A couple from the last few days, first from the cascades close to the source of the Yonne, second last night at Lac des Settons.
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your top photo (lovely) reminds me a little of Becky Falls (Devon)… a favourite picnic spot when we were kids… 
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Thanks Stella. 
And me of Hardcastle Crags (not my photo but I do have some somewhere)
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A shortish local rando, starting on the road to Lucenay l’Eveque.
Climbing up above Le Crapissot.
And then coming back down to Cussy on the path by Le Colombiers (we can just see our roof from here, behind the house with the green shutters).
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Rehab randos
Not proper randos, but currently the best I can do. Because of the injury to my back muscles, since the accident I’ve been unable to walk in anything but shock absorbent trekking sandals and can’t yet bear the pressure of a rucksack frame on my lower back. But we’ll get there…
Unfortunately my wife’s still bed-bound and is unlikely to walk in a normal way for a month or two, but I hope we’ll be able to walk along the Lot as the forest changes colour in the autumn - usually late October here.
In the meantime, late each afternoon Gigi and I continue our rehab by walking progressively further down the river. Today we managed 6.5 kms. Not enough to get to the auberge in the next village, but we will eventually.
Walking late afternoon rather than in the morning offers a change of light as everything is moving into the red part of the spectrum and the colours become richer and more intense. Although the footpath runs alongside the river, because there’s also a lot of forest on the banks, there’s comparatively few opportunities to photograph the water and the reflections of its surroundings. Nevertheless there are enough for a mini-portfolio.
Our village is a bit old and decrepit, but it’s very photogenic
One of my favourites - the reflected trees resemble palms…(oasis coloured b’ground too)
Symmetry!
Spatially complex
Not yet sure why I found this one so appealing -think it’s the slightly bleached out colour and texture given by a light breeze on the surface of the river - not Giverny - but interesting nevertheless
So mini randos, but I think some not too bad photos - thanks largely to having great light!
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Not really a rando at all, being just 2 minutes from our door, but otherwise apologies to Mark.
The Cherwell valley in flood.
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Oh my! Looks beautiful, but I’m guessing not great.
Thanks Sue, it’s fine, and only a little over the road. Probably a couple of feet below the 1998 flood level.
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Gigi and I finally managed to resume our weekly walk along the Lot to the auberge in the next village.
A miniature poodle casts a giant shadow…
Wasn’t sure whether to include this photo, after @JaneJones post above on her solitary walk, but it also made me reflect how others deal with the death of a dog. I have two separate Dutch friends who both get another dog not just from from the same breeder, but from the same family, so it’s not simply a ‘replacement’ but a close relative or a descendent. I like that idea of continuity and there being something of the former dog in the new pup.
On reaching the auberge I had to explain to le patron that my wife’s absence was not due to us getting divorced.
And because of seeing the start of autumn on the path (disappointed that the colour’s really faded on the upload) instead of summer pastis I dithered between café à longée or un petit cognac, or both (suspect that choosing the first option indicates I’m not yet fully recovered).
But it was 9 kms and, weather permitting, we’ll do a proper walk on Weds.
It was wonderful to be renewed by being immersed in the greenery of the forest and to complete a former regular walk (also found some ripe wild figs). Life’s getting a bit closer to normal even if walking without my other walking partner, who at the moment is just happy that she can now walk to the bathroom.
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Someone wise once told me that although our pets sadly do not last our whole lives long, it means we can offer happiness and a loving home to more than one.
Works very well for dog & cat rescue!
I’m very ambivalent about rescue dogs - great idea, but one doesn’t don’t know how traumatised the animal might be. OTOH with a pedigree dog that has a family history, one can expect certain characteristics and if bought as a puppy, the dog can be properly trained.
Over the years our walking group has included several refuge dogs and they’ve all been problematic in different ways, from running off when frightened to unexpectedly attacking strangers, or even worse, on two occasions trying to bite Gigi, who is small and very vulnerable to an attack by a larger dog.
Well-meaning people think they’re performing a charitable act by adopting a refuge dog, but they’re not always capable of controlling it off the leash, yet they’re often unwilling to keep it on the leash when walking in a group of people and other dogs…
One can get lots of nasty inherited genetic diseases that may not have been caught in testing, and difficult characters as well as those that train easily. We used to go to a dog club most weeks to keep ours socialised and the truisms about it being the master not the dog is accurate. Rescues with traumatic backgrounds can turn into wonderful loyal companions.
This is a rando thread, not a dog thread, but we are thinking to get an older rescue in the short term while we decide what’s next, some who have ended up in a shelter through death or poverty of their owner are great dogs just lacking a home.
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I would love to adopt a refuge dog, or 5. As someone who has grown up with, and then owned, huskies for most of my life, and with things like Game of Thrones making them a much more fashionable (and so much more abandoned) breed you’d think rescues would be clamouring for someone like me who is experienced with what is a unique, demanding breed. But nope, on both sides of the English Channel they set the bar so bizarrely high to take one, 6 foot solid wooden fencing on all sides and other ridiculously OTT criteria, that I have never got through the process. Entirely off-topic I appreciate but it’s just like a red rag to a bull to me whenever someone brings up this subject 
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I agree with that wholeheartedly 
. Have had many cats, and my main consolation when one dies is that I’ve given them a good and loving home.
Some are traumatised. I got a Norwegian forest cat from a sanctuary in the UK and we took him on because he’d been there several months. They did say that he had been mistreated and was traumatised but I got the feeling it was us or he would be put down. He spent the first 2 weeks under a table and wouldn’t come out if someone was in the room. It took a long time to gain his trust but we did, and the first time he sat on my lap was amazing. It took about a year. A picture of that event is the screensaver on my wifes tablet.
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More rehab rando photos -
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been walking further and today did my first proper rando for six weeks. But first here’s a few photos
Early Anselm Kiefer landscape recreated in the Lot Valley (some SFer’s will get it)…
Barn bursts into a tree (more specifically a C16/17th Dutch landscape tree)
Dying / drying sunflowers
But, the most Kieferesque -
And then today - proper rando!
The path upwards out of our village (only stopped once for a breather)
Then into the first wood - mediaeval chestnut terraces… autumn bracken - the first to die back…
I’d been worried that because this isn’t an official route it might have been badly overgrown because we last walked it a fe w months back, but was presently surprised to find it had been walked and cleared very recently. Later found out that our friend Mira a roller skating dancing, extreme yoga teacher had done the circuit after visiting my wife when she was still bed-ridden.
Thanks Mira! Much appreciated even though it wasn’t a total clearance of the brambles
Eventually get to the road to the ‘top’ Then twenty minutes walking up the hill with fine views over the Lot Valley meander where the producteurs grow all our local stuff
Eventually ‘the barn’!
When it appears , you feel you’ve finally reached the top (you haven’t actually, but the slog is over).
The ‘real’ top looking north over the southern Cantal. What aren’t in the frame are two pairs of red kites gracefully circling above the landscape and who stubbornly remained out of my photo frame
Finally, after two hours going up the path starts going back down to the Lot
And soon the path opens up to great vistas over the Lot Valley and beyond
Suddenly, a very recent sign on the footpath, and I really would have appreciated a little more info about the nature of this new ‘Danger’.
On the way down, a glimpse of our village, nestled for centuries down there alongside the river
And finally twenty minutes on winding paths down through the magical mediaeval wood before popping out at the bottom 200m from home.
Back on track - proper rando!
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Randos have been a bit lacking here; partly the weather and partly a foot/ankle problem from a fall when skiing about 15 years ago. We did manage a few Kms on Sunday afternoon along the valley, but the photos aren’t exciting thanks to a phone with wide angle lens. At least the floods are subsiding.
I also managed a lunchtime walk last week, although it leaves me sad because the lass who worked for me for 8 years got another job in the summer, and has finally moved on so I no longer have her company.
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