High summer well and truly here. That time of the year when the village folds in on itself and absolute silence reigns . The thermometer nudged towards forty yesterday. More of the same forecast for today. Hopefully, there will be a mountain storm tonight to break the heat. Sophie is up and about early. She intends to make good use of the morning six to seven slot for a tour of the village before the tarmac gets too hot for her paws.
At this time of the morning there's deep shade and exciting scents to be found in the sunflower fields. As we head along the lane that traces the top of the ridge the post lady stops her van for a wee chat. She's on her way into the sorting office. The big news is that she's being moved to a new post office next week. I tell her we'll miss her. The new post office is a larger, sub-regional, affair and she's not looking forward to leaving her peaceful delivery route. A tractor goes by. We wave at the driver and he waves back. These are the only vehicles that pass us during our hour outside. Where would we have to be in the UK to find traffic this quiet ? Even Harris is busier than this.
We climb back up the hill through the sunflower fields. The seedlings were planted in straight rows and as the plants have grown these have formed shady canyons six feet high. Sophie likes to hurtle along these in search of heaven only knows what. Young hare and deer also love the shelter the plants offer. Sometimes I catch sight of two or three fawns wandering , in line, across the tracks ahead of us. It goes without saying that Sophie remains oblivious to their presence.
So starts a quiet morning with a lively Polish Lowland Sheepdog in deepest, deepest France profonde.
9 comments:
For truly quiet roads in the UK you need somewhere relativly sparsely populated but with a good network of minor roads. This would usually be in a farming area where the land is better quality than in Harris or the Highlands. In particular, dairy farming areas require lots of tarmac roads for daily milk trucks to negotiate. I would nominate rural Aberdeenshire as a good candidate for 'most peaceful UK roads', based on recent cycling experience.
Cheers, Gail.
It is nice to see an actual sunflower canyon - I have never quite been able to imagine how the two of you maneuver through these fields.
I've cycled some rural backroads in Hampshire/South Downs that would qualify as quiet based on the Deepest French Profonde scale - and a few of our roads were still unsealed. Gail is probably right about the 'criteria' for finding such places. I've also had a motorbike 'incident' on a muddy unsealed road in the rural area around Dartmouth, that was definitely quiet. The wait for someone to turn up and help me with the bike was quite a long one.
Hari OM
The sun worshippers shot is just fabulous - not that the rest are lacking! I like that we can see the shadow of Angus in the rolling fields one. Sophie, your heaven is my heaven! YAM xx
What cheerful photos, Angus - they have brightened our day.
It was cloudy here, and 33ยบ, on our morning walk, and we were glad to be home again. The forecast is for the next four days to be abnormally hot, with temperatures similar to yours. We shall be staying indoors and doing very little, other than keeping cool!
I love the sunflower photos to substitute the state of mine. I planted some this spring in my garden and they all grew. The birds are now ripping the petals from the flower to eat the seeds. The flower heads are now hanging over and looking quite forlorn. Sophie looks lovely.
I have wondered the same thing!
I love sunflower season on Sophie's blog! I agree with YAM. That sunrise being the sunflower shot is stunning.
Sounds like the end of the world.
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