Each week, we’re challenged to produce a photo that matches the theme.  The theme this week?  My backyard.

Now I could put up the rather strange photo of the first strawberry we grew up here in Shetland.  Strange because I’d left the “Solarize” filter switched on inside the camera’s settings.  Took me ages to work that one out.  I could put up the shot of the excellent decking my wife and I built (before it was replaced with the extension to the house we’ve got now).  Instead, I give you this:

If you continue along the fallen tree to the right, you get to the photo I put up for Silent Sunday.

Given that I’m in the Shetland Islands and this is in the grounds of Studley Royal Deer Park near Ripon, North Yorkshire, how does this qualify as my backyard?  Allow me to explain.

I grew up in Ripon.  Went to school there, met the lady who would one day become my wife there, only left for university.  All through my childhood, this tree and others like it, were there in the park.  On a weekend or an evening we’d go to the park, feed the ducks, try and spot the red deer through the trees, climb and play on the fallen trees.  It was, and is, magic.  My parents still live a stone’s throw from the park and we take my kids there now to feed the ducks, spot the deer and climb the trees.  It’s better than any adventure playground.  Not far from this fallen tree are the roots and stump of another fallen giant.  The last time I was staying with my parents, mum produced a photograph of my cousins (both older than me) standing next to that stump.  They were both shorter than it.  The boy in mum’s picture is now a couple of inches taller than me.  So when I was growing up, this was my back yard.  Always close enough to reach, by car, by cycle, by walking.  And I hope my kids will think of it as their backyard.

Now.  If you’ve enjoyed this, click on the link to The Gallery over on the right and you’ll find many more interesting photos than mine.