A walk in the woods by the lake

Driving to a bowls competition this morning was frustrating as I when I arrived in the village of St Tréphine, due to them replacing all the pavements with pavers and generally sprucing up the place, it wasn’t possible to carry on through to reach St Gelven.   Finally, I found a route going towards Gouarec and back to the village hall but only just scraped in to the competition on time. 

Coming back home I decided to take a different route, through Plussulien and then to drive to the Bois de Beaucours and walk down to the lake as it was such a lovely sunny day. 

 

 

 

 

Just before you arrive there is a tiny chapel, oratory, on the side of the lane built in 1669.

 

I parked the Land Rover on the roadside at the entrance to the woods and set off.  About five minutes later about 20-25 walkers approached and I had to say “Bonjour” the same amount of times!  They were the last people I saw before I finished my walk 1¾hrs later. 

 

 

 

 

 Here's a horse chestnut trying to break out of its case.

 

 

I started off by going up a steep path signed Roches de Guingamp, but never found the rocks.   When I got back home, my neighbour said that the huge rocks were about 2 kms up the path, so I hadn't gone far enough. I eventually came back down and walked along the lakeside. 

 

 

The uneven and narrow path was inset with tree roots and walking in places was quite tricky.   The sunlight backlighting the pale green leaves overhanging the lake was really pretty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was almost no sound, hardly any birds, just me rustling through the rust-coloured leaves on the ground.   There were fewer fungi around than I thought there would be.  I liked the Autumn leaves floating on the water.

 

 

Then suddenly, without warning, the most wonderful thing.  I saw my first ever kingfisher - an iridescent blue flash as he left the lake and flew out of sight.  I waited for about ten minutes crouching quietly and hidden but he didn’t appear again.  Something like that just lifts me for the rest of the day – wonderful.  

It seems that there is not a path going the whole way round the lake so I ended up on the lane again and walked just over half a mile uphill back to the welcome sight of the car.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back home again I went up to the field to collect eggs.  The hens have been showing me who's boss and are refusing to lay in their new nesting box array.  Instead they have laid in a totally new place in a fairly inaccessible corner of the barn where the garden tools are kept.   One lovely surprise is that my newly adopted ducks have started laying which I certainly wasn't expecting at this time of year.

Here is a photo of my surrogate hatching bantam and her two babies.

 

Below is a photo of the empty seven nut hazelnut cluster which I picked at the weekend - I thought it was rather attractive.  

Three things I like:

 

1.   Being able to walk for so long through the woods and remembering that just three years ago I wasn't physically able to walk more than 20 metres and with canes.

2.   Playing bowls with friends this morning.

3.   The Jamaica ginger cake I'm eating now, thickly spread with butter ...