Fields of yellow, and snakes

Yep Im standing in a field of Rapeseed

I don’t usually find that farmland holds a great deal of interest for me, but working in Kent ‘the garden of England’ I see more than my fair share of it.  Theres a lot of farms, and a lot of farmers in a fair few tractors and all are in front of me generally.  Where are they going?? Farmers appear to live next to their fields, so where the hell are they commuting to in these epically slow and unhelpfully wide vehicles at 8.30 in the morning?

I digress. Rapeseed: it’s just so yellow and its this yellowness that fascinates me.  I make my living designing wallpaper, which is more interesting than I imagine it sounds.  When one comes across a field of rapeseed yes it is unusually bright, but it doesn’t seem unnatural.  What I mean by this is, a rapeseed flower is pure, solid, unapologetic, primary yellow.  Unsurprising that it’s a member of the mustard family isn’t it?  If you were trying to mix it in paint you would only need to whip out the pot of yellow and you’d be done.  The number of times we use a primary colour in the products at work are zero.  Its just considered too jarring, too unnatural and yet here it is in nature.  In fact the only colour we do use is beige, or a lovely shade of grey beige.  I know a whole field stands out rather but it only grows like that because of human intervention.  I wonder why we choose to limit the colour palettes we use in our own houses so?  Also I was once told that green is the hardest colour to sell clothes in, and yet we are surrounded by it.  And that is why I love a good field of Rapeseed, as much as anyone can.

When taking a few shots the other night on my way home from work I came across a little surprise in the field.  There are a few fields along a stretch of road that are only separated by a deep ditch (this was also the scene of the pheasant butchery for interest) so I wandered in the entrance to one just to get some close ups.  Compositions captured I turned to go when there was a rustling around my feet and this little guy slithered out!  Being long, thin, legless and remarkably snake-like I naturally presumed it was a snake but some time on google has proved it to be a slow worm; a legless lizard.  Definitely less exotic, but no less exiting for me.  Oddly my friend was only telling me how he accidentally sliced one in half with his lawnmower the other day.  At the time I imagined a smaller worm sized thing, but actually its quite meaty so that must have taken some doing!  I talk about the death of wildlife far more than I thought I would on here…

The leg-less lizard