Down at the Avenue Nature Reserve

I had a walk down to the village nature reserve, which actually used to be an old colliery but in 1956, it became a coking plant. After it closed down, they cleared the site up, and it is now a nature reserve.

I wanted a long walk and didn't fancy carrying my camera around with me, so I relied on my phone camera.

After a few days of rain, the sun was back out. It was still a little cool this morning, and I noticed I was the only one out wearing gloves and shorts. I like to cover all bases! Looking at some of the clouds, I wasn't convinced it was going to stay sunny.

As I walked around the ponds, I managed to cut the numerous warning signs out around the place. 'No swimming', 'no boating', 'beware of thin ice'. I don't know how we survived years ago when there were no signs at all. What happened to common sense?

There is a train track running along the nature reserve. The trains go past every 15 minutes just to break the silence.

I'm glad the train had gone over before I got to the bridge. It's quite loud underneath.

I'm tall, so I can only just manage to walk under the bridge without bobbing down.

I had to double back at one point as it got a bit overgrown. Some of the weeds were taller than me.

This looks like a photo of nothingness, but there's actually a little deer there somewhere. I'd heard that deer were in the area but never seen any. If only I'd taken my camera! The good news is, I managed to get back home before the rain and thunder and lightning came.