John Constable's subject

Last Saturday, it was time to take it a bit easy and not travel too far. So I decided to go to Stour Valley or Dedham Vale, also called Constable country, for this was the inspiration to a British painter from two centuries ago whose set his massive, and beautiful six-foot canvases depicted scenes from this region. To be frank, I had not heard of John Constable until I read about him somewhere on the net last week, and had not seen his works until I saw them in a National Trust Exhibition in Flatford, an idlyllic village in Dedham Vale. All right, to the story from the beginning.

The weather forecast was no good - surprise, surprise! And when I went to bed on Friday night, I was not sure if I would go anywhere. My initial plan was to be there by 8AM, which would be about an hour and a half after sunrise. Appropriately I woke up at 4:30 in the morning only to see a rather evil forecast for the whole day. I just cannot remember what really went through my head those few minutes except that I went back to bed. Definitely, given a terribly cloudy day, there would be no point in going anywhere that early in the morning!! And anyway, I dont think I even intended to go there even later on in the day at that moment. But, you know, you can never predict what will happen - I woke up at 9:15 in the morning and at 10:30 found myself stomping along with my complete digital kit and tripod towards the train station. It did not matter that I was starting so late for my destination was rather close to home, in the nearby county of Suffolk and just about an hour and a half away by train.

Alright, I took the train from Cambridge to Ipswich and then on to Manningtreee which was where I started on the National Trust-recommended walk to Flatford village. The first sight of interest was a field full of sheep in the foreground, various representations of the hand of Man in the middle ground and a stormy-looking sky in the background. Snap!




Further along the walk, there was a fenced off region where some of the largest specimen of cows were grazing. Among these was a particularly massive and menacing, but stupid-looking, individual who must have decided my intentions were not holy and decided to keep an eye on me even as I studiously kept to the way-marked foot path making sure I did not make any sudden or calculated detours that would take me any closer to this herd of cattle. Whereas, under different circumstances I might have considered photographing these characters, I decided it would not be wise to do so while under this humongous animal's surveillance.

The walk then leads to the Cattawade marshes on the Stour estuary offering intriguing views of reeds, water, wooden gates and fences in various stages of disrepair and high pylons. It is also supposed to be good for bid watching, but as is usual with me, I saw not a single interesting one.




The next point of interest on this walk is Flatford itself. It is a very pretty village with row boats and ducks on the river, quaint little houses and a small bridge across the river. There is also a National Trust tearoom which sells good fruit scones!




Then there were two options - I could either walk back along the same route to Manningtree or go further on to Dedham, a village on the Essex side of the Suffolk-Essex border. I took the second option for I thought I had all the time in the world. This leg of the walk was mostly uninteresting - there are supposed to be panoramic views of the Stour Valley from a relatively high point along this route, but just one week after being on top of Hope Valley and also under a dull grey sky and somewhat wet weather, the panoramic views did not turn out as enchanting as they were supposed to me. May be one would get a better impression on a clearer, dry day well into Spring or in Autumn. However, I got to walk along some very nice tree-lined footpaths, which despite not offering great photo ops, allowed me to switch off and soak in the calm and quiet atmosphere.

Just as I was about to enter Dedham, I saw a boat house and a few boats that I obviously photographed.


I am unable to write much about my impressions of this small village here because of the following reason: I just dont have any, or rather, did not have enough time to form an impression. Read on!

It was when I entered Dedham that I realised how lucky I was! I was there just in time to catch the last bus that would take me to any kind of a town from where I could take a train that would somehow take me back to Cambridge. I did catch the bus that went to Colchester train station from where I took the train towards Peterborough, got off at Bury St. Edmunds and changed to the train to Cambridge. If I had been a few minutes late, I would have to take the walk back to Manningtree and given that it was turning a bit too wet, it would not have been the ideal situation, never mind the fact that the return route would have been substantially shorter.

(See http://picasaweb.google.com/aswinsainarain/DedhamVale for more pictures and http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-flatfordbridgecottage/w-flatfordbridgecottage-walk.htm for more information)