Tag Archives: Longstock

What Do These Do in the River?

I have shared a photograph of this location on the blog previously. It is a lovely spot on the River Test near Longstock. There are these mesh funnels on the bridge across the river. They are above the water level so I was wondering what they could be for. It isn’t obvious to me that they can be lowered into the water and, if the water was high enough to flow through them, things would be incredibly flooded so I am not sure what purpose they would serve then. The ends aren’t closed off but presumably could be. If anyone has any idea what they could be for, please let me know. Always interested to learn more.

Don’t Tell the Other Sheep About the Coat

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While out on a walk, we saw a load of sheep in a field. One of them was wearing a blue jacket. I am used to seeing people with coats on their pets, but I had never seen a sheep with an added coat. Wool usually does a pretty good job. It was slightly away from the other sheep, and I couldn’t help but decide it was a bit embarrassed by its attire!

Piglets in Longstock

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Walking through the village of Longstock, we looked across a yard and saw a family of piglets with a sow feeding on the other side. It seemed that the fence they were near was actually for a park, so we walked around the edge to the park entrance and backtracked to see if the piggies were still close in. Sure enough, there they were. Much feeding was underway, but the piglets were also jumping around and messing with each other as kids are prone to do. At one point, one of them upset another and it let out such a squeal that we were both startled by the noise. It was something else.

They were definitely cute looking little creatures. After briefly being interested by our arrival, they rapidly lost interest and were back to eating and bugging each other. Just the occasional look up to see what is going on. We left them to it and continued our walk.

Snowdrops at Longstock

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I am going to be repetitive on the blog for a while. I have already photographed some snowdrops on my bike rides and posted about it. Then I made a more specific visit to see some snowdrops. This will not be the last snowdrop post this year either. In Longstock, there is the Leckford Farm Shop run by Waitrose. Last year I saw lots of bluebells in the grounds when we visited. Dad told me it is a good place for snowdrops too, so Nancy and I diverted in there as part of a walk we were doing in the area.

At first, I only saw a few small clumps on flowers along the path. It had me wondering whether we had missed the peak. However, I just needed some patience. As we got closer to the shop, the area under the trees was covered in snowdrops. They looked really great. With snowdrops, if you are close, they appear to be quite well spaced. Taking shots from further back and lower down helps make them look really dense. They feel that way when you look at them but getting the photo to reflect that sense is a bit more of an effort.

River Test at a High Level

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The River Test really should be considered multiple rivers because it splits and rejoins as it moves across the Hampshire countryside. You can cross all sorts of minor streams, but you do also get some larger crossings where the river is well defined. One of these is the road to Longstock. There is a weir across the river just upstream of the bridge and it seemed to be flowing pretty well when we were there. We had experienced lovely weather, but I guess quite a bit of rain had preceded our arrival. There was a single swan on the river, and it seemed to be making some effort to move upstream.