A pond-collector's paradise: Country diary, 4 December 1970

4 December 1970 Standing water lay in hollows in the saturated pastures creating ponds of all shapes and sizes

KENT: Along the green track, the puddles reached over our boots and the riverside trees grew straight out of the water joining their own reflection in an unbroken pattern. Standing water lay in hollows in the saturated pastures and that rich, clay lowland around Smarden became a pond-collector's paradise. There were round ones, square ones, elongated ones often traceable in rows marching across the landscape from pasture to woodland. The odd thing about many of them was their occurrence on high ground with no stream feeding into them or flowing from them. One or two were easily identifiable as the traditional farm pond with a few ducks happily plunging about in sight of the farmhouse. The largest one, behind Potkin Farm, was so impressive that it almost qualified as a lake.

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