Brasside Ponds

[shewhomust]

We were at work this morning when Meg rang to say she was taking the dog up to Brasside Ponds, there were lots of dragonflies, did we want to meet her there? There's work to be done, but the sun was shining, we haven't seen Meg in ages, we said "Yes."

Brasside Ponds are a SSSI, an unlikely scrap of post-industrial nature reserve. Once there were clay pits (presumably supplying the local brickworks with their raw material); now there's a tangle of pools half lost in woodland, tucked into a patch of land beside the prison. Every now and then as you walk round you catch a glimpse of high walls beyond the trees.

But mostly you see trees and birds and water, so dappled together that it's hard to tell one from the other: here's a pretty puzzle of ducks; a pair of swans swam up to inspect us, and having ascertained that we were harmless, brought the family in to the shallows. It felt very tranquil, to be picking our way along the little path that clings to the water's edge, through patchy light and shade, and watching the birds gliding peacefully across the blue water (that line across the middle of the picture? that's not a scratch, it's the wake of a moorhen).