The Stour is a chalk river. At the moment (early June) after nearly a month of dry weather it is very shallow. The emerald coloured long river weeds are blossoming with little white flowers.
This very much reminded me of the picture of Ophelia painted by Sir John Everett Millais of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood which is in the Tate. The model was Lizzie Siddall who posed in a water-filled tin bath and caught a severe cold which perhaps led to the tuberculosis that killed her. Siddall, who can be seen in many pre-Raphaelite paintings, later married painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
