Tag Archives: walk

Walking on water

Saturday 7th May 2022, 11.05am (day 3,908)

Today I, and around 250 other people, walked from Arnside to Grange-over-Sands — an easy, flat walk of about 5.5 miles. The complication is that between these two places lies the northern reach of Morecambe Bay, the largest expanse of intertidal land in Great Britain. But in that also lay the fun of the day — the chance to (safely) get a couple of miles away from permanently dry land, into a space that is neither one thing nor the other, a limbo state between land and sea — with a healthy dose of sky, too.

I deliberately cranked up the contrast on this shot because I like the way that all the people look like dashes of paint descending from a horizon that is insubstantial but definitely there. As if we are trapped within a sheet of glass, aware of the heavens above us but unable to reach them.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

April Skies

Wednesday 20th April 2022, 11.45am (day 3,891)

April skies, 20/4/22

A glorious day today, spent entirely outside, getting healthy exercise. Work, in a formal sense, was just something other people were doing, and the day was all the better for it. I do not apologise for the Jesus & Mary Chain reference either, as no one should for referring to such a seminal musical beat combo.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Gray Crag, above Hayeswater

Friday 15th April 2022, 11.05am (day 3,886)

Gray Crag, 15/4/22

Busied myself up enough to get to the Lake District once more: those who follow my other blog can read all about my day there. Gray Crag was the most dramatic object seen — but fortunately not climbed — today (I’ve done it before, and it’s proper work I can tell you). Below it to the left, just visible, Hayeswater, which supplies the taps of Penrith a dozen or so miles away, hence the need for the access road. But I don’t think that spoils the shot; instead, like a necklace, it seems to accentuate the graceful lines of this fell.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Formal cow portrait

Sunday 27th March 2022, 12 noon (day 3,867)

Formal cow portrait, 27/3/22

it’s taken Clare and I over a year to get round about four-fifths of the Calderdale Way’s 50 miles, after today. Still a couple of legs to go yet. Today introduced us to the side valley of Shibden Dale, a beautiful spot and, somewhere previously unknown (except as a brief glimpse now and again from the train, as the line crosses the dale not long after leaving Halifax) despite having lived here 21 years now. The cow looked happy to be there too.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Kirriereoch Hill summit (and Ailsa Craig)

Sunday 20th March 2022, 12 noon (day 3,860)

Kirriereoch Hill summit, 20/3/22

Having done Craig Airie Fell the day before, today I continued walking and bagged two more County Tops. This cairn marked the second one of the day, Kirriereoch Hill, high point of Ayrshire. Apparently its name translates as ‘Hill of the Brindled Quarter’, which to me is no translation at all. When I came up over the final slope and saw the cairn sitting next to the vast granitic lump of Ailsa Craig out there in the Irish Sea, the photo was immediately assured. A mild shame about the wind turbine poking up to the right but one can’t have everything.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

View from Craig Airie Fell

Saturday 19th March 2022, 11.35am (day 3,859)

View from Craig Airie Fell, 19/3/22

After coming up the M6 yesterday, we turned left as soon as we hit Scotland, and headed for Galloway, the south-west corner of that country. There were various motivations for doing this, but getting some walking in was certainly one of them. This is the view from 1,050 feet above sea level, on top of Craig Airie Fell — not a substantial eminence in its own right, but it has a great panorama of the surrounding area, as a proper County Top should. Read all about it on the other blog, if interested.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

A walk in the woods

Sunday 30th January 2022, 12.05pm (day 3,811)

Clare, Bentley Priory, 30/1/22

This trip down to London also offered the chance to pick up a County Top (see the other blog); specifically Bushey Heath, the highest point in the historic county of Middlesex, swallowed up by London in 1965 although at least it still retains a county cricket team. It wasn’t major mountaineering, though. Clare here strolls through the woods near Bentley Priory (an ecclesiastical relic? no, a premium housing estate) in one of those shots that chews up the bandwidth thanks to all the foliage.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Dee estuary (and golfers)

Wednesday 5th January 2022, 12.20pm (day 3,786)

Dee estuary and golfers, 5/1/22

Anybody who thought I might spend a second consecutive day of bright winter sunshine ‘working from home’ obviously doesn’t know me very well. I guess the same applies to these three guys, though they enjoy here a form of sporting entertainment that’s not for me.

This is taken on the west coast of the Wirral peninsula. The river is the Dee, and the land in the background is Wales. Visible on the horizon is Moel Famau, where I spent a rather good day last June, doing the same thing as I did today — bagging a County Top walk. I guess this counts as a photo where one can definitely see the territory of two different countries, as long as you non-Britons accept that England and Wales are different places (which they are, in many ways).

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Guerrilla Christmas tree

Saturday 25th December 2021, 12.55pm (day 3,775)

Wild Xmas tree, 25/12/21

Out on the path through the woods above the Hebden Water, someone has been dressing the trees, guerrilla-style. Happy Christmas to them, and, indeed, to you. I hope you enjoyed the day in whatever way you saw most fit. But that is, of course, true of every day.

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Great Door, revisited

Wednesday 6th October 2021, 10.15am (day 3,695)

Great Door, revisited, 6/10/21

A long time ago, in the first few days of this blog on day 8, I was halfway up the southern butt end of the mountain of Yewbarrow, in Wasdale in the Lake District, in quite foul weather, wondering what the hell I was doing there. The view I posted there, of the dramatic rocky gash of Great Door, gives an indication of the conditions I faced.

Today, ten years, one month and four days later, I returned. The weather was much nicer. But the climb up to this point is still an absolute arse. For its height I would say Yewbarrow is the toughest of all the fells in the Lake District — but as it’s now done twice, I never, ever, have to haul myself up it again. And that’s a very good thing. (See my Wainwrights blog for more.)

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,