A visit to Somerset

Last weekend John and I headed to Somerset for two days. When we visited Midsomer Quilting back in December John had put a bid on one of the 12 inch quilts on display and in mid January he heard he'd made the best bid. We needed to pick up the quilt and I needed some fabric and wadding. We were able to combine our hobbies, visiting my favourite quilt shop with some bird watching and a walk. We left London early on Friday morning, stopping on the motorway for coffee and a danish pastry. We didn't rush the journey as we always enjoy the time we spend together when travelling. 

Our first port of call was Midsomer Quilting so I could buy supplies and John could pick up his mini quilt. We spent quite some time in the shop whilst I stroked the gorgeous fabric and John drank coffee and chatted to the staff. Once we had finished at the shop we headed towards Ham Walls and Shapwick Heath, both good bird watching places. We were hoping to see the Starling murmuration We spent time over the afternoon bird watching and admiring the cattle before we decided where to wait for the starlings to arrive.

We stood near a large reed bed to await their arrival and hoped we hadn't made a wrong guess. We needn't have worried for as dusk approached the birds began to arrive. The birds flew in as small groups which gradually joined together. 

 All the time more starlings were arriving until it felt like the whole sky above us was filled with birds. This wasn't the time to remember Alfred Hitchcock's film The Birds!

 The warden for the reserve estimated there could have been half a million starling flying round above our heads. The completed several aerobatic swoops and curves. Eventually they started to prepare to go to roost, with some birds settling on the reed bed before flying off again

Finally the birds sank to the reed bed and stayed there leaving a large area of the ground black. There were so many birds they made it look like the ground had been burnt.

The afternoon proved to be a fabulous bird watching experience. We drove back to our hotel to enjoy a cup of tea before getting ready to go out for dinner. I nearly decided to miss dinner as the bed was so comfortable.

On Saturday morning, following a very delicious breakfast, we set off to Bristol for our walk. The walk started at Leigh Woods. The path took us up hill and from the summit we could see the river far below

and looking the other way we had our first sight of the Clifton suspension bridge spanning the gorge.

We were now on a level with the bridge so we circled round the summit a little further before coming to a road . This eventually led to the main road across the bridge. Looking down into the gorge the cars seemed rather small.

Although the bridge was very high it was perfectly safe walking across it.

The bridge has footpaths on either side and two lanes for traffic. There is a toll to cross the bridge to help pay for its up keep.

We climbed the hill on the other side. looking back at the bridge it was impressive to see how high it was.

At the top of the hill was the observatory. We stopped here for lunch, It was extremely windy by the observatory.

From the observatory we headed down hill past an oak tree planted to commemorate the coronation of King Edward VII

At just over 100 years of age this tree still has to grow for another two hundred years before it's fully mature.

We went back up hill to a common and then down again so we could walk under the Clifton Bridge. We had to walk through a fenced area which housed 4 goats. We saw two in the distance. Their job was to nibble the bark off the trees which would cause them to eventually die and allow the rare wild flowers that grow in this area to flourish.

We walked under the bridge and then had to climb back up so we could cross over the bridge again to get to the Leigh Woods again and so back to the car. We celebrated the completion of the walk with a cup of coffee before we drove home.

Our mini adventure was great fun. Now I need to plan our February adventure. I know where we are going but we need to decide what we want to do when we get there. 

Tomorrow I'll up date you on the sewing that's been happening around here. Now I'm off to bed for a good nights sleep. Last night was rather disturbed due to the wind and the rain but tonight the weather is much calmer. My younger brother lives further north and he has had snow today but we just got rain. 

Lyndsey