A pond walk and a demonstration of Murphy’s Law – First published 1 June 2013

June 2013 and two day weekends were revealing themselves to be problematic. In fact there were things I hadn’t even thought of, turning up to give me problems. Cooking and shopping ate into walking time and it all felt very frustrating. In the end, there was only one thing for it forget all the things I was supposed to be doing and go for a walk. Millers Pond seemed like a good plan and it turned out to hold some wonderful surprises.

1 June 2013

Saturday morning and the sun was shining, the sky was blue. What a beautiful day for a walk but, because I will now only have two days in my weekends, there was not ime for walking, except up the Big Hill to the shops. Food shopping on a Saturday morning is torture. Every man and his dog is shopping then and I’m used to a nice quiet time on a Friday or a Monday. Prepare for a rant…

Firstly, why does the supermarket think the best time to restock their shelves, blocking the aisles and shelves with big cages of stuff, at the busiest time of the week? Also, does it really take two members of staff to restock the bags of lettuce, which as far as I could see (not very far due to said members of staff and the big cage of lettuce) was pretty full to start with? As well as these irritating obstacles there are the other customers to contend with. When I go to the supermarket I have a list, I go round, pick things up, put them in my basket and get out of there as fast as possible. Not so everyone else it would seem. Lots of people appear to think it’s an ideal place to meet groups of friends and stand round having a chat, especially if they have small children who can be let to run off and pull things off shelves happily unwatched by their parents.

Then there are the ditherers, they stand in front of something simple like bread, usually in pairs, and discuss the merits of each loaf trying to decide which one would be best to put into their basket. They normally try to do this at the narrowest point, just where the big columns that support the roof, or a cage of stuff waiting to be packed onto an already full shelf, are. This is the same place the people who like to chat prefer to hold their gatherings. Call me odd if you like but I find it really annoying to have to go back down the aisle I just walked up because I can’t get past the blockage, especially if I try to get to the bread from the other end and find another blockage there! Maybe I’ll give up eating bread.

It occurred to me that this will be my shopping experience from now on. No more swanning around an empty shop on a Friday or Monday morning. Life would be so much easier if we didn’t have to eat. My grumpiness lasted about as long as it took to get home, unpack the shopping and get outside in the garden. There was work to be done in the veg plot and being out in the sun with my hands in the soil always makes me feel better.

For a start the broccoli needed pulling up because they’ve finished flowering now and I’ve collected some more empty milk containers to make slug collars so I put those round the khol rabi. The slugs have had a bit of a go at them but they’re not completely eaten so with any luck the collars and some more organic slug pellets will save them. As I was on my knees weeding round the garlic plants I spotted a bee on the gravel beside me. I’m not sure quite what he found so attractive about the white quartz stones but he spent quite a while there just walking round and round. Maybe he was lost but it did give me a chance to take a photo.

One solitary California poppy has seeded itself in an empty flower pot and flowered, the petals are a bit ragged and moth eaten but it’s still a dash of colour and maybe I can save some seed. The first of the tiny buds on the palm flower have begun to open, not that they’re much to look at really. The strange looking flowers are more of a curiosity than a thing of beauty but I seem to get more of them each year.

After lunch I decided I would go for a walk after all because I could feel my fitness slipping away. The freezer has almost enough meals for next week and I would rather spend one evening cooking that a sunny Saturday afternoon. It seemed like a good plan and I had a hankering to go down to Millers Pond and take the woodland walk there. It seemed ages since I last went that way. Checking back I discovered it was the beginning of March, I was sure the spring would have bought some changes.

The mile and a half walk down to the pond was fairly pleasant in the bright sunshine but I was itching to get off road. Before long I was strolling down the hill towards the railway bridge right next to Millers Pond. Originally I’d thought I might sit for a while on the bench overlooking the water, watch the ducks and maybe see a dragonfly or two but it turned out someone else had had that idea before me and the bench was occupied. As it happened I really didn’t care because the pond held a delight I hadn’t anticipated. It was filled with lily pads, hundreds of them covering almost the entire surface of the water. I had no idea there would be water lilies. So I walked round the pond for a while trying to see if there were any flowers close enough to get a photo of. There weren’t, although I spotted some buds, but there were ducks skirting round the edge of the huge lily island.

Back on the path I stopped to admire a lovely guelder rose, a ring of creamy white flowers filled with tiny green buds that will open into smaller flowers. They remind me of hydrangea but are actually part of the viburnum family. The large five petaled flowers in the outer ring are sterile, having no stamens or pistils, they are there to attract insects to the flowers within. Later there will be berries for the birds but beware all parts of this sweet smelling plant are poisonous.

There were also red campion flowers and when I stopped to snap them I was rewarded by a buzzing bee flitting from flower to flower. As he was intent on his work he didn’t notice me and I manged to get some good shots of him toiling away. It must be my day for bees. Pity the butterflies weren’t quite as accommodating. Funnily enough I happened to mention I hadn’t seen many butterlies this year and, in true Murphy’s law style, They were everywhere I looked today, cabbage whites, tortoiseshells and even a striking cinnabar moth none of which would stay still long enough for me to capture them on the phone.

My friend in New Hampshire was only saying yesterday how, when you say you haven’t seen something, a certain flower, insect or whatever, they instantly seem to be everywhere. Conversely, as soon as you say you’ve seen loads of said flower, insect, whatever, they disappear off the face of the earth. Right here and now I’d just like to say its been a long time since I found a big pile of money in the street or won a few million on the lottery.

Reluctantly I left the pond behind and set off along the woodland path. When I came to the section of open grassland by Botany Bay Road there were two horses turned out to graze. These probably belong to the gypsies who live along there. Once I’d crossed the nice paved path ended and I continued along the dirt track worn through the grass and undergrowth by many feet over many years. At least today it wasn’t muddy.

Fluffy seeds floated all around me as I walked. I guessed they were from the dandelion clocks that seemed to be everywhere, along with buttercups, nettles and the odd bluebell still flowering. There was also quite a lot of cow parsley. A stream runs beside this path, although you can’t see it all the time but you can hear it and now and then catch a glimpse of it through the trees. The gossamer seeds got thicker and thicker and I began to wonder if there was a huge bank of dandelions up ahead. It seemed like they’d be overtaking the world with so many seeds.

When I came to the place where the path divides with one track running right down to the water’s edge I realised the floating seeds weren’t dandelion at all. They were from the willow flowers looking like fluffy white cats tails hanging from the branches. When I came this way before the path down to the water was too boggy to take but this time it seemed damp but firm so I took it. At the bottom it did get quite spongy and I had to watch my step. Everything, including the water, was a mass of willow seeds, so much so it looked like the world had been sprinkled with white silk threads.

Once I got past the boggy area I was at the first bridge and had to climb back up to the higher path. Soon I came to the playground, filled with laughing children today, and then the trees opened out to a large grassy area. There is a fallen tree here and I spent a while checking out the shelf fungus. Now the weather is drier it’s not nearly as pretty. The colours are washed out. The twisted patterns on the rotting bark is wonderful though, like knarled veins. There were buttercups and daisies growing all around.

I crossed the second bridge where sun glinted off the water and carried on towards the last stretch of trees. Here there were sumacs, I love their velvety bark and the dark red panicles of flowers that always remind me of chenille. The berries are ground up and used as a spice in the Middle East apparently. Today there were neither berries or flowers but the velvety hairs of the new growth were a lovely shade of pink and I just had to stop to look closer. My woodland walk was almost over and I knew I was getting closer to the main road but there was one last surprise in store for me.

One big old oak tree had a huge hollowed out area at the base of the trunk. Inside, a wonderful orange shelf fungus was growing. Most of the fungi I’ve seen on my walks have been brown, green or bluish but this really stood out. The centre was deep orange and the outer ring lemony yellow. This was chicken of the woods and it is, apparently, edible. The tree didn’t seem to be harmed by it or the big hole in its trunk at all and had a healthy canopy of leaves.

The last part of my walk was along the main road, down the steep dip by muddy bottom allotments and back up the other side to my village. Nothing much to see there apart from my first rosebud of the year in a front garden and the beauty of the graveyard in my village church, filled with nodding grasses and wild flowers. It may not have been much of a walk, just four or five miles, but it was a lovely way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Right, I’m off to buy a lottery ticket, as you know, I never win! Are you listening Murphy?