May sunshine in hawthorn lands

LAST week I went off in search of a favourite view to photograph, but the light was all wrong - lovely thought the sun was!  So instead I crossed the road, vaulted over a style and went off exploring into a new valley for the first time.

I found a hidden limestone landscape, very near to the fast and noisy A46.  The evening sunshine lit up the hedges, meadows and steep grasslands a treat.

As is so often the case in this area, where the ground is steep the grasslands have escaped the ravages of fertilisers, pesticides and the plough, and still support many wild flowers, including the cowslips and early purple orchids.