“Right you ‘orrible lot!”, cries the sergeant-major at the back. “This is the tidal limit of the Ribble right here and we will take no prisoners! Keep an eye out for that tidal bore which is due any minute now…. YOU! At the end! Wake up laddie!”
Hey, I’m sure gulls are as attuned to the hydrodynamics of their local area way more than any human. I had to look that stuff up on Wikipedia, but they knew it already — food is on its way upriver.
Diamond is as much part of the Railway pack as anyone, whether human or canine. She’s getting old now, as you can tell, so is not out as often as she might be — something that will come to be the case for all of us, in time, I am sure.
Weirs are the creation of engineers, and this one, on the River Dee in Chester, is nearly a thousand years old, built by the Normans. On the downstream side, the tidal estuary begins. The main beneficiaries of this are those upstream who are thus defended from tidal flooding, and the local birdlife, who find in it a very convenient place to go fishing. The one at the top has just eaten, in fact, but is still hanging around for more.
It’s quite a while since I was last in the Blue Pig, a.k.a. Midgehole Working Man’s Club, which is partly because this is one of those drinking establishments that only opens by the grace of God, or more precisely one of a small group of volunteers. If you head up that way you just take your chances. If entry is achieved, though, one can investigate some of the many literal illustrations of the name that are collected inside: these are just three of a few dozen.
“And together now…. one, two, three, leg up and TUCK that head…. and now SLEEP.”
“Hang on, did we put anyone on watch? Ah, who cares.”
Dipsacus fullonum has been used as a natural comb since antiquity, particularly to clean woollens and raise the nap on them (that is, make them fuzzy, like velvet) — and one can see why. One might even argue whether humans would ever even have invented the comb had they not had the teasel as a model. As seen in Raleigh Park, Oxford, just across the road from my accommodation here.
It might be a dragonfly or possibly a damselfly: apparently they are very similar. Whichever one it is, it’s a predator, and imagine (if the scales were different) this thing coming towards you intent on murder, for surely what it actually is, is a flying Egyptian mummy/vampire.
“I just want to run. Chase a small animal. Maybe drop a turd somewhere! HELP ME!!”
The dog pram: another step backwards for canines. Millions of years of independent evolution, then they made the mistake of hooking up with humanity.
Vegetables sometimes grow in our allotment but in some years they don’t: it’s still not raining and 2026’s vegetable crop has been reduced to a few sad and scraggly-looking beetroot plants that may or may not have edible roots underneath them. But fruit: that, we can produce. After the loganberries and jostaberries, the next tranche of free food appears to be ready.
I admire this kind of large-scale decrepitude and collapse. It is not that the whole of Kiveton Park Industrial Estate looks like this, but nevertheless, in my opinion this was the best-looking corner of it. Somehow it seems strange that this hangar is eroding from the bottom up rather than the other way around, but see for yourselves. (Pictured on my latest County Top walk — see the other blog.)
Being 42 