Stopping Places

We've walked miles across the Suffolk countryside in the two years we've been here, often meeting hardly a soul but, because we have felt constrained by the need to stick to footpaths, we've tended to tread some paths repetitively. As a result, certain places have become regular resting spots, and this picture shows one.

It's an obvious place to take a break as there's an old concrete pipe which comfortably sits two, and the immediate view is of mature woodland across open field. It's a sufficiently peaceful spot for us to have sat and watched a hare approach, until he noticed us.

This isn't a landscape in which I feel at home. I had hoped when we first came here that I would grow into it but I haven't. It's too controlled by man, and I have the feeling all the time that nature is fighting what is, at the moment, a losing battle. That's why one of the good things about this sitting place is that nature still clings on....

....as the area of rough grassland between our seat and the gate is the local badgers' latrine.