There are many worse ways, and places, to spend a Thursday. Taken from the Howtown to Pooley Bridge ‘pleasure steamer’ service, following a good walk up Place Fell; soon to be duly recorded on the Wainwrights blog.
Another day at home, musing on the existence of portals to other dimensions, as possibly manifesting on the Birchcliffe hillside, around the upper floor of 7 Chapel Street I reckon.
Let’s permit Scotland to offer up its combination of mountain and seascape one more time before we have to head home. The Beauly Firth is the far end of the Moray Firth; this shot is looking inland, to the Highlands beyond. And yes, somewhere over there it is raining.
OK, it’s another beach (after Monday), but Scotland is a country that does very good beaches — they’re just not very warm. This becomes the northernmost picture so far taken in the UK, a position it will retain until I finally make it to Shetland or Orkney. It will probably forever remain the northernmost picture taken on the mainland of Great Britain, at around 58º 36′ N.
More athleticism. Clare is in training and demanded a hill to run up. The tiny settlement of Nigg, on the Cromarty Firth, obliged this morning. The return to the Black Isle region was motivated largely by my desire to get more photographs of it, particularly of this firth thanks to its collection of old oil rigs and vessels that are either mothballed or being decommissioned. It’s proof that industry need not wreck a landscape.
The Black Isle, just north of Inverness, is actually a peninsula rather than an island, though it is almost cut off by rivers. It previously featured, thanks to Fortrose Ness, on my trip round Scotland last May, and as it seemed a pleasant spot I have returned, this time bringing Clare along (although that’s not her in the shot). Avoch beach is just up the Beauly Firth from Fortrose; the latter remains the northernmost British location to feature on here but that is a distinction it will lose by the end of this week.
There are worse places to be at 8.20am on a Friday morning, that’s true. In 2007, the view down Wastwater to the mountains at its head (l-r: Yewbarrow, Great Gable, Lingmell) was voted ‘Britain’s Best View’ in an ITV programme (see this page); and you have to agree that it makes a good case. And I don’t even care that a car has got into the shot, in fact I quite like it — thanks to the person stood just to its right, also photographing this magnificent slice of land.
I am fond of the genre that is the Formal Sheep Portrait. They do pose — I mean, I’m not saying they know they’re having their picture taken, but they’re quite happy to stand still and check you out while you formulate the shot. This one is taken on the slopes of Irton Pike, in the west of the Lake District: it’s Muncaster Fell that is in the background, sporting a heavy growth of rhododendrons, hence the dusting of pink.
Hmmm, a Saturday with no football (yes, OK, I’m aware that there was something going on in London along those lines, but you know what I mean). And the sun was shining. And there was work to do in the garden. All these things made a relaxing afternoon picnic, with wine, just the right thing to do. (Those are my feet, yes. Clare is unseen to the left — I didn’t drink the whole bottle myself, you know.)
Buxton is the highest town (as opposed to village) in Britain, parts of it being over 1,000 feet up. Which, I know, is not high by (say) Alpine standards, but the latitude is a factor — in June 1975, snowfall was recorded here. Not today though, fortunately. The famous, and now-restored, Crescent has appeared on here before: the dome is that of the Opera House.
Taken from the early stages of a walk that was finished fifteen or so miles to the west, in Macclesfield — more to come later on another blog…
Being 42 