A Nautiloid

White-lipped snail.

A post to deal with mid-September last year.
On a dull Sunday, after a walk around Jenny Brown’s Point with TBH, I went to Lambert’s Meadow and took a few photos of spiders and a lot of photos of snails. Do snails breed in September? I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many in one visit.

More banded snails.

Cottage at Silverdale Green.

Another cottage at Silverdale Green.

On the following weekend, the second Morecambe Poetry festival took place at the Winter Gardens. This time TBH joined me and we went to see the headline poets on both the Friday and Saturday nights; first Brian Bilston and Henry Normal, then Jackie Kay and Carol Ann Duffy. Fabulous.

Morecambe Winter Gardens.

The line up for this year’s festival looks every bit as enticing, hopefully TBH will join me again.

I saw Lemn Sissay at the first festival and years ago when I lived in Manchester and likewise, I saw Mike Harding live several times, but not for a very long time. This time, two BBC programmes – Loose Ends and The Verb – will be broadcast live from the festival. Things are on the up and up, both for Morecambe and for the Winter Gardens.

On the Sunday of that weekend, TBH had a mission to perform.

Hazelwood Hall.

She took me to Heald Brow with a hand drawn map she’d been given by a colleague.

TBH on Heald Brow – Bowland Fells on the horizon.

The map showed the location of…

Heald Brow fossilised Nautiloid.

I’ve heard about this impressive fossil a few times from friends in the village, but have never actually managed to find it. With the aid of TBH’s map, we found it this time almost immediately. It’s hard to spot because it’s generally covered with a piece of turf which you’re supposed to replace, although I’m not sure why.

A skein of geese.

Post sunset light at The Cove.

Later, I was out again for a wander to the Cove and across the Lots.

After years of not putting out food for the birds because our cats were a bit too interested, we’ve now realised that our one remaining cat is too old, fat and slow (I sympathise) to do any harm anymore. I snaffled a number of feeders from my parents a while ago and since TBH strung them all up (the feeders, not my parents!) from the Silver Birch by our kitchen window they have been giving me a great deal of pleasure ever since.

Starling eating dried meal-worms.

Starling on our beech hedge.

Expect a lot more photos of our very varied visitors as I catch-up (ho ho) with the intervening six-months or so.

White Peak: Ashbourne and Thor’s Cave

Market Place Ashbourne.

After our epic US trip last summer, this summer, for various reasons, we had no firm plans for a holiday, but were planning to get a late booking and go to the Isle of Man. I suppose the wet weather we had did give us lots of time to try to plan something. In the event, the steep combined cost of the ferry and accommodation put us off, but we managed to find a cottage just outside the Peak District above the River Dove between Ellastone and Mayfield.

When I met her, TBH had only recently moved from Sheffield, on the edge of the Peak. I lived for many years in Manchester which also sits on the border of the Peak District and grew up in the East Midlands making the Peak District the most accessible National Park and where I did almost all of my earliest hill-walking. We have a shared affection for the area and this would be a trip down memory lane for both of us.

George and Dragon, Ashbourne.

We arrived a little too early to check-in to our cottage, so drove into nearby Ashbourne for an excellent late lunch/early tea at the George and Dragon. Ashbourne is a very handsome town. Wainwright was of the opinion, I believe, that it should have been the start of the Pennine Way which seems like a good idea to me. The Historic England map of the town shows an absolute rash of listed buildings, which perhaps at least partly accounts for its charm. The George and Dragon is one of those listed buildings, as is the nearby Town Hall…

Town Hall, Ashbourne.

…where, many moons ago, a certain Mr and Mrs Jones, known to many readers of this blog, tied the knot. I was on my best behaviour, and didn’t carry out my threat to wear a bridesmaid’s dress to the ceremony. Andy tells me that our beforehand Dutch Courage pints were consumed in the very same George and Dragon.

The Manifold Way.

Taking a leaf out of our New York trip, we tried to pack as much in each day as we could, so that evening we parked at Weag’s Bridge in the Manifold Valley to have a bit of a wander.

Thor’s Cave seen from the valley.

I’ve walked along the Manifold way, a cycling track and footpath which follows the course of an old light railway line, many times in the dim and distant past, but I don’t recall ever climbing up to take a closer look at Thor’s Cave.

The River Manifold?

As is sometimes the case in Limestone country like this, the river runs underground in some parts of the valley. I guess that there’s still a clear course for the river because it will sometimes flood and run above ground too in the winter months after heavy rain?

Fossils in the steps on the way up to the cave.

The large slabs which had been used to make steps on the steepish path up to the cave were resplendent with fossils, a marvellous excuse for me to stop and takes lots of photos whilst having a sneaky breather.

A view along the Manifold Valley.

Thor’s Cave.

Inside Thor’s Cave.

The view out of Thor’s Cave.

Another ‘entrance’.

Exploring the cave.

Thor’s Cave.

Exploring the cave.

It’s an imposing cave with lots of nooks and crannies to explore. Apparently evidence was found here of inhabitation from the Paleolithic era right through to medieval times. From the cave a path, not shown on the map and, by the looks of it, still under construction, climbs up to the edge of the gorge.

Above Thor’s Cave.

Another view along the Manifold Valley.

More Caves.

There were more small caves evident from this vantage point and the DBs spent a fair while exploring them. On the OS map a track can be seen making a beeline for the nearby village of Wetton. Although it’s not shown on the map as such, it’s now a permission path, so we followed it into the village, where we called in at the Royal Oak for a quick pint. From there we wandered down Carr Lane back to our car in the last of the light.

Newcastle Tour

Lots of bridges over the Tyne.

B had an open day at Newcastle University. Much to his delight, we all chose to go with him. He was only allowed one guest, and TBH bagged that spot, so Little S and I met A and went sightseeing around the town.

Another bridge and the Baltic art gallery.

The curvy glass building is a music venue – The Sage, Gateshead.

Visiting the Baltic.

Little S has been taking me to task – apparently he feels that I have unfairly branded him a Philistine on the basis of one incident many, many years ago. He may have a point. Although he is sticking by his opinion of Miro. Anyway, he was quite happy to have a gander in the Baltic and even indulged me again later on, as you’ll see.

Tyne bridges again from the viewing platform at the Baltic.

The Procession, Hew Locke.

The exhibit which has left a lasting impression was this huge display of near life-size figures.

More art.

Newcastle castle.

This was far from my first visit to Newcastle, but somehow it has escaped my notice that Newcastle actually has a castle. Seems obvious that it would, with hindsight.

Newcastle castle.

Newcastle castle.

A was keen to take us a vegan cafe she likes. It was very good. Even Little S evidently enjoyed his meal and he’s usually an unapologetic carnivore.

The weather had been good when we left home, but then we’d been in the cloud as we drove over the Pennines and it remained foggy after that. We’d arrived in Newcastle to find it cold and drizzly. Fortunately, whilst we were in the cafe it brightened up considerably.

Our view through the cafe window.

Flower bed at the Uni.

Part of the University.

The Hancock Museum.

Fossil.

The Hancock Museum was another one of those places, stuffed to the rafters with a disparate hodge-podge of wonderful stuff.

Surely ancient Egyptian?

I liked the shiny clock.

Newcastle city centre.

The very fetching Central Arcade.

Grainger Market.

Monument.

Art at the Laing Art Gallery.

Art at the Laing Art Gallery.

We were killing time to a certain extent, before a meet-up with the kids’ grandparents for a meal in a very busy Spoons near the uni. It was only when we had run out of time that Little S remembered to tell me that he wanted to go shopping for a suit for his forthcoming prom. Doh!

B was impressed with Newcastle. It’s a good job that I was too, since it seems likely that we will have a few more visits to the North-East over the next few years.

More Than Enough

UF was up from Manchester since we had tickets to see Martin Simpson and Martin Taylor at the Brewery Arts in Kendal. I invited TC to bring his dogs out for a walk around the village with us. We started in Eaves Wood with a visit to the Pepper Pot, then walked through Burton Well Wood and across Lambert’s Meadow. The fact that I have no photographs is, I think, a good indication of how poor the weather was. In the photo above, we are at the now decrepit bench at the top of the hill at Myer’s Allotment. Even on a wet day there was a bit of a view over Leighton Moss…

We dropped down through Fleagarth Wood to Jenny Brown’s Point, where, since it had stopped raining and the sand was reasonably firm, we decided to walk around the coast back to the village.

It was bracingly windy and rather splendid.

Ink Caps, I think.

The next morning, a Sunday, UF made an early exit to make a prior engagement. Usually, when he makes a Sunday flit, he’ll be playing snap – the variant that has ‘seven no trumps’ and the like – or watching City play, but, if I remember right, on this occasion he was meeting friends for a walk. It might have been a good one, because the weather was much brighter, with big clouds, plenty of sunshine and heavy showers tracking in off the Bay. Having said that, I didn’t set out for a walk until late afternoon, so it’s possible I’d been waiting for the weather to improve.

I managed to string a five mile route out over nearly three hours. Tea breaks to sit and watch the showers falling elsewhere were the order of the day.

At Far Arnside, I spent some time looking for the fossilised corals in the rocks on the edge of the Bay; something I hadn’t done for quite some time.

Clougha Pike and Ward’s Stone from Heathwaite.

Kent Estuary and Whitbarrow from Arnside Knott.

Humphrey Head.

I was surprised to get to the top of Arnside Knott without being caught by any showers. Perhaps I celebrated too soon: as I began to descend, it finally started to rain on me.

It was short lived though, and brought a rainbow with it.

Mushroom cloud formation above Heysham Nuclear Power Plant. Hmmm.

Late light on the houses of Townsfield.

Almost home. More rain and another rainbow.

Here’s the two Martins, performing a song from Martin Simpson’s repertoire, written, I think, by his father-in-law. It seems highly appropriate for these ‘Eat or Heat’ times.

An Orchid Hunt

Female Broad-bodied Chaser in the garden again.

The final day of our Whit half-term holiday. TBH and I were out for a turn, looking for various kinds of orchids: I’d heard the previous day that there were Fly Orchids flowering at Trowbarrow Quarry, and felt that there would probably be Bee Orchids too, TBH wanted to see the Lady’s-slipper Orchids at Gait Barrows.

The Elder was in flower and TBH had been busy making cordial, as she habitually does at this time of year. Very nice it is too.

Trowbarrow.

Comma butterfly.

Fossilised coral at Trowbarrow.

Common Spotted-orchid and Quaking Grass.

Common Blue Butterfly on Bird’s-foot Trefoil its principal food-plant.

Northern Marsh-orchid. Possibly.

Bird’s-eye Primrose by Hawes Water. At the southern limit of its range.

Common Spotted Orchid again.

Northern Marsh-orchid or maybe a hybridisation of same with Common Spotted-orchid.

I didn’t find what I was looking for at Trowbarrow and at Gait Barrows the Lady’s-slippers were rather dried-out and exhausted looking.

It was a very pleasant walk though.

 

A Families Weekend at Ours

I haven’t fallen out of love with blogging, I’ve just been preposterously busy; and then, the further one gets behind, the more daunting the prospect of catching up becomes.

So – hopefully on the road to catching-up – a weekend back in September. What has become one of the many regular fixtures in our calendar – a gaggle of friends dropping in for a weekend in the Arnside/Silverdale AONB. We can just about squeeze them all in, although some have to sleep on the drive in their campervan. Two years ago the weather was rotten. Last year it was superb. This year it was….well, neither one nor the other really.

On the Saturday, when we finally dragged ourselves away from copious cups of tea around the kitchen table, we walked down through Fleagarth Wood to Jenny Brown’s Point and then back via Jack Scout and very possibly the Lots and the Cove.

Near Jenny Brown’s Cottages there were numerous and varied fossils in the rocks.

 

Most impressive (I’m hoping the Andy’s photos do them more justice than mine), but I can’t work out how I’ve walked past them hundreds of times in the 20 years I’ve lived in the area without noticing them before.

As in previous years, we rounded off our Saturday with a very fine sample of dishes from our local Indian take-away. (I’m very fond of the Handi Achar, but the Kursi Chicken was very good too. So much so that it may be my new favourite.)

The weather on Sunday showed much more promise and we were full of hope as we crossed the causeway at Leighton Moss (soon afterward the scene of the BBC’s AutumnWatch).

 

But when we stopped for some lunch on the benches on Summer House Hill above Leighton Hall, there was a rather cold wind….

 

…and we watched a curious blanket of low cloud enveloping the view and putting a bit of a damper on the day.

We decided to abandon our plan of an ascent of Warton Crag and instead went to explore Cringlebarrow, Deepdale, Yealand Allotment and the environs of Hawes Water – which, according to some younger members of the party, was much too long a walk even without the addition of Warton Crag.

Anyway – a very fine weekend. The ankle-biters are firmly of the opinion that we should have two such weekends next year……

A Weekend at Ours I – Golden Time

Our year revolves around a cycle of regular get-togethers with a group of old friends. A relatively recent addition to the programme is a family weekend in the autumn at our house.

Last year, the weekend was a complete wash-out, with wall-to-wall cloud and rain. So it was pleasing last week to look at the forecast and see, sandwiched between two bouts of foul wet weather, a fine weekend predicted, cold but dry.

In the event, after a hard frost early on, Saturday wasn’t cold at all. We opted for a walk to Arnside. Our daughter A asked for, and received (thanks G!), a local OS map for her birthday and happily took charge of the route planning and navigation. She managed to find a circuit which incorporated four playgrounds, so very child friendly.

 

Here are some of the assembled ankle-biters, stress-testing the zip-wire at the first of those parks, which is just a few hundred yards from home.

From there we ambled through Holgates Caravan Park to the coast at Far Arnside (see the top photo). There are many fossilised corals on display in the rocks there.

 

I always forget to put something in the shot to give scale. This one above is quite large, perhaps almost a foot long. This…

 

…is a roughly football sized patch of these…

 

This tessellation of irregular polygons…

 

…was tiny.

(There’s a bit more about the fossils in this post.)

We took an early, and leisurely lunch on the rocks here, chiefly because it looked such an inviting place to sit in the sun.

 

At Far Arnside we’d passed ivy absolutely thronging with bees. On the cliff path the scabious flowers were attracting hover-flies…

 

A convenient rocky ramp….

 

…leads down from the cliff-top to…

 

…the wide open spaces of the sands. This has long been a favourite spot of mine and I was pleased that our friend D, the Junior Sherpa, was impressed. He isn’t easily impressed. The playgrounds were ‘mundane’. And I think he found our general lack of pace and ambition frustrating. After-all, he’s a seasoned mountain man these days. He was also keen to get back to the house for some ‘Golden Time’ with his friends. (No, I’m not sure what he meant either).

I couldn’t persuade D, or indeed anybody else, to taste the samphire which was thrusting up through the beach. I was pretty tentative myself, bit I did nibble a small piece. Salty. And reminiscent of something……,which I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

 

The first part of the river-bank walk into Arnside, on estuarine mud, was a sloppy, slip-sliding affair. Some of the children, well principally my boys, were coated, seemingly from head to foot.

There’s a spot on the bank where deadly night-shade grows every year, and we admired the smooth, shiny black berries from a respectful distance.

The tide warning siren at the Coastguard station was sounded a couple of times. We enjoyed an ice-cream on the promenade and watched the tidal bore shoot down past the viaduct.

From there, after a brief visit to another playground, we climbed up on to Arnside Knott.

 

The air was very clear and the views were stunning. A high-effort-to-view-ratio according to the Shandy Sherpa and the Adopted Yorkshireman.

 

The kids were more interested in a bit of tree climbing.

 

The Next Generation.

I’d been boasting that the hills of North Wales could be seen from the Knott in the right conditions. It was certainly a clear day. We could see Skiddaw over Dunmail Raise, a ferry arriving from Ireland at Heysham, and Blackpool Tower down the coast. And also, apparently, the afore-mentioned hills of North Wales, which I missed, being too busy gabbing.

Our route home took us past Arnside Tower…

…and through Eaves Wood.

With sixteen to serve for tea, we settled on two sittings: simple pasta based fare for the kids and a fabulous take-away from our local Indian Restaurant, Cinnamon Spice, for the greying brigade. Heartily recommended by the way. I always go for the mixed kebab and Chicken Handi Achar. Everybody else seemed to enjoy their meals too. The onion bahjis were superb.

A lazy walk. Sunshine. Good company. Curry. A few beers. Loads of blather.

Doesn’t get any better than that, does it?

Far Arnside Fossils

A select band of just 4 walked back to Silverdale from Arnside. A and I were joined by another Father and Daughter team. They have moved away from Silverdale (but fortunately not too far away)  and so the girls had some catching-up to do. We soon became two parties. Although we often waited for the girls, somehow they contrived to almost immediately fall far behind again every time.

The weather was fabulous for February and I’ve probably eulogised before about the area around White Creek and Arnside Point, the vast spaces of the bay and the views of the hills which surround it.

 

Chris is an artist and it’s always fascinating to talk to him, especially when he talks, as he did on this occasion, about his painting and how his approach is evolving. You can see some of his paintings here.

He’s also much more observant than me and without his help I might never have found the many fossils we examined in the rocks at Far Arnside Bay.

One of the most rare and important geological exposures is on the western side of the beach at Far Arnside. Here a smooth bed of upper Dalton Limestone was exposed in 2000, when the salt marsh was eroded by the River Kent channel. The surface of this bed is called a ‘marine peneplaned hard-ground’. It was eroded by coarse calcareous sands shortly after the sediment became lithified (became solid rock). This scouring action cross-sectioned the bedrock and has produced a near-polished surface that now displays many perfectly persevered fossil corals. *

I’m not sure that we found the ‘near-polished surface’, perhaps I shall have to look again sometime. So are the fossils all corals then? I thought the one above looked like a fish and a piece of shell.

 Possibly a fossilised basketball?

 The ghost of an ammonite?

 This was about the right size to be a polo mint glued to the rock.

I’m happy to think that this is coral, so it’s probably the only one which isn’t!

The Kent channel seems to be a little further from the shore here than it was, and it has left behind a nice firm sandy surface, pleasant to walk on.

 

Things became a little stickier around the stream channels we crossed. Stand around for a while here and you will almost inevitably witness the collapse of part of the bank. It’s like watching the erosion of a river in time-lapse super-speed. It looks like an ox-bow lake, or maybe an oxbow pond, is in the making here.

 

The Cove.

*From the article ‘South Cumbrian Limestones in the Arnside Area’ by Mike Balderstone and Michael Dewey, originally printed in ‘Keer to Kent’ magazine and anthologised in ‘The Arnside and Silverdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty’ edited by Terry Keefe.

Piel Island

 

Waiting on the jetty, the Roa Island Lifeboat station to the left and Piel castle just visible on the right of the picture.

We continued our exploration of the north side of the bay with a first ever trip to Piel Island. An interesting drive along the coast from Ulverston brought us to Roa Island – a tidal island connected to the mainland by a short causeway. From there we had the excitement of a brief boat trip across the channel on the Piel Ferry. After becoming frightened on a dinghy on Coniston Water earlier in the summer,A became quite hysterical about this trip, but the ferryman was very sympathetic and although she didn’t enjoy the journey, she was much more confident when it came time for our return trip.

The island has a ruined castle, a pub and a row of cottages.

The castle was clearly once very extensive. Built by the monks of Furness Abbey it protected their harbour here and their lucrative trade particularly with Ireland. It’s big moment in history came during the reign of Henry VII when Lambert Simnel, a pretender to the thrown supported by the Yorkist party, landed here from Ireland. The uprising was soundly defeated, but unusually the story has a happy ending for the puppet figurehead of the coup who was pardoned by Henry and given a job as spit turner in the royal kitchens.

The castle has both outer and inner walls, the latter quite well preserved except on the seaward side where the action of tide and waves has undermined and destroyed them. The keep is quite large and it looks as though it should be possible to explore the battlements, but sadly at present the access to those are barred by a locked grille.

 

The keep.

The wall corners and the edges of windows and doorways are all in the same red sandstone as Furness Abbey, but otherwise the walls are built of a more rough and ready rubble and mortar construction.

The sandstone was everywhere pocked and creased by erosion into fabulous miniature landscapes. The walls on close inspection turned out to be a haven for a wide variety of mini beasts. One wall of the keep was festooned with snails, at least until the boys pulled them all off.

More mobile and therefore not so easy to photograph were a tiny black and white wasp hauling the carcass of a pale spider up a wall, and the odd earwig like creature which B coaxed out of a narrow fissure and onto his coat. There were inevitably plenty of spiders taking advantage of the rich pickings.

With the white cross on its abdomen I think that this is our Garden Spider, Araneus diadematus. A little surfing leads me to believe the diadematus means crowned or wearing a diadem, perhaps a reference to that rather spectacular pattern. A more successful resident of the castle than old Lambert Simnel then (and isn’t that a name to conjure with?).

The island has a wild and stark beauty of its own. The beaches are shingle…

With stones of many hues, textures and types.

This was a feature of the beaches on the Baltic too, indeed the holiday home which we stopped in (a house swap – thoroughly recommended if you haven’t tried it) had copies of two colourful guide books – Strandsteine and Noch Mehr Strandsteine with identifying pictures of the geological treasures to be found.

I found a fossil here on the beach…

It’s the one on the right, on a desk at home. The circular striated pattern runs through to the other side of the stone. The fossil on the left I found in Germany. I think that it’s something like a Sea Urchin, it’s not really seen to best advantage here, but has a five neat lines of dots like a thin starfish on the bottom.

The top edge of the shingle was colonised by specialists like this Horned Poppy

All parts of which are apparently poisonous.

Or this Sea Campion with its gorgeous veined pattern…

Scarlet Pimpernel is rather less specialised and much more widespread, but as some common names imply – ‘change-of-the-weather’, ‘poor-man’s-weatherglass’, ‘shepherd’s-sundial’ – it closes in dull weather and so I offer this photo as evidence that despite the cloudy views on show we did have some sunshine!

At present camping on the island is free and a number of groups were taking advantage of that opportunity. There is a toilet block by the pub with a couple of showers. The pub is being refurbished but drinks and food can still be had. The publican is traditionally ‘King of Piel Island’ and I suspect that the pub will be well worth visiting when the new incumbents have restored the seat of their fiefdom.

We rounded of our day with a visit to the Lifeboat station on Roa Island…

…and an ice-cream in the cafe.

These handsome Starlings were feeding in the road by our car. I presume that the beige heads are because they are juveniles?