Fivemack flees the country

After procrastinating about this since roughly the fall of the Ceaucescus, I've finally decided to go to Romania, 29th June -> 7 July.

Booking holidays nowadays is almost absurdly easy; ten minutes on the Web and £200 on credit cards, and I have a flight from Bristol to Bucharest and back, travel insurance, and a bed in a dormitory at the Elvis Villa Hostel, the best-reputed youth hostel in all Bucharest.

Not sure exactly what I'll do in Romania - I'm tempted, if only to re-enact a scene cliched in spy thrillers, to take the sleeper across the mountains to Sofia and spend a few days there. The impression I get is that there are lots of quite attractive places in Romania, but none of them are Bucharest; it may be this will be a holiday substantially spent on East European trains.

First walk in weeks

For several weekends, either the weather or I have been gloomy enough that I haven't walked.

When preparing the maps of the flooded Severn Valley, I noticed Bredon Hill, which would form a strategic outpost half-way up the valley, guarding the approaches to the Gloucester Strait.

It's 25km away, but I have a bicycle, so off I went. This map shows the route; this shows the view from the top. It's said you can see eleven counties. There's a nice hill-fort at the summit, with two rings of ditches.

Lots of wildlife; spring's good for that. Many small birds (coal-tit, and a couple of the kind with yellow wing-flashes); some interesting larger birds (green woodpecker on the way down; an owl in a field by the side of a road as I cycled back home at dusk); pheasants all over the wooded bits; over the 50km by bike, must have seen a dozen this-year's rabbits running into the verge. There was an odd farm in Little Washbourne, which kept a splendidly-maned pony and three medium-sized lambs in a field; the pony amused itself by galloping around the field chasing the lambs. I managed to capture a homage to Muybridge, though the lack of shadow means you need a little convincing that the horse is actually off the ground.

Lambs everywhere, arranged most photogenically.