4 sheep bedded down for the evening... A couple of years ago, my wife and I visited the UK, in October primarily for my wife to do some family research in Stafford, Staffordshire where her father’s family originated from before migrating to the US. Her studies taken care of, we turned our attention to the Peaks District and stayed for several nights in Rowsley, Derbyshire.

Of course we rented a car and of course I had to mentally prepare myself for driving on the other side of the road. For several weeks prior to our visit, I mentally practice driving and making left and right turns, just like fighter pilots practice aerial maneuvers before they get into their jets. It was the left turns that was of particularly worried about. Even so, I could not have survived without the smart phone GPS to tell me which street I had to exit in the round-about. “Take the 4th exit” as I counted them off.

So after forging our way from Stafford to Rowsley and settled in, I began roaming the local area. We were situated on the eastern side of the River Derwent and on the western side was a wonderful complex of fields and fenced hedge rows. I kept looking at this particular field with some sheep in in one of the fields. So, on a nice sunny evening I got out my 70-300, mounted it to my Gitzo travel tripod and captured this appealing image. What is wonderful about the scene, but hardly recognizable are the 4 sheep bedded down in the middle left field. It’s one of those idyllic English country fall scenes that I often visualized. We had great fun wandering the Peaks District before ending our trip in the Cotswolds.