As summer moved on we made our August visit to Attingham Park for our monthly walk in the park. We decided to follow the Mile Walk in reverse for a change of view and as we were expecting rain later in the afternoon we kept to the shortest trail that we take. This turned out to be a wise decision because the rain started to fall when we had just a 5 minute walk back to the carpark. Our luck was in!
When we arrived we struggled to find a parking space as it was so busy being a mid-summer weekend afternoon but we found out later that it was also weekend when a special event was taking place, a Family Spectacular.
We decided to follow the One-Mile Walk in the opposite direction than the way we usually take and indeed against the signs. We are always amazed how following a path through a garden or the countryside in a reverse direction presents whole new experiences.
What struck us most as soon as we started the walk was the way the texture of tree bark was standing out. This mighty conifer was right at the start of our walk and showed it perfectly.
We also began to identify the shape of eyes on tree trunks where side boughs had fallen or been removed. This can be seen below in that same tree.
I will now share my texture photos with you in the form of a gallery and we can look at how much variety of texture and pattern we managed to find.
The almost circular scars left as a bough breaks away from the main trunk often form eye-like shapes, and on this walk we seemed to see so many. Enjoy a little selection below.
As we searched tree trunks for “eyes” we began to find other shapes and colours as well, some from Lichens and some created by the hands of woodsmen or gardeners. I will leave it up to you to work out how these creations happened.
An added and very unexpected element to our August visit was the discovery of painted stones. This stone decorated with a beautiful little flower we found in a scar of a tree and wondered what it was doing there. We soon discovered the answer by turning the stone over where we were advised to check out “Shropshire Stones” on Facebook. If you want to know more check it out.
Continuing on the creative front we made another interesting surprise discovery as we wandered through the children’s playing field on our way to the orchard and walled garden.
The Walled Garden was so colourful with the main feature being the flowers. We will look at the surprise in the playing field and the walled garden in Part 2.
greenbenchramblings 