The Great Estuary, or Burgh Castle

Posted on June 21, 2026 by crispina kemp

10th June 2026. My birthday. But the weather god doesn’t care about that; it’s going to rain late morning. This calls for a change of plan. We were going to walk out to Burgh Castle, along Breydon bank, to have lunch in the village pub. But will we get there before the rain? No chances taken, we take a bus instead and we’ll walk just the Burgh end of Breydon. Please join us but remember to bring wet weather wear! Let’s go…

10th June 2026

The Roman fort at Burgh Castle, Gariannum, dates to C3rd. Our east coast faces Netherlands and Denmark, the Saxon lands back in the day. Thus this ‘fort’ was  recorded as a Saxon Shore fort. Was it a fort? Or a place for holding incoming wares prior to distribution throughout Norfolk and Suffolk? For it sits on the shores of the Great Estuary 🔽

My Map

10th June 2026

🔼 Whatever its original purpose, coming at it from the estuary there are steps to climb 🔽 which deliver you into this wide open place

10th June 2026

10th June 2026

🔼 Walls remain along three of the sides, in quite good condition considering its age 🔽

10th June 2026

10th June 2026

🔼 The view from here is fantastic. So easy to imagine it as a ‘great estuary, fed by the  three rivers, with Roman boats carry supplies upriver, and probably Saxon boats heading in to trade with the Romans

10th June 2026

🔼 The confluence of the Yare, Broads cruiser in view 🔽 Looking back from Breydon bank to the Roman castle, lost amongst those trees

10th June 2026

10th June 2026

🔼 Time was, and not so long ago, the marshes beside Breydon were famed for their sweet grazing, cattle driven from Scotland just to graze here. Now a horse-rescue charity leases the land and the rescued horses have their freedom there 🔽 Geese raise their goslings across these marshes, safe amongst the wild-grown grasses

10th June 2026

10th June 2026

🔼 Breydon bank, heading towards Great Yarmouth 🔽 Tide’s outgoing. During the winter months the resultant mudflats swarm with waders of all sizes, but now they’re away in their breeding grounds. Instead, pleasure cruisers chug along the deepest channel. And it looks like the rain won’t be long

10th June 2026

10th June 2026

🔼 The rain catches up with us – and with it a strong bluster of wind. But not till we’ve left Breydon bank. Now we’re heading back to the village. Pub will be open soon 🔽 With my camera tucked away, out of the rain, I have to resort to my phone-camera, which isn’t so good. But I can’t miss these foxgloves suddenly shining out in an otherwise dark copse

10th June 2026

I hope you enjoyed. Sorry you couldn’t stay to enjoy the lunch. Don’t miss Tuesday’s crop of photos, and again this week, Friday Flyers!

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Nature’s Treasure

Posted on June 20, 2026 by crispina kemp

29th April 2026

Don’t look so high into the sky
That isn’t where the pretty birds fly
No butterflies flutter up so high
The sky’s the domain of mostly raptors
Hook beaked determined flesh-eating predators
Cast your eyes low
That’s the way to go
There’s where the flowers grow
Golden and sapphire blue
Beneath the arching rainbow
That’s where to find the lasting pleasure
Nature’s eternal treasure

64 words written for Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Rainbow

Posted in Poems (Some Silly), Prompt | Tagged , , | 19 Comments

Friday Flyers

Posted on June 19, 2026 by crispina kemp

This is usually a walk with plentiful butterflies, but not this day. Yet here are those we did see along our walk on 1st June 2026

1st June 2026

1st June 2026

🔼 ⏫ Painted Ladies are everywhere this year! 🔽 Though some look a little worse for wear!

1st June 2026

1st June 2026

🔼 This lovely bright winged flyer is a Gatekeeper 🔽 And the speckled winged flyer hiding deep amongst the leaves is a Speckled Wood

1st June 2026

Now for the other flyers…

1st June 2026

🔼 Red-headed Cardinal Beetle 🔽 Fat-thighed Green Bug (seriously)

1st June 2026

🔽 Not yet able to fly, these caterpillars belong to the Small Egger Moth (according to Google). There are loads more inside that protective web

1st June 2026

That’s all I have today. Maybe we’ll have more butterflies next week! See you then

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CCC091: All Over Buzzing With Excitation

Posted on June 18, 2026 by crispina kemp

Oh, look!
Lulabelle looked at her mother
Eyes so wide
Leaping, clapping
Now flying high
All-over buzzing with excitation
Lulabelle spread her hands in mystification
What?
The flowers
The flowers
The flowers
Lulabelle sniffed
Then snorted
They’d no pretty scent
Not fit for a fairy’s bower
The crown
The crown
Our queen shall have a red crown
The queen?
Aye, the queen
We shall have a queen again
Now the pimpernel again is found

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge, Photos, Poems (Some Silly), Prompt | Tagged , , , , | 17 Comments

Crimson’s Creative Challenge #091

Posted on June 17, 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 , , , | 19 Comments

Tuesday Treats: Poppies, Roses and More

Posted on June 16, 2026 by crispina kemp

Here for your enjoyment, some of the flowers seen on our walk on 1st June 2026…

1st June 2026

Setting the theme for the day 🔼 a beautiful Dog Rose 🔽 and an Opium Poppy, garden escapee

1st June 2026

1st June 2026

🔼 More Dog Roses 🔽 loads more Poppies, these ones proper wild ones though mostly faded!

1st June 2026

1st June 2026

🔼 One of the many species of Cranesbill 🔽 Bramble flowers

1st June 2026

1st June 2026

Two specialists of the arable field 🔼 Pineapple weed, a cousin to chamomile; it smells just like pineapple when trodden upon, and I do enjoy standing on it 🔽 Scarlet Pimpernel. It became scarce for many years. So good to see it making a healthy come back

1st June 2026

1st June 2026

Poppies 🔼🔽⏬ where they belong, amongst the wheat and barley

1st June 2026

1st June 2026

1st June 2026

🔼 White Bryony clambering over what’s possibly a replanted Christmas tree. That’ll look fantastic with the berries, come late summer and autumn 🔽 Young Oak leaves showing us a full range of colours

1st June 2026

That’s all for now folks. A completely different walk next week. Meanwhile don’t forget Friday Flyers!

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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

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

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

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 💖

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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 , , | 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 , , | 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

27th May 2026

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

27th May 2026

27th May 2026

🔼 Peacock, trying to hide

27th May 2026

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

27th May 2026

27th May 2026 

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

27th May 2026

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!

 

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