Beating The Bounds

More sunshine! I was out early with S (who woke up just after 5). He was in the pushchair, eventually asleep, so we stuck to the lanes and went through the village and then round Bottom’s Lane. I was busy thinking, preoccupied with a maths problem, when this Meadow Brown caught my attention…

Walking is a great way to see the flora and fauna on your local patch, but stopping is often even better. Now that I had my camera in hand, and had stopped, at least for while, trying to calculate the difference between the cubes of thirteen and eleven, I realised that the the trees and shrubs alongside the road were bouncing with families of young birds, particularly Blue Tits and Long-Tailed Tits.

One of the latter led me on a merry dance as I tried to catch it on camera. It hopped and fluttered from branch to branch. I took several photos of twigs which it had only just vacated. In the end I did get some pictures…

…but only incognito shots. It would never quite show its face…

Meanwhile, on the verge the brambles are flowering. Not spectacular to look at, but obviously very attractive to nectar seekers. The plants on the verge were also heavily populated by…

..these splendid fellows.

When they are buzzing around my face, keeping me awake on a hot summer evening (not that we’ve had any of those recently), or in my kitchen, frankly they drive me mad. But I have to admit that the colours and the wings are very impressive.

On the opposite verge there were tall spikes of Limestone Woundwort:

Your ordinary, bog-standard Woundwort is very common in this area, its flowers are smaller and darker and it’s not half as showy as this close relative.

Although I had an early start I can’t compete with these guys:

Having cut the hay yesterday, today the fields and roads in the area were busy with tractors turning and then collecting it before more forecast wet weather arrives off the Atlantic tomorrow. When I started writing this post they were still out there working with floodlights.

For me the rest of the day held a puppet show and a charity garden party with the family and my Mum and Dad, so a pretty lazy day:

But Farmers and Bees are always busy:

Apparently, Bees can count to 3, but perhaps that’s a story for another time.

Now: 13 cubed minus 11 cubed……

Managed to get out for a couple of short strolls today, for the first time in what seems like far too long. Meanwhile the local farmer James was able to cut the fields at the back of the house. After very dry weather in April and May, June and July have been decidedly soggy. What price summer?

S/he was back today, sadly looking pretty ill, slumped on the slabs, letting us approach without trying to move away. Angela had the bright idea of putting out some cat food, which the Hedgehog soon polished off and then when it started to rain, moved away looking for shelter. It did seem to still be struggling with one of its legs.

It was raining, the light was poor, this is the least blurred of several photos I took. Last time we saw our visitor was at night, so this was the first opportunity for a picture. I don’t think that this is the same hedgehog that we regularly saw last summer - it looks smaller.

Anyway, since hedgehogs eat snails and slugs and other garden pests, this one has probably already done much more work in our garden than I have this year, so she/he is very welcome.

So…as you may have gathered, I haven’t really been ‘beating the bounds’ much of late. Partly that’s due to other distractions - work and the European Cup mostly. But partly it’s also due to a post-spring lethargy. Hill Wanderer sums up my feelings about summer in this post, but some of the highlights include paths over grown with nettles and brambles; midges, ticks, wasps, horse flies and anything else that bites; flowers that have finished and wilted. Ransoms particularly - so early to appear and so emblematic of the coming spring to me - droop and decay with astonishing rapidity once they have flowered. Bottoms Wood looks like it has been flooded and drained leaving the ransoms flattened and yellow. Other disappointments are harder to pin down - everything is lush and attractive but somehow the vibrancy and urgency of spring is lost. The lethargy feels to me like a general condition of the season, an external and general malaise and not just personal laziness.

The antidote of course is simple and involves getting of my fat arse and actually going for a walk. (Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I went for a saunter) 

After a couple of days of gales and torrential rain, today was beautiful. I was late getting out and the light was low.

Bindweed is flowering now. It’s a gardener’s nightmare - a vigorous climber that strangles other plants, the long strings of bone white roots snap easily and each piece left in the ground sprouts to form new plants. They are pretty though.

Thistles are common, prickly and easily over-looked. But I think that I can see more equiangular spirals here, so I’m happy.

I walked down to the Cove and across the Lots. There was barely a cloud in the sky and little wind. it was very peaceful. A Kestrel flew overhead. A Heron fished in a channel. Six Oystercatchers burbled past. I tried to get close to the Heron, but as usual failed miserably.

I’ve posted photos like these next ones many times before. I probably will again, but I never tire of this view, so I hope that you will indulge me.

A second Heron was now fishing not far from where the first had settled on the far side of the channel.

As I left the Lots I could hear Magpies chattering form several different directions. In pairs and threes birds crossed and re-crossed from tree to tree. I’m nor sure whether what was going on was essentially sociable or some kind (phoney) turf war, but I can’t recall hearing so may Magpies singing together before.

Regular readers will know that sharing a love of the outdoors with my kids is a particular concern of mine. A while ago I read a thought-provoking article in the Spring edition of Broadleaf ( Incidentally, it’s worth joining the Woodland Trust just to get their magazine - the quality of the articles and photography is very high: the cover of this issue was stunning.)

Here’s a quote:

One study has shown that the area around the home where children are allowed to roam on their own - known as their ‘radius of activity’ - has declined by almost 90% since the 1970s, when many of the current generation of parents where growing up.

Then I came across the following headline from the Guardian on the excellent blog Walking and Writing:

…was visited by social services after an anonymous caller reported her for allowing her seven-year-old son to walk to school alone.

Today I’ve been looking at How Risky is Life? some teaching materials published by the Bowland Trust for the mathematics classroom that:

tackles something that affects (and impoverishes) people’s lives, liberties and happiness - the mismatch between real and perceived risk.

(Pupils) learn that mathematical thinking is essential for putting risks in perspective and that the media focus on stories rather than information.

I tend to chide my Mum for being a mother hen (sorry mum!), but now that I’m a parent myself I’m quite inclined to cluck a bit myself. The accusation is obviously not well founded anyway, because my own most vivid memories of Primary School are of the walk there and back with three friends.

We had a short walk along back streets and then crossed three fields and two bridges to the school. In the winter we slide down the tarmac path that crossed the first field. In the spring we stuck ’stickyweed’ to each others jumpers or collected frogspawn, tadpoles and stickle-backs in jars (for our teachers - how grateful they must have felt!). In the summer we caught butterflies amongst the thistles and nettles by the railway siding. And in the autumn we put ‘itching powder’ from the haws in the hedgerows down the back of each others clothing. If a train went past it was imperative not to be standing on the ground or you would catch ‘the dreaded lurgy’ - which often meant running and jostling to climb onto the small handrail on the bridge over Johnny’s  Brook or hanging from the top of the high sides on the ‘Tin Bridge’ that crossed the railway itself (hoping that it wasn’t a long goods train with hundreds of carriages). Similarly the cowpat spattered kissing-gates on the route were considered unclean and untouchable and only one kick was allowed to get through them. This required a carefully weighted kick: too light and the gate wouldn’t bounce back enough for you to get through, too heavy and the gate would bounce back too quickly and hit you in the face. The field on the far side of the railway line still showed the ‘ridge and furrow’ of medieval farming. On the east side was a stand of elder and hawthorn on a slight mound which was a disputed ‘den’ used by our ‘gang’ but also by other boys from the village.

I haven’t been back for years. Johnny’s Brook long since disappeared under a housing development (whilst it was a building site it became an even better place to play), but the ridge and furrow field is still there as far as I know. I hope that at least some children still get to walk to school that way.

Down to the big smoke last night for a meeting today at the DCSF. What’s that you don’t know the acronym? That’s the Department for Children, Schools and Families. Who decided on that particular running order I wonder? It used to be the Department for Education and Skills; before that it was the Department for Education. No doubt it will have a new, even longer title before too long.

The meeting took place in a airless space. A circular room with glass walls, which looked out on to an open plan office (’No-one has their own desk these days!’) surrounded by glass walls revealing more open plan offices with….

Nested goldfish bowls. Almost appropriate since I felt like a fish out of water. At least I knew why I had been invited which is more than could be said for some of the participants who were having a Kafkaesque experience.

What a boon after four and half hours of tube, Euston station and trains to arrive home in daylight to moving air, grass, trees and water. So much greenery. I like to visit London, but I much to prefer to come home.

This was taken during our walk on Sunday. I think that it might be my favourite photo of the year so far.

Last night we had guests and some of us took a post-prandial stroll to the Woodlands - CAMRA pub of the summer 2007 for this area. On the way a plaintive mewing attracted our attention to a large fluffy ball sitting on a branch. A recently fledged owl. On the way home it was still partially light, although pretty late. We bumped into a hedgehog snuffling along our path.

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This splendid fellow has been in a field by Eaves Wood for several weeks, but he is very camera shy. Today was the best opportunity that I’ve had and he still wouldn’t face toward me:

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Today we were joined for our walk in the woods by A’s friend S and by Dr A and Dr S (my brother-in-law and his wife). I believe his doctorate may be for climbing things. He certainly provided the kids with a memorable tree-climbing experience today:

An old beech and its fungus provided another point of interest:

Honeysuckle is flowering all over the wood:

The numerous distractions along the way meant that we were along time getting to the Pepper Pot, but when we did we met friends from the village.

There was a good view of Ingleborough today:

And out in the Bay we could see the sponsored walk from A’s primary school (we would have gone but it was a bit too far for the children):

Finally, I wrote about Tutsan and its alleged properties a while ago, but didn’t get a photo of the flowers open. Here’s some from Eaves Wood:

Between hayfever, work and the European championship, I still haven’t been out for a walk since the weekend. I did find the old photos that I’ve been looking for though. One of the joys of old photos can be the unexpected juxtapositions that they throw up.

This is the Langdale Pikes, taken I think from the point where the stream flows out of Elterwater. I took it back in 2000 whilst on a walk with my Mum and Dad.

The next photo on the film looks like Little Langdale Tarn, presumably taken on the same day.

And then:

My first view of the Cordillera Blanca. Taken from a headache inducing pass at around 4000m on a drive from sea level at Lima, where I apparently took no photos at all, to the mountain town of Huarez.

Where we would spend some time acclimatizing and drinking coca tea before heading into the mountains. The big beast in the background is Huascaran, the highest mountain in Peru. I tend to think that I have a poor memory but this photo brings Huarez flooding back - the hummingbirds in the Hotel garden, the friendly locals calling us Gringos, the great bars and beers, the fervour of the local support for their national team in the Copa America, the huge queues and the heavily armed guards in the bank. I can almost smell the place.

I’ve been uploading more old holiday snaps. This was taken from near the summit…

Of Mont Blanc…

In 2002.