Another Lake District walk today. I was sat down having my lunch on the summit of Arthur’s Pike (1747 feet above sea level) when this other walker came over to admire the view and I just snapped him from below, the Pennines in the background. More photos and text will appear on my other blog tomorrow, but not tonight. A cloudy day, as you can see; OK for walking but June is never a great month for photography.
This is probably England’s most isolated front room, being located in the mountain bothy (hut) that is Mosedale Cottage in the Lake District. I have used it on this blog before, on 31/8/12 to be precise. I like the fact that in one of the remotest spots I know, one can come in and have lunch sat on a three-piece suite and (thanks to another hiker who was present at this point, but not pictured) read the daily paper, seen on the couch to the right.
Among Edinburgh’s many endearing qualities is the fact that it has a mountain right in the middle of the city. OK, so Arthur’s Seat is only a little mountain, but it’s rugged and you have to do some scrambling to get to the very top. It’s great to get up to somewhere like this and still be down again in time to start work by 10am, which is what I did this morning.
A good dry stone wall evolves. It’s built, yes, but with the landscape, not despite it.
I’ve been stuck in the house for eight days straight. Goddammit, I was getting out today. I may still be contagious but out in a place like this, who cares?
Christmas Eve. Ignoring the typically apocalyptic weather forecast (as I have all year), I went on walk #77 of my Lake District project and despite a breeze that could be called ‘bracing’ and the odd hail shower, I had a thoroughly good time on Scout Scar, a limestone outcrop to the west of Kendal, Cumbria. And managed a couple of decent photos too. The rest will be up on my other blog soon…
I am not fully certain of the identities of these hills by the way. I think the one on the left is called White Hill, and the horizon is formed by the Three Peaks of Yorkshire, melding into one at this distance but I am sure the step on the right must be that of Pen-y-Ghent or Ingleborough, with Whernside the rise in the ridge in the centre. But I could be wrong.
Second day of this two-day break in the Lake District with Joe. I make no apologies for uploading another landscape shot today, though let’s give it that slightly different angle and included in it someone else who was doing their best to capture what was, for a hill only 803 feet above sea level, a quite exceptional panorama. Latterbarrow rises to the north-east of the village of Hawkshead.
Joe is on his half-term holiday, so these two days I’m off work doing my part of the child care duties. And I decided to take him somewhere I liked. Why not.
Newspaper editors in London might also like to use this picture as evidence that today was not, despite their headlines, the day that the ‘Killer Storm Stopped Britain’. Or perhaps they were using ‘Britain’ as shorthand for ‘that small part of a decent-sized country which is nearest to London’ — as they so often do?
I have worked the last two Sundays and I’m working this coming Sunday too, so today I took the day off and made the most of a decent weather forecast. This is taken in the far south-west corner of the Lake District, looking southeast over the long estuary of the River Duddon, with the town of Barrow on the peninsula in the background. (More pictures from the day will be put on my other blog later.)
And here is my host and mountain guide, Eystein — or at least, his back — pictured on the way back down from a summit that nearly bears his name, Øysteinnatte (Øystein’s Knott, a knott being a rocky tor), part of the larger massif of Lifjell. An enjoyable weekend’s walking to say the least, but it’s back to work (in Oslo) tomorrow.
Being 42 