Velator - The Other Side of The Sea Wall.

It's been another grey day today. I was lucky to catch a warm spell when I took my class outside for a pe lesson where the children had fun throwing and catching small balls, much better to do that outside. The school is gearing up for a May Fayre on Saturday. Normally we have a Summer Fayre but there will be so much going on at the end of term with parties and events to celebrate/ mark our Headteacher's retirement that this was the only time we could fit it in. Carol Klein (Gardener's World), will be coming to officially open the Secret Garden so we might have the local tv there as well as the papers who generally get the facts wrong.

Back to yesterday's walk;

The footpath from Velator runs along the top of the sea wall which protects the Great Field from the sea. Being protected from the north by a headland, Braunton is known for having its own warmer micro climate and the wildflowers are always a few weeks ahead of us up in the wind and rain swept hills.

There are a lot of sheep around and I had to climb over this well kept stone stile to continue my walk. At the other end of this field sheep no104 was on one side of a stile baaing away at lamb no104 who was on the other having managed to climb ? over. They were reunited by the time I walked back that way.

The sheep are very used to walkers and don't move until the last moment.

I have to say that these sheep had very splatty dung unlike the sheep round here and my sparkling new white skate shoes had to have a good scrub when I got home.

Braunton Great Field is one of only 3 Open Fields left in the country which since medieval times have been strip farmed. Every peasant farmer grew different crops on long strips of land in various parts of the field, this ensured that everyone had a fair share. In living memory there were 45 farmers sharing the 360 acres of this field but now I think it is just 12.

There are few hedges or fences, mostly drainage ditches with cattle grazing in the wetter areas.

The ditches are full of bulrushes and other wetland plants. I was hoping to see if the swans were nesting there but I didn't spot anything. Maybe that was a good thing as a nesting cob can be quite aggressive.