Your view on anything in life will depend on where you stand to look at it, be that politics, religion or the countryside.
For me the view across the Yeo Valley is breathtakingly beautiful as I stand on the northern edge of Mendip.
The Yeo Valley, Somerset – Photo (c) Les Davies
How can I fail to be moved by a landscape that has been thousands of years in the making and contains so many reminders of those who lived and worked in this area before. On the far side of the lake lies Butcombe, with its patch work of small fields that seem to be stitched together into a great green ‘quilt’ by the miles of hedgerows that surround them. Every so often there are houses, some new, but others very old and long established in this quintessential rural English landscape. Away to my right lies the other great lake of Chew Valley, and beneath it the farm that my grandfather was brought up on in the early 20th century. I have a real sense of belonging here, something that ties me to this landscape and it’s one of the things I try to describe to those who come to see it for the first time. I count myself a very lucky man to be in this part of the world.
