Shipley - again!

Another sunny afternoon saw us out at Shipley Country Park again. It wasn't many weeks since we were there, but spring has progressed a lot.










What we'd specifically gone to see were the daffodils, so after a brief look at Mapperley reservoir, we headed up the hill towards the site of the old hall.

The surrounding country park has been re-landscaped after open-cast mining, but the small hill on which the hall stood was left untouched, and snowdrops, daffodils and bluebells still grow under the trees there.

This is only a short walk so Dylan was able to come along, and, as I stopped a lot to take photographs, he had chance for a rest (or several)

We've visited Shipley many many times but these small blue flowers were a surprise. I think they're scilla siberica (Siberian squill), and I've seen photos in bulb-selling catalogues of them spreading and forming a blue carpet in spring - maybe some previous owners of Shipley Hall had hoped for this, but now there's only half a dozen small clumps.

As almost always, we'd visited in late afternoon, as we we headed back down Horsepool Hill the shadows were lengthening and a rather dramatic sunset ended the day.