I did get better pictures today but none which epitomised the day quite so well. Garth Hill became County Top #2 of the weekend, but the weather on its summit was, to coin a phrase, utter shite. What this chair was doing up there I have no idea but perhaps it had just been blown there from someone’s garden half a mile away. For the full tale of woe see my other blog.
The Cardiff Bay barrage was built in the 1990s, at huge expense, specifically to get rid of what were perceived as unattractive mudflats, and thus prepare the land for colonisation by the Great God Commerce: which seems to have subsequently taken place. It’s not an unattractive piece of engineering, I guess. Out there is the island of Flat Holm, which still counts as Wales, so this isn’t another shot that depicts the land of more than one country. (There have been three of these: two with England and Wales (both around the Dee Estuary), and one with England and France.)
Sometimes you just stumble across places. This old, ruined mine sits above Blaenavon in the south Wales valleys; I found it while bagging my latest County Top. I would argue it was not only the most interesting but also the most attractive thing about the day. There have been points of time in the past where something like a quarter of the iron and steel production of the entire world was based around south Wales. Believable as that stat is, this is what’s left.
Today didn’t quite work out as planned, but nor am I complaining. A glorious morning. The sheep seem quite contented about it, too.
Rainbows are, technically, optical illusions, but they are illusions that the camera also sees. This one was definitely touching earth somewhere around the Old Lees Road/Hurst Road area of Hebden Bridge this afternoon. The geese wouldn’t have seen it though; they were flying in the opposite direction.
This statement will seem disagreeable to some but I actually quite like wind farms. The ones above the upper Calder Valley, as seen here from the Long Causeway road that links Hebden Bridge and Burnley across the moors, are not unattractive.
The roofers have been working on Nutclough Mill for weeks now. Months, even. But there are worse mornings to be up there.
Today is, as you may notice, day 4,444 — twelve years and two months, more or less. I did think about finding something 4-related to mark it, but this photo was always going to be today’s shot once it was taken. Nevertheless the number is worth noting, particularly as Stafford, last Thursday, was place number 444. Which if nothing else shows I am maintaining a steady diet of one new place every ten days.
No further comment to make. There are many worse places to be on a sunny (if cold) Sunday morning.
Scafell, on the left, is the second-highest mountain in England at 3,162 feet (964m) and even Slight Side, the pimple below the sun, is 2,499 feet, so no dwarf. I decided that ascending both was a good idea on a day which reached the high 20s Celsius, and on which breezes were just a dream, happening elsewhere. This was, perhaps, the slowest walk I have done since I was a toddler. But they were bagged. (See the Wainwrights blog for the gory details if you like.)
My last block of time before work really kicks in for the next academic year, and early September has been used before as an excuse to bugger off to the Lake District for a couple of days. In 2016, for instance, the 7th and 8th September were spent hiking out to the bothy at Mosedale Cottage. This year it was Wasdale, for four of the twelve Wainwrights I still had to do. Seatallan is one of the less exciting ones on the list, a seemingly endless grassy slope which these two walkers have nearly finished climbing, to their relief, I am sure. In the background, Black Combe.
Being 42 