A Cotswold scene

I picked up Kitty and her friends this morning at 8am to drive them the 150 miles to Stansted airport. It was drizzling and cool and I envied them the prospect of being in the 26 degree heat of Croatia by supper time. By the time we reached the M25 it was sunny and warm and I dropped them early at 11am.

I turned round and drove back and by the time I had turned off the M25 to go to Oxford, it was pouring with rain again. Beyond Oxford, I headed across country and decided to stop at the village of Bibury, a few miles short of Cirencester, to buy some fresh trout from the Trout Farm located on the old mill ponds of Arlington mill.

As usual there were some tourists, many of them from Japan, as usual . For some reason this lovely river Churn running through Bibury is a major attraction for the Cotswold tourist trail, which luckily Stroud is not part of. Even the information boards are written in Japanese.

It was still raining, so I took a brolly and my camera to the old stone bridge and tried to find a blip. There were a lot of options; swallows swooping inches above the river, a pair of coots on their nest in the middle of the stream, numerous ducks sitting on the river bank, huge trout which must have escaped from the farm leaping into the air to bite the rising mayflies and of course tourists clicking away with their cameras at the beautiful scenery.

My pictures were nearly all rubbish, I am sorry to say. I had difficulty holding the brolly to keep the rain off and the choosing my manual settings for all the different subjects.

In the end I have chosen this picture which shows the small footbridge and the row of very old cottages for which the village is rightly renowned. There were two white swans and a black swan moving up and down the water looking for food, whilst the cygnets followed in a a tight protected bunch. There seemed to be some aggravation between the three adult swans but his bird appears to be the mother. I must do better and try to get one good picture rather than snapping away with little forethought. If the sun had been shining, I might have been more successful.