Today is Easter Sunday and I make an early start, heading for Thixendale.
After a frosty night the sun shone, finding me driving past fields of young, acid green, spring wheat.
Driving slowly, down the steep descent into Thixendale, the first thing to see is a cluster of roofs huddled in the valley bottom, as if held in the palm of a hand and looking like a tiny model village and breathtakingly beautiful. As I parked a farmer passed with a small stock trailer heading for the cricket ground. Getting loaded up with my rucksack, George on lead, I walk the 'Centenary Way' footpath, aiming to stop on the ridge above Court Dale where, with a friend, I had seen this view a few days before. As I set off, a short diversion was required, due to a non friendly dog stile, which took me to the Burdale road. I saw the huge, sad stumps of cut down ash trees in the hedge. A man working nearby, his small quad loaded with fencing equipment comes over ...'nah den' I say, he replies and we chat. I mentioned the ash trees and he says they are suffering so much, pointing to a young copse highlighting their sick colour and absence of leaves at the tops. I agreed about the latter but was unaware of the former. He had seen photographs of the village from 1905 saying, with a little awe that the ash trees were huge, even then. He and others had tried to count the rings but had had to give up and suggesting they could be 300 years old. I thought of the 1773 Parliament Inclosure Act, passed in the time of George III, which is still law, wondering if the ash trees had been planted then, while their stumps remain their story lives on. As we talked a vehicle passed, registration PH35ANT, I remembered the last time I had seen it over at Warter, and I reflected how important the Game industry is here. The man, looking across to the hillside, says he hopes the fence will keep the newly released sheep and lambs off the cricket pitch. We then talk about the dew ponds and how he was involved in helping create them. I mention the spring fed pond at Burdale and the absence of frogspawn, telling him how S was upset, I told him that when we had spoken I simply said to her 'newts' making her eye me suspiciously. "Yes", he replied, " the small dew pond near Robert Fullers must have had 300 of them in it, where they came from I don't know, but of course they don't need water." We move on to the topic of hedging. A friend of mine is a traditional hedger who 'lays' hedges and so I am interested. He tells me how he laid the hedge where we stand but regrets the fact that grants stipulated only eighty per cent of the hedge could be hawthorn, the rest made up of guilder rose, blackthorn etc. Blackthorn is problematic due to it's tendency to throw up suckers away from the hedge, which of course need to be controlled. After more conversation covering buzzards, kites and barn owls, we talked about the poor performance of Scot's Pine and Corsican Pine here, and that Larch grows much better, I move on finding myself dreaming of owning a wood. Walking past the pheasant pens, I climb up to the ridge above Court Dale. Here the wind is rather fierce and I wonder if it is possible to paint at all. I eventually find a place with a view and set up. The wind makes me hold the paint box to prevent it being blown over. People begin to appear walking the footpath, we say hello and smile. Some stop to chat including a couple from Hessle and another from Beverley. I like the chalk white track which seems out of place but nevertheless adds interest. The valley is part of the Raisthorpe Manor Estate and managed to provide conservation, bird rearing and game shooting, but they also market a range of drinks, gifts and my favourite, cream tea hampers. I finish the painting aiming to return to the car but find myself continuing on the circular walk. Eventually, I stop at Vessey Pasture...where I try another painting which will the next post.
Plein air oil painting, oil on canvas board, 12x10 supplied in plain white frame, POA, details here .
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