25 September 2016

Rainbow

When the chicken was in our oven, I drove up nearby Ringinglow Road, out into the countryside. Five minutes by car. No long country walk was planned. Just ten minutes of fresh air in the afternoon sunshine before returning home to get on with our Sunday dinner.

There's an orientation table at the junction of Fulwood Lane and Greenhouse Lane. From there you can see for miles. On a really clear day you can see Lincoln Cathedral which is forty three miles away and The Humber Bridge which is sixty miles away. Though pretty clear today, the visibility was insufficient to make out those distant landmarks - even with the binoculars I had brought along.

A woman in red came jogging up the lane just after a brief rain shower had passed over. I recognised her from the Oxfam shop where I work on Wednesdays. She arrived at the orientation table just as a rainbow formed magically to the north east of us, framing the natural  bowl in which Sheffield is situated.

I grabbed my camera from the car seat and tried to capture the moment but the rainbow was too big to fit inside a normal camera shot so I switched to the panoramic function and snapped the picture you see at the top of this post. Rainbows don't last for long. You have to get them while you can.

The woman from the shop asked if I had any water in my car. I gave her a fresh bottle and refused the coins she tried to press into my hand before she carried on with her run.

I crossed the road to watch some cows grazing in a field. Two middle aged women in walking boots appeared, strolling along from Ringinglow. They were planning to follow the public footpath through the cow field but when they spotted the beasts within they were unusually apprehensive.

The smaller woman asked me if they were dangerous.

I replied, "Well, you haven't got a dog with you so you'll have no trouble. Just keep away from the calves".

My reassurance appeared to fall on deaf ears because after mounting the stile they attempted to take a ridiculously circuitous route past the cows which meant they ended up in a very boggy area down by the stream. The cows seemed bemused, watching the antics of these two over-anxious women in dumbfounded bovine silence.

For all I know the two walkers are still in that field because I didn't see them leave it. Behind me he rainbow had already dissolved completely and I had potatoes to peel and cauliflower cheese to prepare.

27 comments:

  1. The bull probably discovered them! And a new Running with the Bulls has begun in Yorkshire!

    People never listen...surely you've discovered that by now! :) They ask the questions but never really listen to the answer...or take heed.

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    1. I have walked through hundreds of cow pastures. It was funny to see how nervous those two women were.

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  2. Rainbows are always a nice surprise.

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    1. Somewhere over the rainbow bluebirds fly.

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  3. Some people don't get out enough when they are afraid of cows! I hope the dinner was fine after all that .

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    1. The dinner was perfect - with roasted carrots, mashed potato, cauliflower cheese and of course beautiful Yorkshire puddings.

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  4. Wow...that's a great shot! I've never seen a rainbow end to end before.

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    1. Come on Chris. Surely they had rainbows back in Connecticut.

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  5. Is that Ringin Glow or Ringing Low?

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    1. You spotted my deliberate mistake Jan. It's Ringinglow.

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  6. Rainbows are indeed difficult to capture on camera, but you managed very well! (as you always do)
    When it comes to cows, I am not afraid of them, but I am aware of them being much stronger and faster than myself - so if they wanted to (and who knows what ideas pass through a cow's mind?), they could seriously harm me. Therefore, I am very cautious when crossing a field with cows on it, and avoid it when I can.

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    1. I have exactly the same attitude to cows. My pulse rate increases as I pass them. They sometimes look at me funny, as if to say, "What the hell are you doing in our field?"

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  7. I would give cows a wide berth too…... I can't run very fast these days!
    I also " work" in our local Oxfam bookshop once a week. ( and do the banking twice a week . I was a shoe in for that job, having spent my working life in a bank!) I chose the book shop as I didn't fancy sorting through old clothes.

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    1. I also have to do the bank run Frances but I have always hated adding up figures and accounting. I am very happy when the money tallies exactly with the print offs from the till.

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  8. Cows are strange creatures. I will quite happily help direct 300 cows on a farm to or from milking because they know that you are in charge. Walk through a field of cows that are strangers and have calves at heel and you're never quite sure: a confident air is essential because cows can sense that. I recall reading that a bull will never attack you if you have your feet off the ground. I've never been convinced when I meet a bull that he's read the same book.

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    1. Every year ramblers are killed by cows. It is wise to be careful when passing through a cow field. In the past fifteen years 74 people have been killed by cows in Great Britain but 56 of them were farm workers. Nearly all the ramblers who were killed had dogs with them.

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  9. Anonymous12:03 pm

    My cousin's best friend was stamped to death by cows last year on a public path. She had been on that path often and the cows and their calves weren't near the path when she walked. She walked quiet, didn't stop and no one knows why the cows attacked her. Imagine the shock of family and friends. Since then I see cows with very mixed feelings.

    Nevertheless a beautiful rainbow photo in a peaceful landscape.

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    1. Ugh! What an awful story Kaki. Was your cousin's best friend accompanied by a dog?

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    2. Anonymous1:54 pm

      Sorry something went wrong with my answer. I try it again. No she was unaccompanied. Ramblers had seen what happened from a distance.

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  10. Do you hire out your services as a peeler of potatoes?

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    1. I use a tip my old mother gave me - a cheese slicer - one of those with a handle and fixed blade. It makes potato peeling a doddle Mrs W..

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  11. An interesting tale. I'm not sure what an 'orientation table' is; one should never trust a cow; are 'ramblers' just people out strolling? and I wonder if potato peelings that are a 'doddle' are any tastier? You speak a strange language...are you sure we both speak English, lol?

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    1. When I was a camp counsellor in Ohio in the mid-seventies I remember having more than one argument with young American adults that they did not in fact speak "American". They spoke English.

      In England we have many public footpaths in the countryside. If your homestead was in England there would definitely be a couple of public rights of way passing through it. People who walk these paths - often for miles on end - can be described as "ramblers".

      Example orientation table on a French hill:-
      http://www.panoramio.com/photo/113153230

      Thanks for calling by once again Hilly. I hope you enjoyed the Hillary/Trump debate last night.

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  12. What a great rainbow! You seized the moment! It's never occurred to me to fear cows in a field, although I would definitely be wary of bulls.

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    1. As I said above, 74 people have been killed by cows in Britain in the last fifteen years. The number of significant injuries is probably treble that number.

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Mr Pudding welcomes all genuine comments - even those with which he disagrees. However, puerile or abusive comments from anonymous contributors will continue to be given the short shrift they deserve. Any spam comments that get through Google/Blogger defences will also be quickly deleted.

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