Monday 21 June 2010

variable damselflies




Out and about for Midsummer, we rumbled through Bath and down to Farleigh Hungerford, to go swimming in the river. There's been a swimming club there for some time, and there are some nicely rudimentary changing cubicles into which we entered, brushing through the overhanging branches, to find an owl pellet on the bench inside. We were the only ones using the changing facility; lots of people were dressed as for swimming, but were industriously stoking away at barbecues and gaz stoves, cooking Sunday lunches of singed meat, the smell of which hung in the air. A large party of East Europeans threw a beach ball around, and managed to carry off that singular look which I had thought only the British can really manage- looking pallid and unhealthy in bathing gear.

In the river, though, all was peaceful, apart from the wild insect sex that was happening among the variable damselflies. I went and fetched my camera, wading in up to my neck to get this picture and hoping to heck that I didn't fall over.

The Traveller's gearbox made horrid noises in third gear all the way there and all the way back, so I tried not to use third gear. Today I must look into replacing the gearbox. Oh dear.



8 comments:

  1. Great photo Dru. This is where your camera leaves mine behind ;-)

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  2. Well worth risking your camera for.

    You had better weather than we did.

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  3. Wow that looks like fun! The killjoy local council hereabouts removed all their changing cubicles years ago. Doesn't stop people using the bathing places though :)

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  4. Beautiful shot, dru!

    @ Jenny

    Re: Wow that looks like fun!


    What? The swimming, or the group sex?

    Melissa XX

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  5. God i am so jealous! Lioved in Bath many many years back. So miss it. Frome. Somerset. Bristol.



    jane
    xx

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  6. ...at the riverbank, Jo? :-)

    I am pretty glad that I didn't slip, though, all things considered, Anji; did have a wobble at one point...

    Sound like the small god of Elfin Safety at work again, Jenny. We were swimming in Henleaze Lake on Monday, another swimming club in a disused quarry, with really nice old changing rooms. And blackbirds sang an accompaniment to the swim, and a hawk was squawking too. My fave sort of swimming pool...

    Hi Melissa! Good point, though damselfly sex looks a bit uncomfortable to the outsider. Still felt a bit voyeuristic though.

    Thank you, Mandy. Do you ever get into them Welsh rivers over there? I want to explore the Monnow's swimming sometime. And I wonder if the Ebbw is canoeable these days without the canoe melting?

    It's hard to think of a place I'd rather live, Jane...

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  7. Both great photos, Dru. Katie makes waves!

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