February 6th 2014

I didn't take this photograph today. And those of you with a quick mind will have already discovered that fact. So why on a day when it has rained for 12 hours, when everywhere is flooded, sodden at best, have I posted a high summer photograph. Well because I stumbled across this photograph while looking for something else on the laptop. Taken last May it epitomises what I love of the Marlborough Downs, a landscape that on the 6th of February, today, I drove over looking grey, cold, waterlogged and as though the entire lifeblood had drained out of it. But nature is resilient, really resilient and in a few months when the sun has risen again to provide a bit of warmth the poppies of Wiltshire will once again flower over the chalk downland. I shall look forward to that day. I posted this photograph on Twitter and within an hour over 12 retweets plus half a dozen comments, all saying it has cheered them up on a day when it seemed rain was the only element on earth. And for that I'm glad.