Horrible

There is no other word to describe today's weather.  It is the sort of day for which the word 'muggy' must have been conceived... Warm, wet and windy.  We set out for a walk with few hopes that we would stay dry and indeed we were right.  Clutching our waterproof jackets ready to don them at a moment's notice, it wasn't long before we needed them.  However, the rain was light and with such a strong wind blowing, it didn't last long and before we knew where we were, the sun was out again and were sweating again.  All the while, the skies remained threatening, glowering and menacing overhead.

Lets hope we have better luck tomorrow.

A Rose...

... by any other name would 'taste' as sweet.  Well, not quite, but it was time this morning, to start picking blackberries from the local hedgerows.  Blackberries (Rubus fruticosus) are part of the Rose family and actually are not true berries.  They are an aggregate fruit made up of many, little 'drupelets'.  A drupe is a fruit made up of a central seed surrounded by a fleshy part or pericarp.  Well known drupes are Peaches, cherries, olives, almonds, etc.  But for now, these plump, ripe, sweet little members of the rose family just look perfect for the picking.

Cloudscape

We took a nice walk through Shipley Park and around Mapperley Reservoir this morning.  We set out in a strong wind - and a chilly one too - but soon the sun started to peep from behind the clouds and things warmed up a bit. The views across the farmland were rather good and the clouds were rather picturesque looking back towards the village of Mapperley.

Looking the other way, on our way back home a little more blue was beginning to show and things were warming up a bit more - especially when you managed to get out of the wind.

Beauty

After being 'rained-off' yesterday, we had a good walk today along the Nutbrook Trail this morning.  Usually, we stick to the trail around Shipley Park, but this morning, we headed south in the direction of Kirk Hallam.

The trail is crossed by several old road bridges and in some parts, traces of the railway lines which once ran along here can still be seen in the embankments.

Near Kirk Hallam, the lake known locally as the 'Beauty Spot' offers a quite, secluded bit of water amid the bustle of roads, joggers, cyclists and a scum-bag on a (probably stolen) motorbike!

Animation

Things have certainly come a log way since Tom and Jerry did their musical best with Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody..

Then, things were drawn by hand the skill involved with getting picture and music to coincide can only be wondered at.
Nowadays, things are different.  The skill is still there, but now it's with the aid of a vast amount of computer processing power.  I came across a company called Animusic recently on You Tube.  Just look at this...

Warm!

Too warm to do very much this morning and we had to do a little shopping, so it was a quick walk into town before returning via Victoria Park and the shady trees to be found there.  Like most towns in Britain, there are not very many parts of Ilkeston which could be described as 'nice', but Victoria Park is probably the best bit.

From there, it was back home for a delicious lunch of pasta with our own, home-grown Garlic (small cloves but powerfully flavoured), Tomatoes (from vine to stomach in about 20 minutes) and Basil.  It doesn't get much better - or fresher - than that!

Pits

Close to home, there is a series of six settling pits which act as filters for water from (we think) surface run-off and slurry from near-by farms.  Water is always pouring into one end and the 'solids' are settled out as it flows from pit to pit along the series before flowing out the other end into the Nutbrook.  From Google Earth the pit look like this.

Around these pits runs a high bank covered in Orchids, Broom bushes, Apple trees, Birches, Hawthorns and thousands more plants.  The pits themselves are home to swans, coots, ducks, gulls, moorhens, etc.  Dragonflies flit around the area like miniature helicopters and a few butterflies make use of the clover flowers.  The view, looking east towards the village of Mapperley is pretty good too.