With the UK lockdown still in force over this Bank Holiday (i.e. National Holiday) long-weekend, there have been concerns people will be tempted to flout the requirements and come to beauty spots and beaches to enjoy themselves despite the constraints. And so last weekend and this, police have closed the road through Cheddar Gorge to all traffic, save local walkers and cyclists.

And so when I went out for a short cycle ride as part of my daily (allowed) exercise, I thought to cycle up the gorge. Now it is all uphill and steep in parts. I am no super-fit person, and certainly not a MAMIL (middle-aged man in Lycra). I did it slowly and used the cunning excuse of stopping to take a photo as I went (and catch my breath). And the reason I wanted to take some photos is that I have never seen the gorge this quiet on a sunny spring day. No cars, and no people (save the odd cyclist passing by). Just very loud birdsong, some very content wild goats and stunning views. So I thought to put them here for everyone to see.

It can be easy to forget just how lucky we are to be just a minute or two, literally from some spectacular and beautiful scenery.

Take care and stay safe.

A slight gap in blogging, sorry, but it is due partly to busy life and partly because there was nothing obvious to blog about, and we don't want to blog for the sake of it.

But this time something for us that was remarkable. As some will know we use a camera-trap to monitor the garden, and particular any nighttime action. Recently we have had very regular captures of fox and badger on most nights somewhere in the garden, and sometimes hedgehog. 

Now we have always been a bit worried that badger and hedgehog don't mix ... badgers are known to attack and eat hedgehogs ... at least that's what we've heard. Which brings us to some recent video. We set the camera to view a little bit of shrubbery by the end of the main house patio area. We put it here because deep in the shrubs is a hedgehog house put there in the hope we might attract a hedgehog. We know we have one or more, but the question was are they using this purpose built "house". So just outside the place where it sits we put the camera.

And we caught lots of action, fox, badger, hedgehog and even (need a separate post) a wee mouse (we think wood mouse). We also know the many cats who wander through often sit and stare in to this area. Well the reason many come is seed - above in the shrubs we had had a bird feeder and the much-spilled seed is deep in the grass there. Equally clearly, badger, hedgehog and mouse all love this.

But the unusual  - for us dramatic - sequence was when a lovely few videos of hedgehog munching away, then becomes a series of videos with a young badger right in there beside it. For a scary moment we thought a soon-to-be-seen video might capture some ugly scene. But no. The hedgehog just hunches down (does not fully roll up) and stays still, for something like 7 minutes while the badger snuffles away at the seed - seemingly oblivious of, or certainly disinterested in the hedgehog. When the badger has moved on, the hedgehog stays still a few minutes longer, and then, seemingly unperturbed, carries on eating itself.

​So here for you enjoyment are are a few of the 20 second videos - before, during and after.

BEFORE - happy hedgehog

UH-OH - someone is coming

NOW - happy badger time

AFTER - happy hedgehog again ... wholly unperturbed by the encounter

Since we started with Gorge View Cottage we have donated £10 to charity for every booking we take. Initially we picked Prickles Hedgehog Rescue as our chosen charity and more recently we added The Mendip Hills Fund.

Prickles is a very local Cheddar success story driven in the beginning by the passion of one woman, Jules Bishop, who started looking after orphaned or ill hedgehogs in 2007. The project grew and grew in her regular home on an estate in Cheddar, and finally they managed to secure dedicated premises. They typically care for over 600 hedgehogs and hoglets every year. And that takes a lot of money. We are just giving our next donation to them of £250 bringing the total donated over the years to almost £2,500. Given that we are delighted to have hedgehogs in our garden, and indeed once discovered an unwell confused hog which we took to Prickles for care (although sadly it didn't make it), we are proud to be helping in a small way their brilliant and dedicated workers and volunteers.

​​The Mendip Hills Fund on the other hand is a community fund set up to conserve and enhance the environment, communities and economy of the Mendip Hills. It is a partnership between the Mendip Hills AONB Partnership and the Somerset Community Foundation. It is supported by local businesses and last year was able to give £11,000 in grants to thoughtful projects throughout the Mendips. Given that almost all guests at Gorge View Cottage gain from the beautiful and varied Mendip Hills we feel it is the least we can do to given back a little to the area, to help the maintenance and improvements that keep it special. The recent £250 donation brings our running total to MHF to £870.

So hopefully for all guests coming to the cottage they will know that every stay helps the local good causes.

Three years ago the AONB and Sedgemoor District Council invited interested parties to a meeting: they wanted to challenge Cheddar to become a fully fledged Walkers are Welcome destination. We were up for it and so Gorge View Cottage became a founding member of what became Cheddar Walking. And in record time we got our accreditation and launched. 
Three years on and the steering group has achieved a lot to be proud of: 10 fully tested walks with self-guide walking sheets published (downloadable for free from the website or for a small donation pre-printed from the National Trust Shop); 45,000 downloads to date and over 6,000 printed copies bought; then we've supported 3 local festivals with guided walking activities (and we're set to help again with the 2019 National Trust's Top of the Gorge Festival in its third year); and this month we finally completed a long project to fund, design and install three promotional information boards (or as we prefer to call then - "inspiration boards") laying out the 10 walks.
The walks vary from a 30 minute loop on mostly lanes, to the challenging 20-mile section of the West Mendip Way from the coast (Weston-Super-Mare) to Cheddar (you can bus out and walk back).
Anyone coming to stay at Gorge View Cottage gets all these walks in a folder along with many others from the AONB, National Trust, RSPB and Somerset Wildlife Trust. Pop a walk sheet out for the day and then pop it back for the next guests. And all these walks can be done without any car being involved. In fact probably 70% or more of our guests do at least one walk and almost all of them thoroughly enjoy and recommend them. The Mendip Hills, the Gorge and the Levels all have something for everyone.

And a big thank you to the wonderful Cafe Gorge and excellent Cheddar Medical Centre for allowing us to place these information boards on their railings for all the visitors and community to see and get inspired to walk a little.

Maybe it was that prolonged and unseasonal cold spell through April and in to May, but the pent up energy of nature seems to have finally burst forth this year. The Gorge View garden seems bursting with blooms. And the bees are loving it!

At first we were very worried to not see that many bees around and were concerned that the extended cold spell had hit their populations. But, at least here, the bee business has got back to normal albeit belatedly.

So as we wander the garden there are places where the noise of the bees if remarkable. Looking closely at flowering shrubs like the deep purple-blue Ceanothus (I had to ask Mary for the name!) you see it is covered in bees of all sort: honey bees of course, but a range of bumblebees (I love their Latin genus name of 'Bombus' - so appropriate), and solitary bees such as the Red Mason Bee.

Another amazing flower is the Passion Flower (see top photo). Mary planted ours on the front corner of the house years ago and it did nothing. We thought it was dying. But then, a few years back, it finally started to grow. And grow and grow. And now it is ballooning out and overtaking the thrusting Wisteria and the long-established Virgina Creeper. The flowers are extraordinarily complex, delicate and beautiful, and the knot of twisting green stems have amazingly tangly tendrils to help catch on to any support available. The bees love the flowers. Often you find a clustered mix of bees all feeding of one flower (and with no fighting). And whilst the 25 foot high tangle of the plant is covered in buds, at any one time only a few flowers pop out for a short but wondrous few days. After the late hard freeze in April the plant suffered badly, was brown leaved and looked very poorly. But within a month the health is back and the bees are tucking in to the nectar again.

They work so hard those bees - busily working before we are up and still going late in to the evening. Phew. We get so much value from these little workers and so it was a relief to hear that the EU has (after long deliberations and lots of lobbying from the agri-chemical industries) outlawed the use of neonicotinoid pesticides that have a hugely detrimental affect on the pollinator populations. They all still face other huge challenges, but at least one step has been taken to help them. Care for nature aside their contribution (for free) has massive economic value, but of course big business cannot grab that effort for profit.

​Anyway this was not meant to be a rant, more a celebration of the beauty of the blooms in our garden. Enjoy the photos.

A few weeks ago we were surprised but delighted to get a visit from our neighbours in Cheddar Gorge. No-one (person that is) actually lives in the gorge, but it is well populated with goats and sheep. The goats were released in to the gorge area to keep down the scrub and whilst they have done a good job of that they've basically gone feral and the population is pretty large. The sheep are Soay an ancient British breed that are also fairly feral.
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Most days you can bump in to the goats and sheep (almost literally) as you drive the gorge road, early morning or late evening when they are down nibbling the verges. Seemingly completely oblivious to cars bearing down on them (and at this time of year) their babies. Luckily I have never seen any sad roadkill so it all works.

Anyway it seems that their populations are growing so much that they are looking further afield for good food. And last year for the first time in most people's memory a few ventured in to the upper village and raided the gardens. It seems they have a strong liking for tulips and a couple of neighbours were very annoyed to have their spring beauties systematically eaten. And now it is happening a second year, and we had a few visits.

This particular mother and her lamb (kid?) seem a regular in Birch Hill and a number of neighbours have tried to shepherd them back to the gorge. Luckily for us we don't have any tulips and nothing at the moment in the garden that would be a huge frustration if it got nibbled.

If you come and stay at the cottage we cannot guarantee any close-up encounters on the cottage patio, but if you do the gorge walk then you'll almost certainly spot some sheep and goats. Some of the billy goats are very impressive with long goatee beards. You will probably also smell them from a distance - the goats have a very soured goat milk odour!

Some cryptic acronyms in the title for this blog, but what it refers to is the National Trust's South West Outdoor Festival 2017. The second such festival, the first being in Heddon Valley, North Devon in 2016. This time it was centred at the top of Cheddar Gorge (much of the gorge is NT land).
It all happened this past weekend and offered a huge range of outdoor activities at a serious level: not just mountain biking, hill running, kayaking, but (given where we are) rock climbing, pot-holing, caving, bat watching and ... some lovely walking!

The walking was organised by Cheddar Walking, the Walkers are Welcome initiative in Cheddar that we at Gorge View Cottage helped start and still help lead. Whilst most people (circa 1,500 at the festival over the long weekend) were there for more extreme sport, of course some wanted less physical things to do, and to take in the beautiful area. We organised five half-day walks over the three day from the Festival Site near Back Rock Reserve: to Priddy village, along the West Mendip Way; to Yeo Valley's stunning HQ canteen in Blagdon, a walk taking you over Beacon Batch the highest point of the Mendip Hills; and of course the classic circular Gorge Walk.

Despite the weather (wet and windy at times, but sunny and clear at others) all our walks seem to stay dry, the views revealed themselves and those joining us had a really good time, some wonderful sights, and good-to-moderate exercise.

All this was also strongly supported by the Mendip Hills AONB and the Somerset Wildlife Trust who protect and promote this stunning area. A big thanks to them both.

Of course any of these walks can be self-navigated if you come to Cheddar, just ask us for the directions when you are staying or check out the Cheddar Walking web site.

One of the most impress natural reserve areas in our locality is not up on the beautiful Mendip Hills but out on the Somerset Levels just past the Isle of Wedmore. The Avalon Marshes comprise a rich set of important and accessible wildlife reserves run by, variously, Somerset Wildlife Trust, the RSPB, Natural England and others. Shapwick Heath, Meare Heath, Ham Wall all join up together in to a wonderful area, all knitted together around the Avalon Marshes Centre with local art shop, a great eco cafe, and some recreated Neolithic (New Stone Age) constructions. Lots to do and see so find out more here.

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And now all this has been recognised by the Avalon Marshes winning the National Lottery Award for Best Environmental Project. Beating off over 1,300 other entries is quite something, and the many volunteers who over many years have made it what it is rightly deserve it. The award itself was presented by comedian Bill Bailey who comes from Somerset and is a keen walker himself. The Visit Somerset article tells you more.

We've featured the area before in this blog for the local art centre, and the Starling murmurations for which it is famous. Anyone visiting the Mendip and Cheddar and who has a love for natural landscape and wildlife should try and get there. Sadly not that easy without a car (its about 9 miles away), but you can get to Glastonbury on buses and then it is a lovely traffic-free walk or cycle out along the disused Glastonbury to Burnham-on-Sea railway branch line. 

We're really pleased that the wildlife in the garden keeps growing. Lots of birds & bees of a wide variety, the badgers, foxes and hedgehogs, the frogs and toads and insects that love our ponds, the ladybirds eating the aphids on the veg, and even the slow worms. Now we have a new arrival on the block. Mary was just about to chuck some cuttings on top of one of our compost heaps when she jumped back with surprise. Basking in the sun was a beautiful Grass Snake (see picture). We got a photo or two as (s)he stayed perfectly still (playing dead?) yet keeping a beady eye on us. Finally enough was enough and the snake slid away. One more sighting a few days later this time in the weedy edges of the pathways through our veg plot.

We did have to check this was not an Adder (they're the one venomous native snake in the UK but rarely seen (very shy) and even more rarely in gardens. In all my life I have only glimpsed three Adders and then briefly as they quickly slide off. But no, this was definitely a Grass Snake, which is non-venomous. Apparently they can grow to two meters long. We reckon this one was about 2-3 feet in length, so maybe still youngish. Their one defence, a last resort as they prefer to keep away, is to excrete a smelly garlic-like fluid from their bottoms. Hmmm, something to avoid!

So - happy as we are to have this newcomer, we are also a bit concerned because the main thing Grass Snakes like to dine out on is frogs and toads. We have a very healthy population in our big pond, small pond and polytunnel pond, all helping to keep the slugs at bay. We'd be pretty unhappy if they all got gobbled up but hopefully the whole food chain should keep in some form of balance.

I am at risk of becoming a video blog bore as I feel I must post another two videos of recent four legged visitors. This spate of night camera positioning came after a delightful discovery of not one but two hedgehogs. Driving up at 9.30 in the evening after dinner out with our visiting daughter and husband she spotted a hedgehog in our drive. I am glad she did as reversing in could have been a bit deadly. Mary duly picked the wee beastie up and plonked it in our garden the other side of the gate. At first it wanted to go back on to the drive but the gate seemed to block it.

Just a few minutes later whilst studying the first we noticed a second hedgehog also nearby the gate. This was becoming bizarre. But because they kept trying to move through the gate to the drive, Mary once again picked them up (and yes they are very prickly) and huffing and snorting (the hedgehogs not Mary) she took them much deeper in to the garden and fed them a little cat food we keep.

And so I set up my trail camera on the patio/gate area to see if they would return and try and escape that way. And sure enough we caught some lovely videos, one below, with the long spindly legs of a hedgehog-in-motion very nicely shown.

Next morning we did check with our lovely neighbour, June, who works at Prickles Hedgehog Rescue (the charity we support from each cottage booking). She had mentioned just the day before that she had homed two or three new hedgehogs because Prickles was desperate to move some recovered hedgehogs out. Were these our visitors? It seems not because hers were still in their boxes.

And finally the video also caught another regular visitor - well another pair. Two of the young badgers. We'd wondered where they come from to go through our garden - and clearly it is the lane. One of them has a little trouble gate vaulting, but they are surprisingly nimble.

Do enjoy these two videos.