"I'm sorry, but how was I to to know the Mayans were wrong. They were right with everything else.
"Alright I can't actually think of anything that the Mayans got right, but I'm sure they did or it wouldn't be all over the papers, would it?"
Anyway, a winter afternoon trip to Market Weighton for money and fuel and a stop for a bit of a walk on the way back. The sunset in my rear-view mirror was interesting and trading a safe place to pull off (the verges are in a terrible state and I didn't want to make them worse) with the view in the mirrors is an perhaps not the best way to navigate a car.
Found a spot (aided by 4WD), and a view back towards Londesborough.
When the sun is as bright as this there is only so much you can put in a photo before you lose everything.
A walk along the road with an eye over the shoulder on the sun as it moved lower...
Back towards Nunburnholme Wold...
There was not a single big bird in the sky. The other day there were 9 Red Kites circling...
Hiding in the shadow of a tree allowed enough contrast to show the details of the road behind us.
By now some may be thinking "Why didn't you point the camera the other way?" The answer was that the weak winter light offered so little of interest that it never even crossed my mind that I hadn't until writing this.
A face on a post at a cottage along the way...
The sun started setting quite quickly behind the trees...
It's beginning to look a lot like sunset...
By the way, if the EXIF data is available the camera clock has been let slip and is 1hr 4min fast (see previous posts - I promise to try harder). So don't judge sunset times by that.
This is the re-growth of the site that was David Hockney's "Trees Near Warter". It was felled to great and very public complaint just before Hockney was to paint the third of a quartet of studies. It is now growing back quite nicely and the nations favourite smoker only needs to wait another 80-90 years to complete the set. At 60 a day, I make that just over one and three-quarter million butts in the ash tray till it's ready to paint.
Now BBC's Kathy Killick listen carefully, I will say this very slowly. This is not the same place or painting as "Bigger Trees Near Warter" which is at Dalton Gates Cottage, SE895502 (the trees, not the painting, which is quite peripatetic).. Just saying they were chopped down over and over doesn't make it true. Incidentally, I met the owner of Dalton Gates Cottage on a walk and he told me that he was phoned at work by the BBC who asked him how he felt about the trees being cut down, and he replied that he was quite surprised because they were still there in the morning, and they still broadcast the story.
OK, rant over.
The walk back revealed the same but with the sun setting behind clouds and the ISO in the camera turned up to "Are you sure?"
I suppose that at a quick glance these pictures seem a lot the same, but I thought they each had something to offer as a flavour of a winter walk. Click on the pictures for a click-through slide show.
To return to the end of the world stuff, there were plenty of omens in the sky...
Have you noticed that this tree is a completely different shape to the last one? Anyone wants to offer an identification before next spring when I go back and check the leaves. (Note: the strange smoke signal cloud is in the background).
By the way, if this tree looks very like the first one in size and shape, there might be a reason...
