On Christmas Day we drove over Wenlock Edge to Little Stretton to spend the day with our family. It was a bright and chilly day, but as I climbed the steep steps to my sister’s home I saw the spring bulbs already emerging in her terraced beds and some frisky pink primroses freshly opened. The house is perched on a lower flank of the Long Mynd and overlooks Ragleth Hill. So while the turkey was roasting, I stood out on the deck and took these photos, watched a pair of buzzards who live in the garden’s larch trees waft over in the stillness.

And now I’m thinking that these views are rather apt for Jude’s new challenge at Travel Words. She wants us to think about colour through the coming year, and in January that colour is brown: earth shades.

The close-up above was a very ‘long shot’, but I like the way the sun glints off the bare branches of the dark wood; the layers of russet leaves and bracken and the deeper soily looking browns among the ash trees. It could well be a candidate for Jabberwocky’s tulgey wood. It also reminds me of one of those ‘heavy’ Victorian oil paintings – Arcadia seemingly overdone with every expectation of rustic maids and shepherds popping up. But here it is. No time-slipped lads and lasses, just a piece of real Shropshire landscape.

Square Up #5

Becky is keeping us ‘upspired’ during trying times. Interpret ‘up’ anyway you like, but keep it sUPer square.

Life in Colour: brown   Jude at Travel Words wants us to really pay attention to colour. This month she asks us to explore shades of brown.