This guy was very helpful today — not because he offered us direction as such, but because his bright orange and yellow gear was later seen heading up Harter Fell, our destination for the day, and this helped reveal the correct path. Hence the value of hi-vis. A good walk today but I never seem to experience Eskdale in truly good weather.
That was doubtless the thought in the minds of these two sheep as this foolhardy human (i.e., me) trudged into their territory in weather that could at best be termed ‘inclement’. I was certainly thinking it too. Taken at Stony Tarn, near Eskdale, at about the point I decided to give up on the primary target of the hike and go somewhere warmer and drier.
I went on a Lakeland walk today. I didn’t feel like mentioning this story when using this photo on my walking blog. If you’re having a day full of the joys of summer, and don’t feel like having it spoiled, admire (or not) this picture of the lamb. (The mountain in the background is Black Combe, where several years ago now, I took another picture of a sheep that I still rather like.) Then move on, your day unblemished by tragedy.
Sadly, this lamb is in trouble. A minute after taking this shot I came across its recently deceased mother (I warned you…). Although I didn’t conduct a close inspection, the ewe could not have died that long ago: probably from an attack by a fox or some idiot walker’s unleashed dog. I hope the local shepherds find this orphan before too much longer passes: after all, that is what they do, and are good at. But people, please — keep your dogs on a lead when there are sheep about. You knew that, right?
If you’ve ever been to the city of Newcastle, you will be plenty familiar with the River Tyne, which flows through the place like a big fat worm, and is spanned by a multitude of bridges.
This, however, is the baby Tyne: a mere infant in swaddling clothes, pictured a couple of miles south of the village of Garrigill in Cumbria, and as near the middle of nowhere as one tends to get in England. I think it’s rather cute.
A beautiful late May day. A public holiday in the UK. A need to stop having a head like Munch’s The Scream, a need to say no to fear and paranoia. And all these things for Joe, too. The first shot taken outside Yorkshire since 21st March.
I’m still trying to keep the step count up, but the weather turned rather grim. Being up on the moors above the town in squally drizzle made the exercise less pleasant than it might have been. But it kept me moving.
The moor here is a riot of cottongrass. I feel it comes out at the wrong time of year — it looks like it should be a December plant, a proxy for snow.
I know I am not the only one to whom this has happened, but I have lost all the little things, outside my immediate home, that gave my life pleasure. Except one — and that one thing is walking, experiencing the countryside. I spent the day reading, planning, looking forward. That’s a large part of the fun, in fact.
And yes, I need the reading glasses to do it. So they can take their rightful place on the stage.
Since I paid a visit to Manchester on 21st March, every picture on here has been taken in the county of Yorkshire, but I am not ‘staying at home’ and nor, any longer, am I supposed to be. Garrowby Hill is the highest part of Bishop Wilton Wold, and the trees shown here stand on the highest point of the old East Riding of Yorkshire, meaning this is number 11 of my county top collection. I passed three people all day at no greater risk to my health than I suffer from simply reading the news at the moment.
When I came home after this walk, Clare was upset as an old family friend has committed suicide. Already depressed, lockdown was for him the last straw and he hanged himself. What did ‘Stay Home, Stay Safe’ mean for him? How many more of these hidden tragedies will there be, lost in the chaos but no less real than the ones that make the statistics?
We need to restart our lives and our economy, and right soon. ‘Zero risk’ does not exist.
The outdoors is good. The outdoors is healthy. And it always will be.
Well, OK, perhaps it is ambitious to expect that this caterpillar will manage to complete all 300+ miles of the Pennine Way, but if you’ve never been near it, it’s done more of it than you. And it also becomes the blog’s first caterpillar, a singular honour.
