Here's One I Did Earlier - a photo on Flickriver

            The journey wasn’t going well.  At the roundabout, the slip road down onto the A30 westbound was blocked off by a police car that clearly wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry.  An accident apparently.  I’d have to make my way through Pool and Camborne.  A bit of a nuisance, but negotiable.  But there was a queue of traffic stretching all the way down the dip towards the Tesco junction, and up the other side to the distant unseen roundabout too for that matter.  Never mind, I’d use local knowledge and cut through Illogan.  I could still be there soon enough.

Except that Illogan, usually a quiet sprawling village famous only for producing a fictional character in the name of Demelza Poldark (and according to my brother some unusually violent under twelve year old football teams), was rammed from one end to the other as well.  Never once had I encountered anything more than the odd bit of local traffic passing along its streets, but now I was in a long queue, crawling along nose to tail, continually having to stop behind parked cars waiting to be allowed through by some of the more considerate motorists heading in the opposite direction.  It was as though I’d entered a parallel universe in which Illogan was the centre of everything.  But then of course, we were all using our local knowledge, weren’t we?  Not that many tourists around this early in the season.  

Once again I tapped in frustration at the buttons on the car radio, but for reasons unknown, the channels I rely on to keep me updated on the afternoon’s sporting events weren’t functioning at all.  My team had been leading by a precarious goal to nil when I set off and needed to hang on to secure promotion, while the nearest contenders for glory were already six goals up against our local rivals.  Tension?  Well, the absence of radio intel really wasn’t helping.
Gradually but gradually, I made it to the double mini-roundabout in the centre of the village and the congestion eased slightly as I found the quiet back road into Camborne, eventually re-joining my usual route to the bluebells.  But the centre Camborne was closed.  And as I saw the crowds strolling in and out, clutching pasties, the sound of a brass band playing in the background, I remembered it was Trevithick Day.  The locals were celebrating their most famous son, singing “Going Up Camborne Hill Coming Down!” and filling their boots with pints of Tribute in the local Wetherspoons.  There’s an extra verse to that song – I’ve heard it sung by some of the more lubricated gentlemen on a rugby trip or two to Twickenham.  We won’t go there.

Sighing again, I followed the diversions and joined my third long queue on a trip that normally lasts about seven miles and fifteen minutes, finally emerging triumphant on the far side of town and heading towards the woods without further impediment.  It had taken three times as long as usual to get here.  Before getting out of the car I checked the BBC Sport app.  One nil was the final score.  Promotion secured.  I smiled and thought about the days when I used to make the one hundred and thirty mile round trip to every home game.  Somewhere along the line, photography changed my priorities.   
 
Meanwhile, the bluebells were nowhere near ready.  Purple specks here and there among the lush green leaves that filled the forest floor.  I sat on a lone granite boulder sipping tea from my thermos flask and listening to the birds.  “Taken lots of good photos?” I was asked by the only people I saw.  The camera never even made it out of the bag.  In the glade where I’d photographed the wild garlic several times over the last couple of years there were barely any blooms at all, and a once leaning tree was now a fallen tree.  One of many in fact – odd considering the almost total absence of storms this winter.  I’d come back in a week or so and try again.

At least the roads were clear on a Sunday afternoon eight days later while the rest of the nation were supposedly having street parties and filling themselves with fizzy drinks of varying strengths and indigestible sausage rolls.  My team had just won their final game of the season to pick up the League One title, the sun was shining, and all was well.  Or at least it was until I arrived in the woods.  It wasn’t just that the light began to fail well before the golden hour kicked in to bring a dappled glow to the forest, but I was struggling to find compositions.  I tried several, but nothing seemed to work.  Every fern that caught the light was too far into the carpet to be a strong subject, and every glowing young beech sapling was surrounded by too much confusion to stand out.  Without the glow, the atmosphere was lacking, and I began to feel the frustration kicking in.  Here in the quiet woodland where I’d produced a number of pleasing images over the last few seasons I was completely at a loss.  And more disturbing than anything else, the sense of calm I’d felt on arrival had completely disappeared with the light.  It’s supposed to be the other way around.  In the end I sat down on one of those fallen trunks and listened to the sounds.  For now, photography was forgotten.

It would be an enormous understatement if I were to say that the bluebells around here have been a bit of a disappointment this season.  The conditions have been poor in comparison to the last couple of years and it’s limited my opportunities.  But at the same time, the creative juices seem to have dried up just recently.  At least behind the camera they have.  I’m enjoying the editing process more than being out there at the moment.  Strange – but I guess it will pass in time.  Maybe I might finally get a passable sea thrift shot this month.  I’ve been trying long enough.

And so in order to offer something from this all too fleeting season, in true Blue Peter style here’s one I did earlier.  A couple of years ago in fact, when it was only during stolen weekend hours that I could drift through this perfect wood in silence.  When there was a group of unfurling ferns beside the path and the light glowed in the right places.  Sometimes I think I should try another woodland next year, but something keeps bringing me back to this one, not least the fact that hardly anyone else seems to know about it.  And when I look at this image, I’m reminded that there are always new shots to be found here.  I just need to keep looking.  Or maybe I need to stop looking and let them find me.
Taken in: UK / England / Camborne / Camborne (show map)
Taken on: May 8, 2021
Tags:
Bluebells
Pendarves
Camborne
Cornwall
Woodland
wilderness
Flowers
flower
spring
tree
trees
forest
fern
Greenscene
green
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Sets appears in: • Pendarves Wood
Groups appears in: • Amateurs • Cornwall - Kernow more » • Cornwall Flickr Users • Flickr Social Club • Photography Week • Flickr Social « less
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