Walking the wall

Somehow, I didn't manage to do any work today! In the morning I had to visit the bank to find one remaining  piece of information for my tax return - this turned into a rather longer visit than I'd expected but proved to be financially beneficial, so all good. I dashed back to Waitrose to pick up some food for the weekend and then gave Ben a lift home. I stopped for coffee and we had a good catch up of the week's events.

I'd intended to spend the afternoon working, but the sun was shining and I really wasn't in the mood, so ended up heading out to Barnack. Rather than walking round the NNR, whose slopes looked rather slippy, I went for a longer walk along the footpaths and bridleways into Southorpe. 

For much of the time I was walking along the splendid stone wall which encloses the grounds of Walcot Hall. Some of this is in poor repair, but other stretches have been recently mended. The whole length supports an excellent variety of lichens, including at least one locally rare species, and a surprising range of different forms of limestone, some almost stained  pink by iron deposits. 

This was the first time I've ever walked this path, and it was good to see former areas of arable land being reverted to grassland with parkland trees. A large flock of Fieldfare and Redwing was foraging in these fields. Before enclosure, much of this area was part of the 'heath', species-rich limestone grassland, presumably with occasional acid areas. It would be wonderful to think that some of that diversity could return, colonised from remaining fragments of species-rich grassland which have hung on in former limestone quarries.