Blue Ridge (The Gallery #3)

Has a week really passed that quickly? It's time for The Gallery again (how I used to wish my drawings were good enough to send in to Tony Hart....) and this week the theme of the photography is Colours.

This photo was taken last summer, near Charlottesville in Virginia where we were staying with my husband's Virginian relatives. The area borders the Blue Ridge mountains, which stretch from Georgia to Pennysylvania; you can see from this why it is so named. In the searing heat of the Virginian summer, the pale blue haze of the hills almost seems to merge with the sky, in contrast with the lush green of the vegetation in the valley.

It is the most beautiful area; entering the Shenandoah National Park, you can drive along a scenic road called Skyline Drive and wonder at the view from countless overlooks; you can stop and picnic (although you have to beware of bears...) or you can hike parts of the Appalachian Trail. Driving back down, you pass wooden houses where old men sit out on the porches in their checked shirts in the heat of the afternoon; the roar of the cicadas as dusk approaches is deafening. We sit on the terrace in the darkening evening, looking at this view.

We first came here in 1995, when we were still students - coming back 14 years later with kids, nothing much had changed. But we won't see this exact view again - the Doctor's relatives moved out of the house that following week, after many years. So, it's one to be savoured.