Glorious Grovely!!

Took the first bus out to Wilton at 9 a.m. and onto Grovely Wood - and left again at 3.30!! I then got back home at dusk...

So, how do you spend SO many hours in such glorious woodland? EASILY, that's how - with such a bright, but still mild day, it was sheer bliss.

Even lugging around the tripod and heavy 70-20mm f2.8 Sigma, plus lunch and flask and coffee and probably walking about 6 miles, I am truly tired now.

My attempts at repeating this Under the Canopy blip but with autumn colours found that the colours aren't as developed as would be ideal (hence the 70-200) but I really wanted to do them today as the forecast for the next few days is cloudy and rain.

Unfortunately, a mega orienteering contest was about to take place and a 'nice' (not) matronly lady informed me that I would not be able to take ANY photographs whilst the competitors were out and about. This was because they were children. I found out that I had 45 minutes until the start so I vowed to take all my pictures by then. And, of course, Grovely Wood is actually on the Wilton Estate and is private and so really, one would have to abide by such requests.

Soon, of course, a few senior runners appeared, looking lost and bobbing about all over the place. They took no notice of me and my tripod i.e. they just ran in front of it and me, which is fair enough, I suppose. The "children" were a few youths who were even less aware of my presence than their older competitors. It was rather nice to see some really quite elderly folk participating too, though I was so tempting to tell them where the marker points that they had to find were, as they searched further and further away!

So, instead of going for a shot looking straight down the Roman Road (many were blighted by cars that the officials had selfishly driven onto the track), because as I said, they were still too green, I've gone for the ultrawideangle shot, with the Nikkor 10-24mm, plus polariser and using the tripod. The foreground tree is one of the ancient beeches in the wood and I liked the way it's balanced by the strong sunlight coming through younger trees.

So, a very satisfying day - I did feel guilty for not attending and photographing Salisbury's Remembrance Day - I'd done that for the past three years and had the weather been anything but this isolated day of brilliance, I definitely would have.

I really wish to thanks everybody for the favourites, comments and stars for my misty River Avon Blip of yesterday. Not only was it my 7th most favourited ever Blip, it hit the top spot in the Spotlights. I hope that you like this one, too!

I'm SO tired now, I cannot hardly physically type and so rather than make a fool of myself and not look at all your wonderful blips properly, I'll admit defeat and return to viewing and commenting in the morning, which I assure you, will be early...I shall certainly sleep well tonight!