What small part of the world can be seen from our house, all looked like this today. With no reason to leave the house, I did not; picture opportunities were limited to using the long zoom to see what might be going on over the other side of the valley. They had their fires burning, anyway. This is also one of those shots that looks like I’ve taken it monochrome, but really have not; if anything I have beefed up the saturation a little.
A day when it was hard to pick one single photo, but that is why — for such occasions — I have my other walking blog, where I don’t submit myself to such silly rules as one pic per day. The weather conditions for a walk in the Lake District were marvellous today, not just because of the blue skies above but the clouds below, filling up the valleys all day and allowing even the most humble of mountains to float above giant lakes of whipped cream for a while. The parts of Loughrigg Fell that are on the left cannot be more than about 400 feet above sea level, at the points where they emerge from the clouds. Wansfell Pike, the prominent rise in the background, is about 1,500 feet.
The sun is just about still making it over the hillside in the mornings, but not for much longer in the year. It will be February before it makes a reappearance in the east before noon on any given day.
A dull day in every sense. The glorious sunshine that we experienced on Saturday has been replaced by grey mist and drizzle. This explains a lot about the British psyche. Don’t get used to it being nice, because within a couple of days it’ll all turn to crud again.
In this case the “White House” is a pub, up on the A58 road above Littleborough. Normally my journey to and from work would not take me near this place but thanks to the long and sorry litany of reasons why no one responsible for the UK train network was in the slightest bit bothered about running a service this morning, I ended up driving. Passing this point at 6am, all was still dark, but at least when I returned later, the sun had come out for a while. The hill on the horizon is Brown Wardle, at about 401m or 1,315 feet above sea level.
Brock Barrow is only about 750 feet above sea level (228m for all you metric system users) but it has a good view, including of Coniston Water below. Nice cairn too. It becomes my 303rd Wainwright on my second round: 27 to go. Tell you what though, it was damn windy and cold up there, even if it doesn’t look it. I just about got my 202nd Wainwright walk in before a storm arrived at lunchtime.
After not finding much of interest in Southampton, I headed for the next city to the east, Portsmouth — a more agreeable spot. At least, to look at from across its Harbour, one of the greatest natural harbours in the world, and the explanation for why this has always been a naval base. The Spinnaker Tower, seen here, is 560 feet tall. I passed this point on my latest County Top walk, so feel free to look at that other blog for more photos and so on.
After five interior shots I had to get outside, the day being of the pleasant sort that might not recur too often before winter really hits. No trains, however — blame the government — so I had to conduct my wanderings somewhere nearer to home. Between Walsden and Bacup there lies a chunk of moorland that was previously unexplored, so I duly explored it. This shot is taken from very close to the Yorkshire/Lancashire border, but still just on the Yorkshire side.
The title of this post is not ironic: despite appearances, this place really is called Skiddaw Forest. I don’t know if other parts of the world use the word or its equivalent to describe places that are as vastly treeless as this is, but we English do pride ourselves on our sense of wry humour, do we not. (For more pictures of this and nearby places, see my Lake District walking blog.)
Flat land is at a premium in the valley, so round here, the recreation grounds are built high up: as with the Astleys, a set of one cricket and three football pitches above Sowerby Bridge. There are worse things to do on a Sunday morning.
Being 42 