Pairs - Far and Near

My pairs this week are from Imber in Wiltshire, known as the "Ghost Village".  The village was was evacuated in 1943 as the area, most of which had been purchased by the military, was going to be used for training American troops for the D-Day landings.

Only the church remains from the original village, 'houses' were built in the 1970's to aid military training.

The Church and village are only open on certain days of the year as it was open for two weeks in August so I took the opportunity to visit.

The church from a few miles away.

The church from a village road.

Imber Church from the churchyard

Pairs is a wonderful meme created by Helena at her Creative Maven.

Me on Monday

Waving to Sian and my blog readers on a very wet Monday.

I am having a quite day as the weekend was busy, I drove to West Sussex to visit my daughter, my first visit to the area.  Unfortunately I got caught up in very heavy traffic on Saturday so it took a lot longer to get there, not very pleasant as it was very hot it the car.

In the evening we drove to the coast (6 miles away), we didn't stay long as the rain was starting.

Sunday we drove in the other direction to the South Downs unfortunately it was raining so we  stopped at a pub called The Fox goes Free, this pub was where the first ever Women's Institute meeting was held on the 9th November 1915.  I wonder if they will go back this year for the centenary.

Me on Monday is a wonderful idea started by Sian from High in The Sky.

Do visit her blog to see who else is taking part.

Pairs - at the church

My pairs post is again zoom in, zoom out. I spotted this church while walking though the village at Evercreech.

Look at this clock face and tell me what is wrong with it!

Pairs is a wonderful meme created by Helena at her Creative Maven

Me on Monday

Waving to Sian and all my blog readers.

Monday finds me tired after a busy weekend with 3 outings which is very unusual for me.

I am a volunteer for Greyhound Rescue so Saturday we went to a coffee morning in a small village called Lamyatt, Tara comes along to show the visitors what gorgeous dogs greyhounds are, also meeting and greeting was Ted a large black greyhound who Tara is very fond of.  It is a small village and I suspect most of the villagers came which was good for fundraising.

The coffee morning was held in Lamyatt Church:

I do love village churches.

After I had finished my duties my sister and I decided to look for a geocache, most churches in the area have a geocache close by, a series called 'Church Micros'.  But first to get to the cache we had to go over a stile. Now greyhounds have long legs and this stile had steep steps down to the stile, Tara just could not manoeuvre herself to get into a position to get over and she was too large to go through the stile.  We could have lifted her over but my back was already sore so I didn't want to make it worse. After a lot of laughter my sister stayed with Tara and I went across the field to get the cache.

We then walked Tara around another field as she had missed out on her walk.

In the afternoon my sister and visited relatives as a cousin who does a lot of the family history was visiting, it was good to hear all the tales of childhood (my Aunt is 90) and see old photographs.

I do family history as well so I now have a lot of information to collate.

Sunday was The Midsomerset show which is held within walking distance of my home, again I went with my sister and we walked for 4 hours stopping for tea and lunch during that time.

These birds are called Rhea, native to South America and related to the ostrich.  Tara was fascinated with them, then decided she didn't like them and backed away, I don't know what she would have done if she had seen them fully grown, she was also frightened of some chickens we saw.

Later today I have a trip to the airport at Bristol as my son and his girlfriend are off to Spain for a wedding and holiday.

Me on Monday is a wonderful idea started by Sian from High in The Sky.

Do visit her blog to see who else is taking part.

Pairs

My pairs this week is a zoom in zoom out.

I saw this while out walking and unfortunately I am not the King of England!

Pairs is a wonderful meme created by Helena at her Creative Maven

5 in 5

My 5 in 5 this month comes from my visit to Shapwick Heath Nature Reserve on the Somerset Levels on Saturday.

This is the beginning of the line of the Sweet Track, which was a wooden walkway built in across a reed swamp about 6,000 years ago.

See my previous post for more photographs and a link to Shapwick Heath.

To see other 5 in 5 posts visit Sandie at Itchifingers.

Me on Monday

Saturday was a beautiful sunny day, I had planned to go to a geocache meet on my own but my son turned up and we went together.  It was held on the Somerset Levels near Shapwick and Ham Wall reserves, After meeting and chatting with other geocachers (and the morning coffee) we headed off to find some geocaches on Shapwick Heath Nature Reserve, we chose to go there as we had left Tara at home as the weather was hot, also dogs are not allowed on that part of the reserve as there are otters living there.

One part of the reserve follows the old railway line which we followed for a while before turning off onto the Sweet Track.  This follows the path of a track built in Neolithic times, on a previous visit I saw otter tracks on the path but not this time.  The wildflowers and wildlife are amazing I could have stayed all day.

We were limited with time as Richard had to be back in Bristol early afternoon.  I hope to visit again to see more of the reserve and yes we did find a couple of caches on our walk.

I will post some more photographs in my next post.

Sunday morning I decided to clear out the utility room as it had become a dumping ground, its looking better now but I still have odd things to find places for.  In the afternoon I decided to rest as I was aching from the walk yesterday.

Today we are having heavy rainstorms so it will be a day at home!

Me on Monday is a wonderful idea started by Sian from High in The Sky.

Do visit her blog to see who else is taking part.