Text and pics contributed by Patrick.
Beneath a grey blanket of sky, a small group of IOG stalwarts met at St Augustine’s Church, Bucklesham Road, for a Sunday adventure of about 10.5 miles around the exotic, eastern borders of Ipswich.
The temperature hovered around 9°C for most of the day, and although the moderate 13mph breeze brought no rain, persistent gusts of up to 24mph made it very cold as soon as we stopped moving.
Setting out in a westerly direction, we passed through the Purdis Farm area and then picked up the Mill River and the familiar boardwalks that criss-cross its shallow depths, more akin to a stream than a river.
We were fortunate enough to see (and hear) a mistle thrush atop a gigantic blackthorn tree near the Suffolk Showground.
After a short break in a glittering silver-birch wood east of Monument Farm Lane, we moved through large fields of weather-beaten swede and beans gone to seed, where the pungent smell of rotting vegetables rose from the earth.
Lunchtime found us at the Three Rivers Business Centre, just off the old Felixstowe Road, where we availed ourselves of CafeFlex before embarking on the second leg of our walk.
Now heading northward, we walked through vast, fallow fields before arriving at a paddock containing several horses. After one of the mares allowed us to pet her, John repaid her forbearance with a piece of fruit.
Our homeward journey took us back into the dense marshland of the Mill River. In this enchanted domain we found the colours of autumn still very much in evidence in the fallen leaves of gold and yellow.
Fallen trees – casualties of storms, disease, or age – were now adorned with various species of lichens and fungi, including artist’s bracket (Ganoderma applanatum), a parasitic and saprophytic bracket fungus.
We marvelled at the various shapes of the cut and fallen trees, identifying likenesses to an old otter and a pair of lovers dancing a pas de deux.
The stream reflected the now sunny blue sky and the stream bed itself mirrored the colours of the dun-coloured trees that still drank (and sometimes lay sprawling across) its waters.
We were very grateful to John for providing an incentive to get out there and enjoy life!