When The Green Woods Laugh

As temperatures reached 32 degrees in Cambridge on Monday I took refuge in the nearest woods. The beeches at Wandlebury Country Park are still as juicy as spring despite tinder dry conditions causing wildfires countrywide. The Iron-Age hill fort has a deep, dark ditch circling the site, and  paths wind through the trees. Speckled wood butterflies settled in pools of dappled light. A teenage girl performed a serious exercise regime, running up and down a short steep slope over and over again. A green woodpecker bounded above her, laughing crazily.

All images by Jo Sinclair

 A couple of miles downhill to the south I waded up the River Granta with my dog, though after eighteen days of heatwave the water of the chalk stream was no longer chilled. Water crowsfoot flowed emerald and banded demoiselle dameselflies looked like jewellery from a bank vault seeing the light of day.  The short season of frothy white elderflowers has quickly given way, with the delicate green clasps of the flowerheads turning purple, and tiny berries formed. In the shade of the plantations mapped out by the Babraham Institute research campus luscious cherries hung.

All images by Jo Sinclair