I have always taken photos.  Of my family, of my surroundings, holiday snaps and so on.  I now have a serious sort of camera however.  It’s a whole new way in which to view the world.  Which requires me to take photography seriously.  Well, sort of.  It sort of involves me walking miles or driving around for miles looking for interesting things to take photos of.

And today, I ended up at Thoresway, because I had spent an hour or so over on the east coast at our accountants, agonising over the ins and outs of annual figures I’d rather not have to agonise over or even consider at all.  After stopping off at a supermarket to purchase essentials for teatime, I set off for home.  And as I seem to have an incurable habit of veering off the obvious route simply for the sake of it and for the sense of adventure I took the turning for Irby, stopped to take a couple of photos of a broken and abandoned red brick building, then headed to Beelsby  (note to self : I need to re-visit this village with my wellies and camera to shoot the manor and adjoining buildings).  From Beelsby I followed roughly the signposts that led in the direction of home, never worrying that I might get lost, as lost is not actually possible in the modern day and age of the map book on my passenger seat, my iPhone and the AA should I get completely desperate.

So at Thoresway, a deserted and beautiful hamlet even in bleakest December, high in the Lincolnshire Wolds, I parked my car well up on to the path so other cars could get through (not a single one came in the next half hour).  It was bitterly cold; flurries of snow had fallen, the crunchy remains lay on the grass in the churchyard.  I took shots of St Mary’s Church and of the decaying Thoresway Manor Farm buildings from the churchyard.

Many of the ancient and some of the more recent headstones in the churchyard are dedicated to men and women who spent their lives farming land in the surrounding area.  I didn’t see a single other living soul in the half hour or so I was tramping around; although several birds perched themselves on the weather vane atop the church whilst I took photos.

Driving home up hill and down dale (signs said 10% for some of the hills) I still saw no other vehicles or people; it was late afternoon, the light fading and I could see for miles across the top of the Wolds landscape.  I silently gave thanks for living in such a beautiful part of the world.