The weekend before Christmas, when we would, in normal circumstances, be gathered together for a wet weekend of overeating, anecdote bingo, and maybe a bit of walking. Obviously that couldn’t happen last year. At least we could meet up for a walk. Sadly, the Surfnslide crew were self-isolating and weren’t able to join us.
Rainbow over Settle. Glad I got that sheet of corrugated iron in the foreground!
We met in Settle with a view to climb Warrendale Knotts. I suggested we divert slightly from our planned itinerary to take a look at Scaleber Force…
Scaleber Force.
I’d noticed that a small section of woodland here is access land, and that a right-of-way drops down to the bottom of the falls and then abruptly stops.
The EWO and Scaleber Force.
I think you’ll agree, it was worth a little out-and-back along a minor lane to see it. We found a likely spot, out of the wind, for an early lunch spot, thinking shelter might be at a premium later in the walk. Naturally, once we’d settled down, it began to rain. This seems to have been a recurring theme when we’ve met for walks of late.
Pendle Hill. Plus more corrugated iron.High Hill Lane – that’s High Hill straight ahead.
It brightened up and we had a lovely sunny spell back along High Hill Lane.
But it was soon grey and wet again. It was that sort of day.
Warrendale Knotts.
The route we took up Warrendale Knotts proved to be ridiculously steep near the top, but it was well worth the effort…
Attermire Scar from Warrendale Knotts. The distant big hole in the middle of the picture is Victoria Cave.On Warrendale Knotts.
We spent quite some time on this modest top. It was very windy, but with the clouds scudding across the views were constantly changing and very dramatic.
Crepuscular Rays.Warrendale Knotts and Attermire Scar. Rye Loaf Hill on the right.Pen-y-ghentPen-y-ghent and one of the cairns on Warrendale Knotts. Is that Fountains Fell in the cloud on the right?Leaving the top.
Eventually, we had to move on. In fact, the Cheshire contingent had some pressing engagement and we chose to walk with them, initially at least, and so by-passed Victoria Cave.
Another view of Pen-y-ghent.
The weather deteriorated again, but the Adopted Yorkshire Woman assured us that she remembered a shelter, or possibly a cave, in the vicinity of Jubilee Cave, which would be kitted out with comfortable benches and provide a pleasant dry spot for another lunch stop. Sadly, it never materialised. Hard words may have been spoken about the vividness of the AYW’s imagination.
Jubilee Cave.
AT Jubilee Cave, the Cheshire crew left us to take a direct route back to Settle, whilst the remainder of our small party returned to Settle via Winskill and Langcliffe. That’s a very pleasant route, but I didn’t take any more photos, because the rain returned and this time it meant business. We did enjoy a brief dry spell and had a hurried stop in order to drain the dregs from our flasks, but by the time we reached the cars it was chucking it down. A small price to pay for a terrific walk though.
The day before this walk I uninstalled and reinstalled MapMyWalk. It worked, so here’s the resultant map. I think the numbers are kilometres, although the 4 and 6 seem a bit odd?Warrendale Knotts, not named on the OS 1:50,000 is the trig pillar with a psot height of 440m.
I’ve never climbed Warrendale Knotts before, and I still haven’t been up Rye Loaf Hill. Looking at the map of the Dales, it also occurs to me that I haven’t been up Great Shunner Fell or Buckden Pike or Fountains Fell since the mid-eighties. Which seems criminal given that they’re all relatively close to home. Aside from the Three Peaks area, the closest bit to home, I’ve been neglecting the Dales. I have a lot of exploring to do!
Sunset from The CovePost sunset light from The Lots
People were going further afield for their daily exercise. I knew this. Every day we drove past the Eaves Wood car park and it was full. I could read about it on blogs. People I met on my walks recounted trips to the Dales and the Lakes.
Post sunset light from The Lots
And I would be doing the same. Soon, very soon.
Tree trunk near the mouth of the Kent.
But somehow, I didn’t get around to it.
Flooded fields from Arnside Knott
I wasn’t particularly worried about what might happen, or any potential consequences.
Late afternoon skies from Castlebarrow…
I’m a creature of habit. I just seemed to be stuck in a rut of sorts.
And The Cove.Fungi.
Still, there are worse ruts to be in!
I was still getting out a lot. Frequent visits to The Cove, The Pepper Pot, and around Jenny Brown’s Point, usually with TBH.
The weather was a bit mixed, to say the least.
“See that storm over yonder, it’s gonna rain all day.”
This was a memorable walk. The tide was exceptionally high. So much so that we had to turn back and couldn’t get around Jenny Brown’s because the the salt marsh was inundated.
All of this is usually green!
It was also very windy and squally, with very heavy showers.
We walked across Quaker’s Stang which was completely exposed to the wind off the sea, and made for very bracing walking.
The RSPB car park for Allan and Morecambe hides was flooded.More fungi.Waves (of a fashion) at Jack Scout.The lights of Heysham and Morecambe from The Cove.Another high tide at Jack Scout.The salt marsh when it isn’t underwater! Warton Crag behind.Warton Crag again, across Quicksand Pool.Jack Scout Rainbow.Towering cloud catching late light from The Cove.Arnside Prom.
So – I’ve dismissed November with a solitary post again.
What would break my out of my routine? I needed an external stimulus, an intervention you might say…
Here’s something I haven’t done for a while – a tune for the end of the post. I absolute love the interplay of voices on this Levon Helm track….
The title pretty much sums it up. Photos from lots of different local walks, taken during the second half of October. I was aware that some people were beginning to travel a little further afield for their exercise, but somehow my own radius of activity seemed to shrink to local favourite spots not too far from the village.
Crepuscular rays on the Bay.Rainbow over The Lots
This is my mate D and his pug. I often meet him when I’m out for a local walk. I think I’ve mentioned before how much bumping into neighbours whilst out and about has helped during the lockdown in all of it guises.
The sun dips towards the sea, from Castle Barrow.
I can’t remember exactly when this happened – let’s assume it was October: I bumped into a chap carrying a fair bit of camera gear in Eaves Wood. He asked if he was going the right way to the Pepper Pot. He was. I saw him again on the top. It turned out he’s working on a book, one in a series, about where to take photos from in the North-West. Based in Lancaster, he’d never been to the Pepper Pot before. Funny how that can happen. Cloud had rolled in and the chances of a decent sunset looked a bit poor. I saw him again, a few weeks later, this time he’d set up his camera and tripod a little further West, in a spot I’d suggested. I hope he got his sunset.
A paper round rainbow. Just prior to a proper drenching.TBH in Eaves Wood.Among all the changes which Natural England have been carrying out at Gait Barrows – raising the water level, felling trees, removing fences, putting up new fences in other places etc, they’ve also renovated this old summer house by Hawes Water. Presently, it’s still locked, but eventually it will be an information centre and a vantage point to look out over the lake.Around this time, TBH started to take a regular weekend walk together around Jenny Brown’s Point. It was interesting to watch the channel from Quicksand Pool change each week and to contrast the weather and the tides each week.Traveller’s Joy by Jenny Brown’s Point.From Castlebarrow, heavy showers tracking in from The Bay.Late sun from Castlebarrow again.The lights of Grange from The Cove.Sunrise from our garden.TBH by the Pepper Pot on Castlebarrow.Post sunset from Castlebarrow.The last of the light from The Cove.Silverdale Moss from the rim of Middlebarrow Quarry. It had just finished raining, or was just about to rain, or probably both.Autumnal birches with a rainbow behind.The Shelter Stone Trowbarrow Quarry.Leighton Moss from Myer’s Allotment.The Copper Smelting Works Chimney near Jenny Brown’s and more heavy showers.Jenny Brown’s Cottages.The Bay from The Cove on a very grey day!Cows in the rain.
The brown cow at the back here is a bull. I’d walked through the fields on Heald Brow where they were grazing a few times and he’d never batted an eyelid. But on this day he and a few of his harem where stationed in a gateway. I was considering my options and wondering whether to turn back, but when I got within about 50 yards the bull suddenly started to run. At quite a canter. Fortunately, it was away from me and not towards – he was obviously even more of a wuss than me!
A White-lipped Snail – the rain isn’t universally disliked.Clougha across the Bay.Little Egret.The yellow feet are a good distinguishing feature.Picnic lunch – apple, mushroom soup and a selection of cheeses.
I decided that the best way to make the most of sometimes limited windows at weekends was to head out in the middle of the day and to eat somewhere on my walk. This bench overlooking the Kent Estuary was a particular favourite. Haven’t been there for a while now – must rectify that.
The tide had heaped up fallen leaves in a long sinuous line.Scot’s Pines on Arnside Knott.Birches on Arnside Knott.Whitbarrow from Arnside Knott.River Kent from Arnside Knott.A flooded Silverdale Moss from Arnside Knott.Ingleborough in the backgroundArnside Tower.Clouds catching late light.
In the first few weeks of working from home I was often out early for a pre-work jaunt. Sadly, I think these photos come from the last of those. I seem to have fallen into the habit of stumbling out of bed and downstairs to the computer just in time to start working. Once I’m on the computer, I enter that curious world where time seems to operate differently and what seems like five minutes of reading and composing emails can turn out to be a lot longer. On occasion, it’s been two hours later before I’ve surfaced and properly kick-started my day with a cup of tea.
An earlier start on a sunny, pin-sharp morning is a much better way to start the day, obviously. Must Try Harder!
It’s less than two miles to the toposcope on the Knott, even by the slightly longer route I’ve been using to avoid going through the yard at Arnside Tower Farm, which seems like an insensitive thing to do in present circumstances, so it’s isn’t like the walk need take too long.
Anyway, back to this particular walk…
It looked like it would have been a very fine morning to be out in the Coniston Fells.
And although there was a little cloud clinging to the tops, non-too-shabby in the Eastern Fells as well.
Mid-level clouds, I’d say – altocumulus?
The later starts are not the only change since lockdown began. During the latter part of April, I really pushed myself to ‘beat’ my total mileage for January. I did it, just, but towards the end it began to feel a bit like hard work. So once we’d slipped into May, I took a little rest for a couple of days. It was hot and I think I may have even lazed in the garden one day, rather than go out for a walk.
I know, shocking decadence! Lying down on the job…
Then my little rest was extended by a couple more days: I had a bit of a scare – high temperature, stiff and sore all over, but nothing too drastic, the kind of thing that might have kept you off work for a day or two in normal circumstances. Briefly though, it was a bit worrying. I even had a test, arranged online and very efficiently carried out by squaddies in a car park in Lancaster, well, in fact, self-administered, but with socially-distanced assistance from the young soldiers. I have to say, I’m full of admiration for all those people who have put themselves in harm’s way during this crisis to keep the rest of us safe and well-fed. Anyway, by the time the text arrived giving me the all clear, I was feeling fine and straining-at-the-leash to get out again, having self-isolated whilst waiting for the test result.
None of that, though, is the main reason that my mileage for May fell well short of my total for April. June is not likely to be any different either. Perhaps I should say ‘main reasons’, plural, the reasons being Unfortunate Distractions and my inability to resist them. Distractions like…
A common carder bumblebee busy collecting pollen from bush vetch flowers.
I took a lot of photos because both the bee and the flowers were marvellous colours, perfectly complementing each other and the light was ideal.
There are three all-ginger bumblebee species in the UK, but the common carder is prevalent and I’m not sure that the other two, the moss carder and the brown-banded carder, are found in this neck of the woods.
Is this too many photos of one bee for one blog post? I took a lot more!
Bush vetch is a leguminous plant, i.e. of the pea family. The flowers are small and, I suppose, easily overlooked, but well worth closer examination.
This wasn’t helping me get home in time for a pot of tea and some breakfast and to make some dough before starting work.
Fortunately, I was nearly home and just needed to walk along Townsfield to finish my walk. Confusingly, Townsfield is both a road, a cul-de-sac, and a field. As I turned into the road, a pair of roe deer crossed the road ahead of me and leapt gracefully over the drystone wall with striking ease.
Another Unfortunate Distraction. Oh no!
The Unfortunate Distractions ran across the field and then wandered along the hedgerow opposite.
I think this was the same pair I’d surprised in Eaves Wood a few days before. He had almost entirely changed into his summer coat with just a few scraps of the older, duller winter fur still evident; she, on the other hand, had hardly begun to shed her warmer winter garb. Not too dissimilar from most human couples I would think, like me and TBH in shorts year round and still wrapped up well into the summer respectively. Or rehashing the same old arguments about the settings on the thermostat. Our thermostat is remote from the boiler and seems to move mysteriously around the house. I can never find it, when I want to turn it down anyway. Takes an age touring all the rooms turning all the radiators down individually! (Oops! Shhhh. Don’t tell.)
Not that these are really a couple as such. For a while I’ve almost always seen roe deer in pairs, but roe deer, of either sex, are not monogamous. The rut is not until later in the year, but I assume that the large number of mixed gender pairs I’ve been seeing is in some way part of the wooing process.
He looked smaller than her, but I don’t think he was immature, his antlers have three tines, although his brow tines are very small. Three is as many as they get, at age three.
He’s also definitely got a coronet and maybe some pearling, which is what develops as they age. They aren’t particularly long-lived creatures, with various sources giving something like six or seven years as an average and anything between ten and sixteen as a maximum in the wild.
Again, I took many more photos than the, perhaps too many, I’ve shared here. Whilst I was watching the deer, half-hiding behind a telegraph pole – me, not the deer – I was in turn being watched, by a house sparrow, on the next telegraph pole…
Probably thought I was bonkers, since any thought of a shower, breakfast or bread-making before work were now definitely out of the question.
Stratocumulus or cumulus?
At lunch time that day I had to pop to the shops, which is a legitimate reason to be out, obviously. Can I ‘pop’ via the Cove and the Lots do you think? Well, I did, and no harm done.
I’ve bunged this one on the end because I like to finish with a sunset photo. B wanted to go to Jack Scout one evening to catch the sunset. We contrived to just miss it, after putting too much faith in the BBC weather website. I took lots of photos, but all essentially the same. Lovely walk all the same.
Tunes. Today, two very full-on songs and then, in each case, a deliciously different cover version.
Back to my punk roots to kick off, with Black Flags ‘Wasted’ all 51 raging seconds of it…
…and then Camper Van Beethoven’s brilliant cover…
…it’s from their ‘Telephone Free Landslide Victory’ album, which, if you haven’t heard it already, you should definitely seek out.
Next up, ‘Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos’ from Public Enemy’s ‘It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back’
Which was totally transformed by Tricky on his ‘Maxinquaye’ album…
Finally, not music, but a movie trailer, for Alex Cox’s weird and wonderful 1984 comedy science-fiction b-movie strangeness ‘Repo Man’.
Emilio Estevez and Harry Dean Stanton star, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Suicidal Tendencies and Iggy Pop feature on the soundtrack. Great film.
A speedwell. I don’t think it’s germander, the leaves were wrong. But I’m not sure what it is. It was tiny.
This footpath sign is looking decidedly worse for wear.
A magnificent copper beech near Hollins Lane.
Hart’s-tongue fern.
I thought these looked a bit exuberant for cowslips. I now realise but they are false oxlips, a hybrid of primrose’s and cowslips. There is a separate plant, the oxlip, but that isn’t found in the northwest.
The plants are tall like cowslips, but the flowers look more like primroses and radiate around the top of the stem rather than drooping all on one side as cowslips usually do.
For comparison…
…here are some shy and retiring cowslips.
These cowslips…
…which I saw a little further into the walk, are a bit more vivacious but still not as boisterous as the false oxlips.
Early Purple Orchid.
Carnforth saltmarsh and the Forest of Bowland from Heald Brown.
I was heading for Jenny Browns Point, with the aim of crossing the sands of the miniature bay between Know Point and Park Point.
On Heald Brow many of the grassland flowers had appeared.
Although the wildflower key tells me that tormentil flowers from June to September, I’m pretty sure that this is tormentil flowering in early May.
Bird’s-foot trefoil.
A buttercup, I don’t know which kind.
Pignut.
Speckled wood butterfly.
Warton Crag and Quicksand Pool.
A small group of greylag geese were sunning themselves on the far bank of quicksand pool. Most moved as I approached, but this one…
…gave me a steady stare…
…then had a leisurely stretch as if to say, “Don’t flatter yourself that I’m moving on your account. ”
Before strolling away nonchalantly.
You can see where I was heading almost dead centre in the photo above. I weaved a bit to investigate any foreign looking objects. Lord knows what this was or where it had come from.
Cirrostratus?
Herring gulls.
On Heathwaite, I tried a slender path which I haven’t followed before. It gave tantalising views of the sands I had recently crossed.
Eventually I reached the more familiar viewpoint by the bench. That’s Know Point right of centre, so you can see part of my route across the sands.
Nothing – and I mean, really, absolutely nothing – is more extraordinary in Britain than the beauty of the countryside. Nowhere in the world is there a landscape that has been more intensively utilised – more mined, farmed, quarried, covered with cities and clanging factories, threaded with motorways and railway lines – and yet remains so comprehensively and reliably lovely over most of its extent. It is the happiest accident in history. In terms of natural wonders, you know, Britain is a pretty unspectacular place. It has no alpine peaks or broad rift valleys, no mighty gorges or thundering cataracts. It is built to really quite a modest scale. And yet with a few unassuming natural endowments, a great deal of time and an unfailing instinct for improvement, the makers of Britain created the most superlatively park-like landscapes, the most orderly cities, the handsomest provincial towns , the jauntiest seaside resorts, the stateliest homes, the most dreamily spired, cathedral-rich, castle-strewn, abbey-bedecked, folly-scattered, green-wooded, winding-laned, sheep-dotted, plumply-hedgerowed, well-tended, sublimely decorated 50,318 square miles the world has ever known – almost none of it undertaken with aesthetics in mind, but all of it adding up to something that is, quite often, perfect. What an achievement that is.
Bugle.
I have three books on the go at the moment: I’m still reading ‘The Age of Absurdity’ by Michael Foley, I’m well into ‘The Road to Little Dribbling’ by Bill Bryson and I’ve recently started ‘Damned’ by Chuck Palahniuk, of ‘Fight Club’ fame. No prizes for guessing which of the three the quote comes from. I’m a big fan of Mr Bryson – Little Dribbling has a mixture of curious facts, lyrical description and curmudgeonly comedy which I’m finding very absorbing. He does repeat himself a little – he often expresses a fondness for our path network for example, but I’m ready to forgive him that.
Kent Estuary from The Knott.
I’m enjoying ‘Damned’, but probably shouldn’t have read another humorous book so hard on the heels of ‘A Pelican at Blandings’ and ‘Service with a Smile’. Palahniuk is witty, but he’s not Wodehouse.
Lakeland Fells from the Knott.
Whitbarrow Scar. The tree on the right is a Lancashire Whitebeam…
…with silvery leaves.
Later, I defied the lockdown to go out a second time and walk to the end of the lane, about 260 yards perhaps…
….the evening light was lighting the church and the stratus (?)…
I think my eyes were functioning okay.
Two unlikely covers today. First up, Baby Charles’ cover of The Arctic Monkey’s ‘I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor’.
And then World Domination Enterprises’ decidedly lo-fi, noise-fest cover of Lipps Inc’s ‘Funkytown’
It was either this or their classic ‘Asbestos Lead Asbestos’. Terrific live band. (In the 80s: I have no idea what they are up to now!)
The final two days of April, as clearly as I can remember, and judging from my photos, brought the kind of changeable weather which is more what we expect in these parts. Often sunny, but with plenty of clouds and showers evident, although I remember more smugly watching showers in the distance rather than being caught in them.
Farleton Fell – so near and yet so far.
Stratocumulus (?) clouds over the Bay.
Dark skies behind Hagg Wood.
Even though the sun was still shining on the crab apple blossom.
After many attempts, I managed to track down some bread flour in the form of a Doves farm ‘lucky dip’ with a selection of organic flours, some yeast and a recipe booklet. Result!
Showers over the Bay seen from Castlebarrow.
Have bread flour, will bake…
My attempts to bring a taste of the warm south to Lancashire.
Aquilegia or columbine. It’s in our garden here – but it is a British wildflower.
Song thrush.
The beech circle.
Middlebarrow Quarry – or The Lost World. ‘Every time I see it, I expect to see dinosaurs’, B tells me. I know what he means.
Middlebarrow aerial shelduck display team.
“Keep the formation tight as we come in to land.”
“Quick breather, squadron, and we’re off again.”
Of course, having seen a peregrine once, I now keep going back to peer over the lip into the vast quarry at Middlebarrow expecting lightening to strike twice. It hasn’t. I do keep seeing the close formation aerial skills of the shelducks though. Lord knows why they feel compelled to circuit the quarry so obsessively.
This small plaque is on a house near home. I’m sure I’ve posted a picture of it before. But now I’ve learned that it’s a fire insurance sign – showing which insurance company the house was registered with. It seems more like something you might expect to see in a more urban location, but maybe this is an antique which has been added since the signs were rendered obsolete by the inception of a national fire service? The house is very close to our small fire station, which is manned by retained fire fighters, so they should be okay if the worst happens.
The Bay from The Cove.
Ransoms flowering in the small copse above the Cove.
Orchids on the Lots.
Green-winged orchid.
Early purple orchid.
Water avens.
Bugle.
Orange-tip butterfly on cuckoo-flower.
A bedraggled peacock butterfly.
Gooseberry flowers. I think.
Lambert’s meadow.
The skies above Eaves Wood.
It annoys me, more than it should, that I can never remember the names given to the various types of clouds. All sorts of stupid trivia is securely lodged in my brain, but even though I’ve read a couple of books on the subject, clouds just don’t seem to want to stick. I thought that if I tried to label the clouds in my photos, maybe I would start to remember a few at least. The fluffy white ones above Eaves Wood here are cumulus, right? Although, maybe some stratocumulus behind.
And I assume these wispy ones are cirrus.
And this is maybe cirrocumulus.
But then….? Altocumulus and cirrus?
Hmmm. More effort required, I think.
Oak tree in full summer garb.
Full-throated robin.
Bit obvious I know. But good.
And, completely unrelated, as far as I know…
…the opening track from one of my favourite albums, which I was introduced to by THO, who often comments here, and which I shall always associate with a superb holiday which was split, quixotically, between the French Alps and the Brittany coast.
I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river
Is a strong brown god—sullen, untamed and intractable,
Patient to some degree, at first recognised as a frontier;
Useful, untrustworthy, as a conveyor of commerce;
Then only a problem confronting the builder of bridges.
Daffodils at Far Arnside.
High water in the bay again.
The river is within us, the sea is all about us;
The sea is the land’s edge also, the granite
Into which it reaches, the beaches where it tosses
Its hints of earlier and other creation:
The starfish, the horseshoe crab, the whale’s backbone;
The pools where it offers to our curiosity
The more delicate algae and the sea anemone.
It tosses up our losses, the torn seine,
The shattered lobsterpot, the broken oar
And the gear of foreign dead men. The sea has many voices,
Many gods and many voices.
The view from Park Point. With added whitecaps.
Looking to Grange-Over-Sands.
Looking south along the coast.
River Kent from Arnside Knott. Lake district hills lost in cloud.
River Lune. Ruskin’s view.
St. Mary’s Kirkby Lonsdale.
The Bay from Castlebarrow.
Arnside Tower.
Whitbarrow from Arnside Knott.
The River Kent from Arnside Knott again.
The bay and Humphrey Head from Arnside Knott.
For most of us, there is only the unattended
Moment, the moment in and out of time,
The distraction fit, lost in a shaft of sunlight,
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts.
Looking south along the coast.
Sunset from Emesgate Lane.
These last two images are actually videos. I don’t think they’ll work, because I’m too tight to fork out for a premium account. But click on the pictures and that should take you to the relevant flickr page where you can hear the sound of the wind and the breaking waves, some of the many voices of the sea, should you wish.
The photos here are mostly from the ‘leap day’ weekend at the end of February and the start of March, except for the first which is from earlier that week.
The quotations are all from ‘The Dry Salvages’, which is the third of T.S.Elliot’s Four Quartets. To be honest, I stumbled across it when looking for something about the sea – or so I thought. It turns out, what I was really looking for was that passage about ‘the distraction fit’, ‘the unattended moment’. I’m sure I’ve read the poem before, but I’ve never been struck so forcibly by this section as I was on this occasion.
I remember trying to capture something like this idea in a post way back in the early days of the blog. Perhaps, in some ways, it’s always the ‘unattended moment’ I’m writing about, or seeking when I go out for yet another walk, or crawl around taking yet more photographs of orchids, or of leaves, waves, clouds etc when I have thousands of images of exactly those things already.
It seems entirely appropriate to me that Elliot’s examples of ‘distractions’ should end with music – anyone who’s been to a gig, or clubbing, with me and watched me throwing my ample, uncoordinated frame around, grinning like a loon, might have caught me in one of those moments, if they weren’t too lost in the music and the moment themselves. But equally, they might have shared a moment like that during a wild day in the hills, when, despite, or perhaps because of, adverse conditions, our enthusiasm bubbled over into unexplained laughter and broad smiles; equally I think of a few ‘wild’ swims which sparked the same kind of happy absorption, or quiet moments around a beach bonfire. I’m heaping up examples because I can’t really put my finger on what I’m driving at, but I know it when I feel it.
Usually happens when the horns come in during this tune, for example.
Two walks, the first, a longish one, taking in Castlebarrow, Eaves Wood, Hawes Water, Trowbarrow, Leighton Moss, Bank Well, Lambert’s Meadow, Burtonwell Wood and Hagg Wood, is represented by this sunrise photo, taken near the Ring of Beeches in Eaves Wood.
Crepuscular rays shining on Morecambe Bay.
The second was a shorter affair, acros The Lots from The Cove, down to Woodwell and then back along the Clifftop via The Green.
A Song Thrush on the Lots.
During the long hot, dry spell last summer the pond at Woodwell dried out completely. I spent a while staring into the shallow pond hoping to work out how that had affected its various denizens. The most striking thing was that there are no minnows anymore. I chatted to a chap who reckoned that they would eventually return when eggs are carried in on the feet of a Heron, or other waterfowl. There was also no frogspawn, although that may just have been late this spring.
Other things seemed to be present. I spotted a Newt and a Diving Beetle. And lots of these snails. I think this is a Great Ramshorn snail. There are several other species of Ramshorn snail in Britain, but most seem to be quite diminutive. Great Ramshorns are apparently often red, as you can just about see this one is, due to the presence of haemoglobin. Their shells are usually brown, apparently, possibly with a tinge of red, and not green as all of the snails at Woodwell seem to be, but I think the green may be due to a coating of algae or something similar.
Daffodil season is just about over and I don’t seem to have taken many photos of daffs this year. So here’s some which were sat in our porch – I noticed the light as I was setting-out for a wander and I couldn’t resist.
Of course, normally I fret about the fact that I continually post photos of the same old things over and over, ‘leaves and stuff’ as TBH has it; ironically, this year I’m worrying that I haven’t taken enough photos of daffodils, one of my usual spring staples. Something else I ponder from time to time is whether it’s best to restrict each post to a single walk and each walk to a single post, and whether or not I ought to cover every one of my walks on the blog. I realise that if these are the things I worry about then I’m a very lucky man, but even though these things are obviously trivial, and nobody really cares whether blogs have rules or not, these are still matters that I mull over occasionally. Not that I’ve ever reached any sort of satisfactory conclusion.
All of which waffle leads up to the fact that this is a portmanteau post which covers several mid-March walks whilst also ignoring a number of others.
Several of those walks involved ascents of Arnside Knott. Multiple ascents on some occasions. Six in all.
One of them was with TBH, as you can see.
It’s often said that there’s no such thing as bad weather, only weather. So I’ll refrain from suggesting that we had some rotten weather in March, but I can at least say that we had a lot of weather. Some days, the weather was very changeable, with big clouds and showers blowing through.
I like those kinds of days, because of the rainbows, dramatic lighting and impressive cloud formations which often accompany them.
Some days, however, just brought a lot of rain. B’s rugby was often cancelled due to water-logged pitches and the fields east of Arnside Tower farm and adjacent to Silverdale Moss were all flooded…
Still, if it means we get days of high contrast, when louring skies…
…clear…
…but I can still see showers, falling on someone else, whilst I have sunshine…
…then I’m quite happy.
The Lune at Kirkby Lonsdale…
…was running very high and swift, but even that looked less threatening a few minutes later…
…when the sun came out.
The view from the Knott was also always changing. Sometimes there was hardly any view. At others times only the higher hills were obscured by clouds, or they were cloaked in snow, or both.
Another spring staple of the blog, much shyer than daffs, is Green Hellebore…
I made several visits on the way to and from the Knott to check that it was still there. It was. Very reassuring.
