The Great Outdoors

Yesterday was one of those rare beautiful summer days that you would not want to change in any way. It was warm without being oppressively hot, the sky was blue with hardly a cloud in the sky and there was a light wind to cool the brow.

So went for a walk, this is a rare enough occurrence for me to blog about even if it had been raining dank and miserable.

Near by where I live there is a river with pleasant paths along it and park land near by. Walking along the river you have to cross weirs that link the river to the flood ponds that have been built as part of the flood defences.

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Further upstream there a lock so we went up there to see if there were any boats going through it. I've always been fascinated with locks, when I was little we would often visit canals when we were on holiday in South Western England, we would stop at a set of locks that would have a pub nearby wait for a barge to arrive at the lock, my brother and I would rush to the "driver" of the boat asking "can we help you Mister, can we can we?" We would happily push open or close the lock gates until our parents got bored of this entertainment and we went back home.

Fortunately there was a boat going through.



It was fun watching as they opened and closed gates to adjust the water's height

. The chap is not wearing a borg costume as I first thought it was a diving suit, he had been diving in the river earlier on but by the time I took the photo he must have been quietly melting.

Lucky it was such a sunny day could see where the opening was in the lock gate.

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On the way back to home crossed across one of the flood plains, currently it is fully of cows.



But come heavy rainfall the meadow resembles a lake instead.

It was a beautiful day.