crispina kemp

Sunday Picture Post: Arable Ways

Posted on June 14, 2026 by crispina kemp

1st June 2026 breaks as another fair day. Yay! Cos I know exactly where I want to walk this morning, an arable landscape liberally peppered with wild roses and poppies. It’ll take us two buses to reach our starting point of Brooke, but we’re happy with that. Please come along with us, no need to bring food, we’ll be lunching at a local pub. Enjoy…

1st June 2026

🔼 First to greet us is a lane full of wild roses. I could fill the entire post with these photos… but no matter how lovely, they’d eventually outlive their welcome

1st June 2026

So many of our walks take us through farmers’ yards 🔼 Not sure what this piece of vintage equipment is. Perhaps used for sowing seeds? 🔽 These sheds probably began life was barns, maybe pig-sheds or for chickens. I think now they’ve an industrial use, but it’s those tanks catch my eye

1st June 2026

🔼 Leafy green lanes are fantastic for finding wild flowers 🔽 What we find can be seen on Tuesday; for now, we enjoy this clover field. Clover is used to fix nitrogen in the soil, to return it to full fertility without the use of nasty chemicals

1st June 2026

🔼 We find several fields apparently left fallow, yet heaving with clovers 🔽 I love this view through the trees as we follow a narrow path along the edge of a woods

1st June 2026

🔼 Some of the trees here must surely date to the Georgian era. Back in the day, landowners were encouraged to plant trees for shipbuilding, but most were never used. By the time they’d matured metal had taken its place 🔽 This is clay-land, it has to be drained if its to support crops, hence ditches form the field boundaries. This one is dry

1st June 2026

🔽 The sky is clouding over, I hope it’s not to rain. And I swear, were it not for those trees lining the lane ahead, this wheat field would look more like the sea now the wind is rising!

1st June 2026

🔽 Roses, and poppies, everywhere…

1st June 2026

🔽 I’m happy to see this skeletal tree for it marks the lane that’ll take us to that pub, for lunch and a cold, thirst-quenching drink. That cloud-covered sky is holding in the heat and making the air…murky!

1st June 2026

Hope you enjoyed our walk through the arable countryside. More photos on Tuesday AND ‘flyers on Friday’.

See you then 💖

Posted in Photos | Tagged Norfolk Walks, Photos | 25 Comments

Ringing the Changes

Posted on June 13, 2026 by crispina kemp

Image credit: Peggy Lachmann-Anke on Pixabay

When I started this blog, my avatar was a spider’s web. Truly, it was

In 2020, I changed from web to person. Wow, here I am, look! Blurry, it wasn’t the best of phone-cameras.

Year 2020. It was a good year, the year I was 69. But that was to change. There followed four years of high level stress… from which I’m delighted to say I’m now recovered.

So, now’s time to change again.

Me at my 75th birthday. This is the pic I’ll use for my avatar…for the next few years

Posted in Photos, Uncategorized | Tagged Avatar, Photos, Update | 34 Comments

I Say A Prayer

Posted on June 13, 2026 by crispina kemp

I say a prayer, cast up to heaven
Not for a white knight, fast horse
Though that’d be nice, of course
But for those moments of solitude
For those I give my gratitude

33 words written for Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Solitude

Posted in Poems (Some Silly), Prompt | Tagged poems, Prompts, Sammi's Weekend Writing Prompt | 14 Comments

Friday Flyers

Posted on June 12, 2026 by crispina kemp

Some of the winged beings seen during our walk on 27th May 2026. Enjoy.

27th May 2026

🔼 Painted Lady, flying in abundance this year!!! 🔽

27th May 2026

🔼 Red Admiral, posing 🔽 Green-veined White, lover of the waterways

27th May 2026

🔼 Peacock, trying to hide

27th May 2026

Two oddities: 🔼 Yellow-banded Longhorn moth 🔽 Scorpion Fly

27th May 2026

Some bugs: 🔼 Dock Bug 🔽 Red-and-black Froghopper

27th May 2026

And finally 🔼 A Common Carder Bee and 🔽 A Pheasant in hiding

27th May 2026

Hope you enjoyed. More butterflies are flying now. But that doesn’t mean I’m getting more butterfly photos. They’re going through that camera-shy stage!

Posted in Photos | Tagged British Bees, British Birds, British Bugs, British Butterflies | 20 Comments

CCC090: June’s Flower

Posted on June 11, 2026 by crispina kemp

Me: I claim this rose as mine

Friend: Yeah? Why?

Me: Because June is my birth month, and June’s flower is the rose

Friend: Mmm. Fine, I can get with that. But that makes you a Gemini, forever young, so a bud would be more fitting

Me: But I’m not young. I unfurled my petals long ago. I’ve seen life. I’ve lived life. Now, like this rose, I am relaxed. Confident. Poised. Thus, that rose is mine.

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge, Photos, Prompt | Tagged #CCC090, Crimson's Creative Challenge, Photo, Prompt | 27 Comments

Crimson’s Creative Challenge #090

Posted on June 10, 2026 by crispina kemp

Every Wednesday I’ll post FOUR photos (if you want to get a head start you’ll find them marked in that week’s Sunday Picture Post and Tuesday Treats). Lots of choice!

And here they are:

You respond with something CREATIVE. Perhaps an answering photo, or micro-fiction, or a poem, or just a caption

As before, there are only two criteria:

!!!!! Your creative offering is indeed yours !!!!!

!!!!! Your writing is kept to 150 words or less !!!!!

If you post a link in the comments section of this post I’ll be able to find it.

Here’s wishing you inspirational explosions. And FUN

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge, Photos, Prompt | Tagged #CCC090, Crimson's Creative Challenge, Photos, Prompt | 23 Comments

Tuesday Treats: Fen Veg and More

Posted on June 9, 2026 by crispina kemp

More more more photos from our walk on 27th May 2026. Enjoy!!!

27th May 2026

🔼 A wonderful thistle, standing proud amongst the fen grasses

27th May 2026

🔼 Red campion, entangled with the grasses 🔽 Ragged robin, bravely standing clear of the grass around it

27th May 2026

🔼 I offer no apology for the photos of Dame’s Violet. I love that colour 🔽

27th May 2026

🔼 Waterside plants, yellow flag. And not all blue flowers are forget-me-not. The darker blue are brooklime, a species of speedwell 🔽

27th May 2026

🔼 Dog roses in abundance 🔽⏬

27th May 2026

🔼 Grass is a flowering plant. See all that pollen. Oops, a-cho!🔽

27th May 2026

That’s all for today, my friends. Don’t forget to check out Friday Flyers.

Posted in Photos | Tagged British Flora, Photos | 23 Comments

Sunday Picture Post: Fen-Meadows Walk

Posted on June 7, 2026 by crispina kemp

27th May 2026 and the weather’s getting uncomfortably hot. So we pick a walk that’s going to be short. Although having to travel half-way across county does make for a full day out. We’re going to a water-meadow on the outskirts of Dereham. So let’s hop on that bus! Please come with us…

27th May 2026

🔼To reach the fen needs a short walk through town – where I see, in a barber’s window, these great guys. Thinking of this week’s Creative Challenge, I can’t walk past and not take a photo! 🔽 Almost there, and close to Dereham church is Bishop Bonner’s house, now a museum. Bonner, better known as Bloody Bonner, was a staunch Catholic during the period of persecution of Protestants, but the museum is a celebration of local history and archaeology

27th May 2026

🔼 The unique vegetation of a fen-meadow. Not for straying willy-nilly, it’s a bit squelchy underfoot. But well-kept paths ensure walkers’ feet stay dry 🔽 An example of the typical plant community, and a hint of the challenge that presents the photographer

27th May 2026

🔼 Time was when water meadows were deliberately flooded to ensure sweet grazing grasses in the summer. Those same channels now drain the fen so we keen walkers can remain dry shod! 🔽 They also encourage the water-loving plants

27th May 2026

🔼 Not all is soggy fen. Here are areas of woodland, some old and, like these oaks, some young

27th May 2026

🔼 The dog rose isn’t fussy about where she plants her feet, and when trees block her light she’ll scramble past the obstruction 🔽

27th May 2026

🔼 Nature’s gardener has a preference for mixed planting! Here’s Garlic Mustard (flowers done, now leaves begin to lose their green and turn to beige), Dame’s Violet, Forget-me-nots and buttercups 🔽

27th May 2026

🔼 More of those meadows, focusing on the grasses and the trees that hug this land, providing homes for birds and to keep the town at bay 🔽

27th May 2026

And that, my friends, is all for now. We’re heading back to town for a light bite lunch, then the bus back to the coast. Hope you enjoyed. More photos in Tuesday Treats. And this week we again have Friday Flyers!