Poor pathside pickings predicted

A walk on the regular route on Warter Road.  Overnight rain had led to us deciding that a road walk would be advisable.  Rain was predicted for later, for now the mist dominated.

The wheat had not yet been harvested...

The rain had left a pattern of streaks down the trunks of the beech trees...

A strange (to me, I hadn't noticed it before) small plant with white flower heads about an inch across...

And feathery leaves...

(Addendum: since taking this I started seeing this plant everywhere.  I think it is Yarrow (aka Milfoil) used for the treatment of wounds )

It all felt so autumnal that it was hard to imagine that it was only last Sunday that I took these photos in the same place-

Mystery flower (clue: its poisonous and grown in vast numbers...)

  
Answer: potato.  And this is Scarlet Pimpernet

Plantain?

 
A slightly more golden looking crop

Newly hatched Peacock and Large White

 
That looks expensive, its   (altogether now...very deer)...

Anyway, back to Saturday


The cows were lying down, a sure sign that it is either going to rain or not...

The sun tried to come out as this reflection shows...

The beech hedge by Shiptondale Farm which had a severe pruning two years ago is just starting to show a bit of a recovery...

We had the mists but the mellow fruitfulness looked to be in very short supply.  There were very few haws on the hawthorn. This was one of the better examples...
.

The brambles, as commented on before look dreadful...

The elderberries look a sparse shadow of other years...

And the sloes are even worse.  In looking for them there seemed to be the tattered remains of last year...

And then a single sloe, in total isolation...

A picture of my flower of the week to cheer things up...

Back home, and then the rains came.  half an inch in half an hour...

Station Road flooded again, but thankfully it stopped short of any houses.  Fortunately in Middleton the rainwater drains separately from the sewers, so it was a quite civilised flood.

Within another half hour the sun was out and the water was receding...

 

 

Apart from a few grumbles within a couple of hours it was as if it had never happened.