Dragons Damsels and magical meadows!!

Yes we do have these wonderful things in Norfolk,hidden lovely places, a few of us discover, maybe more than a few, who knows, pick a day a time and explore, who knows what you will find!!
The adventure begins at Upton reserve, a humid, grey day, threatening clouds hang low in the sky all around us, little flecks of blue sky escape the darkness overhead, we all sit waiting expectantly our teacher making ready the leaflets booklets and pictures for our day ahead, hunting dragons and damsels, armed with our little bit of knowledge we venture out into the "weather" and what weather it is, wild and wooly!!!windy teaming with rain and thunder and lightning, not looking promising at all, but we are not downhearted, the weatherman says it will brighten and who are we to doubt his word, we amble along the marshy paths surrounded by reed and then into woodland glades a beautiful place, stopping now and again to look at flowers and birds passing overhead, somebody spots a Hobby, where there are Hobbys there are usually Dragonflies, the skys suddenly clear bright hot sun shines on our cold damp backs, and yes, there, ahead in a bank of reeds we see the wonderful jewel coloured creatures Damselflies, hovering and basking in the brief sunshine.Then an abundance of these beautiful creatures infront of us,a little further on an Emerald Damselfly, a Norfolk Hawker, Chasers, Red Damselflies, our quest came true, what lucky people we were to see these lovely things on what we thought was going to be a dark dreary day!!

Another lucky day came soon after this one, taking a chance on a dreary day to go exploring virgin paths, we decided to go and take a look at the woodland walks at Burlingham, we had been along a couple of these paths before, but decided to explore a different one which started off opposite the turn off to Fairhaven ,it started off normally enough a pleasant walk along a fairly ropey road, with a lovely fen to our left and woodland on our right ,the fen being called Hare fen, we stopped to listen to birds and take a breath before we started on the long ramble.carrying on through a small dark wood we came out onto another track, it was well signposted and we had a map with us so no worries there getting lost,then clouds seemed to darken and a warm drizxle fell, so we found shelter under a bank of trees alongside a field, and we were surprisingly warm and dry,we sat and chatted and watched crickets and beetles scurrying and hopping by, afte our brief rest, the rain  subsided slightly so as time was getting on we decided to take a chance and carry on, walking past hedgerows and picturesque cottages, we came out onto a huge expanse of meadow, filled with small orchards off into the distance, there were rows and rows of poppies oxeye daisys knapweed birds foot trefoil timothy it took your breath away it was so pretty, bees and butterflys were spoilt for choice flitting here  and there, with a feast of nectar at their (fingertips?) wingtips?, we carried on accross the meadow and came to a circular dip, resisting the urge to do something i used to do as a child, (lay on the floor and roll down trhe dip)and not wanting to leave this Magical meadow, we walked along the side of a field and over a road, what other beautiful sights would greet us on this virgin path (to be continued)