Staple Plain

It was a beautiful sunny winter's day yesterday, and we headed to Somerset for a Sunday lunch. After food we went to Staple Plain for a walk, where until very recently Rhododendron Valley (or Vinny Coombe) was full of rhododendrons. Apparently they have been giving diseases to all the native trees, so gone are the flowers, and many many trees too, restoring the landscape to the way it would have originally looked years ago. The views up here are panoramic. You can see as far as Wales ahead, Glastonbury Tor to the east and Exmoor to the west. On the way home we stopped to see the deer at Alfoxton Drive, this time spotting around 60, but a little too far away to resemble anything other than brown blobs to me.
It was such a clear day. We were lucky. I thought that again as I cycled home from work today in the hailstones and gale force winds.