The secluded valley

The secluded valley is here on the Google map


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From now on you can come back to this map to check out where we have been walking. You will see that there is no road through the valley, which is what makes it secluded. There is a farm track which goes down to Weir cottage at the heart of the valley, but it is just a track.

The railway does go through the valley however. It is one of the prettiest short rail journeys you can take between Charlbury and Oxford on the Cotswold line.

The infrequent trains add a little excitement to the tranquility of the special place.
I don't mind them. What does irritate us is the rather more frequent passage of light aircraft and military helicopters. They make much more noise and are far more intrusive.



Looking at the map does not help with the topology of the landscape.The valley is cut in two by Sturt copse. Easy enough to walk through a wood, you might think. But the wood is on a very steep slope. What makes the valley secluded is that it is surrounded on all sides by these steep wooded slopes.

Once you have walked down the hillsides through the woods for a few minutes you are rewarded by the remarkable peacefulness of the place.

It is the river Evenlode, twisting, turning, meandering, then rushing on, which is the true joy of the landscape.
In the winter you need a bridge to cross it, but in summer you can bathe in the deep parts and walk across in your wellies in the shallow stretches.

The railway is an altogether more problematic barrier. Luckily, the river criss-crosses underneath it so many times that there are plenty of paths under it by the riverside.



This is my favourite bridge. I love how the light shines on the underside in the afternoon sun.



Winter has come to the valley, incisively, if rather belatedly.
The ice has gone now, but the snow has come a second time. This time the sky was bright and the beauty of the landscape is very clear.





I am sharing a couple of shots from a place I call Kingfisher Corner. The river takes a very broad sweep over more than ninety degrees. One day back in the summer I was sitting here on the bank eating my lunch, when stumpy, the kingfisher, came down the river midstream and swerved all the way round the bend and on down the middle of the stream. Needless to say I failed to photograph him or her. Back in the summer and autumn I saw a kingfisher two or three times a week.
I have not seen one since then, and hope they will have survived. There have been no kingfishers to view from the hide at Slimbridge for two years now. I am so glad they seem to be hanging in here on the Evenlode.

Perhaps one day I will build a hide and buy an extender for my lens. Meanwhile I live in hope.

Otter yesterday colder today

Sophie and I met a fisherman on our walk the other day. That is indeed a rare thing to see. Though there are signs in places to say that the fishing is exclusive to one club or another, there are seldom any fishermen on the banks of the Evenlode. I have seen huge trout under the bridge in Charlbury, so I know there has been good fishing to be had. But this man had only tried his luck for half an hour and had given up.

I spotted him in the long grass moving around furtively and went over to see what was afoot.

He explained that he had just seen an otter.

His dog had scared it away, sadly. There were no more signs. It might have been one of those fishermen's tales. I haven't even seen a kingfisher since the early autumn. I saw one here (picture above) in the summer, but I have only ever caught one on camera the once. (Below)

Winter comes at last at Imbolc, the snowdrop festival, just when the first signs of spring should be showing. Who knows what will become of that premature spring now?

Now the snow has finally come to the valley. It was very cold on our Sunday walk. There was snow already on the road outside the house as we returned from the Bedser ancient farm, where we had gone for tales of Merlin in an iron age house.

We headed down to the valley on Sunday morning. A surprising number of walkers had already set footsteps in the snow.

I am delighted to have such a different view of the Evenlode snaking through the secluded valley.

But it was such a dark clouded day. Only for a few moments did bright light break through the gloom.

It might as well be spring

I guess there are still people out there who doubt that the climate is changing. But I have never in over sixty years seen primroses bloom as the new year dawns. There are beautiful white roses still blooming in our rear garden and the summer hanging basket still has flowers in bloom at the front.

In our secluded valley the river is full once more. As a child I took steady river flow for granted. I never noticed a rise and fall of water levels, except when the big floods came and turned the Severn into a vast flood, cutting off school from the nearest town.

Now, as the eastern part of England becomes ever more arid, and our midlands increasingly dry, I am constantly drawn back to the rivers that flow close by. They are very shallow in summer in most places, though there are deep places where one

can go wild swimming. I am so glad that I have never seen a river run dry in England. Though the Spadesbourne, the brook at the back of the house where I grew up is no more than a culvert now.

Though Gabrielle and I live very close to the Windrush in Witney, my special retreat is to the Evenlode, where a secluded valley hides but a single house.

I go there almost every day walking Sophie, our puppy.

Yesterday, for the first time, I saw deer racing through the woodland fringes. The pheasant are returning to home ground after the November shoot, which seemed to have destroyed them all.

In a ten minute period I shot mallard, heron, deer, and pheasant.

I have no gun, but I have a fine canon 5D Mk2. Even with a 200 mll telephoto lens I find I am not quite close enough to the birds. I shall need to extend my range in time if I continue my fascination with wild birds.

Here you see a glimpse of a deer escaping from my presence with a pheasant seemingly perched on its bottom.
Deer and pheasant

Many days over Christmas were dark and damp. It has been a relief to see the sun again. Two days ago there was a warm wild wind, bringing down branches in the valley. I needed to take a video to catch the sound and movement. Yesterday, the valley had returned to hushaby. The birds which battled through the dark skies against the violent buffets of the wind the day before were settled quietly in the trees, singing so sweetly in the serene sunshine.

It might as well be spring.