took photographs too, of course)


























And then at 4.38 precisely she started to rise in the east...






















It was time to walk into the midsummer morning.



















Even the buzzard was not quite awake.



























Almost home...