ABC Wednesday - V

V could be for Verbena, just planted, which requires little care and flowers prolifically, but has to put up with claggy clay soil here. If it had a choice it would probably prefer well drained sandy soil such as may be found round this Village in Kent, a county sometimes called the Garden of England

Villages nestle in Valleys but in more dangerous times it was probably better to know who was coming to see you, and a higher view would be safer. Here is the Iron Age Fort (that bit on the end of Table Mountain in Wales) which gives clear sight.
If you walk along the ridge to Pen Allt Mawr and even better view, nobody can sneak up that way either. Today it is a rather more peaceful scene with a patchwork of little fields.
Yes my V is for Valleys. June is a beautiful time for them when everything is fresh, and subtle and vivid colours lay against each other. The vivid yellow of the flowering rape stands out
but perhaps the subtle yellow of wild flowers in the meadows is prettier.
The coal mining areas of south Wales are usually referred to as The Valleys. A century ago the Dare Valley was one of those coal mining areas. These days have long gone, and in 1970s the land was reclaimed, by removing the coal tips, grassing over some of the spoil heaps, rerouting the River Dare, creating 2 lakes and tuning the area into the Dare Valley Country Park. Nature returned.
All that is left of the 4 colleries are the capped shafts
Yes what could be better than to stand in a valley, lean on a five barred gate and watch the world go by, or really just a few sheep.
The Cistercian monks in the middle ages probably thought that when they built the beautiful sandstone Furness Abbey here in the Valley of the Deadly Nightshade ( a wonderfully evocative name). They grew wealthy from the wool of sheep, and the labour of the local populace, until Henry the Eighth came along.

For a variety of more Vs go over to ABC Wednesday