The long cold winter seems a long time ago as we have endured a vintage summer with plenty of sunshine and high temperatures. As summer begins its decent into autumn so begins the harvesting of the wheat fields at work. Having worked at Medmenham for 13 years I more and more appreciate such things and it reminds me of childhood adventures at Littlewick Shown on the August bank holiday weekend when the straw bales were used as benches and it was always a great adventure for us children whilst the parents were busily involved in the horse show section. Mum being a keen horse woman ran the horse show section for many years with dad helping out with the gymkhana section. Every year the weekend before the show we would go up and help set up things which was probably more fun than the show itself for us children as we were able to ride in the back of trucks and even have a go at driving them as we got a little older. Bales of straw will always remind me of those days.
In many ways when I look for a shot that represents an English summer this gets pretty close with the bale in the foreground in nice contrast to the bales in the distance. This post harvest period will not last too long as pretty soon the fields will be ploughed and being prepared for next year's crop.
It's always interesting to get a different view on things and by literally having my camera on the ground I was able to get right up close to the stalks left after harvesting. I didn't even spot the fine webbing until I transferred the photos to my computer.
What a summer it has been if you are a Brit... It started off with the British Lions winning in Australia and nicely finished off with England retaining the Ashes at cricket. Let's not forget Justin Rose winning the US Open and Mo Farah a double world champion. Pretty soon these achievements will all be nestling into history and we will no doubt be enduring harsh and extreme winter conditions and counting down the days until next summer.
