The Indecisive Stream

I lived for many years in a village where a slow, cautious river edged its way through green fields in a series of unhurried loops and meanders. There was often a church tower loitering among the trees on the horizon too.

But not this church, or this river or these meadows - not too far away though.

And if you become interested in birdwatching around here, you soon gravitate towards the many flooded gravel pits along the flood plains of the rivers. So when my brother and I visited the nature reserve at Godmanchester recently, I was in familiar scenery, even though my boots had never encountered these particular muddy paths before. I nearly didn't post these pictures, but I realise that I have readers from far and wide, and what is utterly familiar to me may be exotic to those elsewhere.

We were in the wake of Storm Dudley, which had passed by on the previous day, and we were yet to meet with Storm Eunice, who threatened to cause untold damage in the next few hours. Even so it was mighty windy with little to hamper the chill blast in this open countryside.

As it turned out Eunice passed with winds touching hurricane force, but did not cause me any great inconvenience. The next day I picked up some twigs and dead leaves in my yard and moved a large piece of roofing felt from the car parking spaces outside, but that was all.

However it was rather more dramatic for a man out walking his dog just half a mile down the road; a huge tree fell on them, trapping them beneath its branches. Remarkably, although they had to be freed by emergency services, they escaped relatively unharmed.

Anyway, back to our walk. The watercourse above is unusual for two reasons: firstly it's called Cook's Stream and, although this is a country full of streams, there are very few that have "stream" as part of their name; secondly it flows from the River Great Ouse, follows a squiggly course of its own design, divides in two, then both arms flow back into the main river a little further downstream. Even when rivers are as indecisive as they are around here, that's an odd thing to do.

We were looking for birds of course, in particular a Black-necked Grebe that's been here for a while. It's probably still there, but we didn't see it.

In fact my main "achievement" of the day was to get totally baffled by the network of footpaths hereabouts - how can you get misplaced walking around a small lake? Easy, just don't pay any attention to the map.

It was a morning to enjoy the familiar sights: crooked willow trees, rambling brambles, circuitous streams, muddy meadows and falling-down fences. There was even a disheveled shed to admire and photograph.