A Walk Around Colemere

Hello, thank you for calling in.  We are at the end of the first week of the Easter holidays here and it's been a funny old week.  We have brought The Mathematician home from university and spent 3 days helping The Teacher and Flashman with the garden in their new house and today I was itching to get out somewhere so the Best Beloved, The Mathematician, her friend and I drove here -

 

 

It looks like a lake but it's not a lake, it's a mere, because it has no infall or outfall of water: it's a hole created at the end of the Ice Age when a glacier retreated and it's fed by rainwater.  So there.  It looks like this -

 

 

We started off on the boardwalk across the meadow -

 

 

which was entirely necessary because the ground was this wet -

 

 

The water in the mere is beautifully clear -

 

 

Then we entered the woodland which surrounds the rest of the mere.  It was absolutely full of lovely birdsong but arborially speaking, there was very little sign that spring has sprung.  There was no green leafage to speak of, but there were catkins among the cones on this alder -

 

 

 

The walk around the mere is flat and easy but at one point you can go up steps at the back of the woods and arrive on the towpath of the Shropshire Union Canal.  Obviously, we couldn't resist that -

 

 

I just saw a narrowboat rounding the bend, too late to photograph it.  Grrr!  In the other direction was a bridge, number 54 -

 

 

Then it was back down into the woods.  There were lots of wood anemones -

 

 

and lesser celandine -

 

 

It took us two hours to complete our circuit of the mere.  We saw mallards, a pair of geese and a swan but none of the more "exotic" birds which are apparently seen here, eg. great crested grebes.  However, we all enjoyed ourselves very much and the only money spent was on petrol.  It felt SO GOOD to be in the great outdoors, not too cold, in good company, stretching our legs, enjoying our cameras (three between four of us!) and feeling the fresh air on my face.  I do love living in Shropshire.

 

On the way home we stopped the car to allow a daft partridge to cross the road.  I have never seen one before.  Well, not a live one, anyway. 

 

Love, Mrs Tiggywinkle x