Middle Earth

For all of you who have wondered whether I'd disappeared, here are some photographs that I took a couple of weeks ago. The support stocking being off and the holes in the leg just looking ugly but not hurting, I joined a fabulous walk.

The Shire



JRRT stayed near here and this landscape is believed to have been the inspiration for some of his Middle Earth passages. In the distance, you can see the highest point in the Brecon Beacons. The river meandering through is the Usk. The sky really was that blue and the greens were that green. Of course, the only way you get a really green landscape involves quite a lot of rain. Shame about July and August, or the monsoon season as we've learnt to call it.

A harebell - campanula rotundifolia



Also called witches' thimbles, fairy bells and Old Man's bells (where the old man is the Devil). This little clump was at the top of the hill. Maybe Tolkien saw elves there as well.

Spottie Boy enjoying a rest at the top



Look, he's got fur on his back again. Isn't he handsome? Not the poor, bald and scarred / scared boy who arrived last April.

See I knew that I'd stop being a whining old git. Some of the crap has diminished and when I read other people's blogs, I know that I have a lot to be happy about.