June 2021 - Some Highland Flowers

Dwarf Cornel

We photographed a few flowers during our recent holiday in Braemar. Some were identified with the aid of an excellent book - 'Wild Flowers of the North Highlands of Scotland', by Ken Butler and Ken Crossan. Whilst we weren't in the 'North Highlands' many of the plants in the book are distributed over areas that extend further south.

Our pictures, especially mine, are of variable quality, but I've enjoyed composing this flowery interlude. Please let me know if you spot an incorrect caption, and remember, you can view the images as a slideshow by clicking on one of them if you are using a PC.

  Alpine Bistort

Birdsfoot Trefoil

Chickweed Wintergreen

Cloudberry

Cloudberry, after the petals have blown away

Common Butterwort

Common Cow-wheat

Common Rockrose

Cottongrass

Cowberry

Cross-leaved Heath

Cuckooflower

Foxglove

Hares-tail Cottongrass

Heath Bedstraw

Orchid, Heath spotted?

Lady's Mantle

Lousewort

Marsh Marigold

Common Milkwort

Moss Campion

Mountain Pansy

Mountain Everlasting

Starry Saxifrage

Cultivated Strawberry

Sundew

Thistle

Tormentil

Wild Thyme

Pared y Cefn hir

Here's a picture from our Porthmadog trip. Pared y Cefn hir looks like quite a dramatic hill from this viewpoint above Tyddyn mawr, but it's only about 150 mtres higher than where the photo was taken.

The hill tops out at below the 400 metre contour, and is easily climbed from nearby Llynau Cregennen. It has a Fort on its summit ridge.

We must go up it sometime.

[Meanwhile, we hope Dot is ok as her phone was constantly engaged tonight; she was probably sitting on it.]

Monday 19 July 2021 - A Busy Day

Back to Monday morning bike rides!

Today I pedalled off to Marsland Bridge to meet Cary for a ride that I've done before,* albeit by slightly different routes.

* 22 October 2018, 29 October 2018, 1 July 2019.

We paused at the aqueduct in Eccles, where the Bridgewater Canal crosses the Manchester Ship Canal.

 

Above: Looking back

Structure by the aqueduct

Monton

Worsley

We continued along the excellent surface of the canal towpath, all the way to Pennington Flash, where we stopped for a good long break.

10 km further on (after a road section) we reached the beauty spot that is the 'Mucky Mountains Nature Reserve'.

This was Cary's longest ride to date on his new 'gravel bike'. He was also trying out his Ortlieb panniers. I think it was all a success.

Meanwhile, Sue and Jenny were 'wild swimming' at a secret venue in the Peak District, having failed in a bid to book the outdoor pool in Hathersage.

Cary and I noticed several families of swans. One with six cygnets, another with seven cygnets, and this pair in the Sankey valley appeared to have ten youngsters.

By the time we'd reached the Trans Pennine Trail and passed through Warrington to the disused railway line at Thelwall, Cary's engine was misfiring slightly, but his bike was fine.

I got home sometime after 3pm, then in order to achieve my aim of a 5km walk or run every day, I enjoyed a (not)parkrun, on this occasion a walk. The greenery beside the Bridgewater Canal in Timperley is very lush at present.

Sue returned from her wild swim and visit to a National Trust garden at Biddulph, smoked mackerel salad was eaten, then we went to Eagley Jazz Club in Bolton for its first event since the beginning of 2020.

John Hallam and the Tom Kincaid Trio - excellent - that's two live gigs in the last two days, after 16 months of nothing. 60 people attended. We felt safe from Covid.

Sunday 18 July 2021 - Another Family Picnic

Here's another posting for Dot - with sympathy as yet another of her old walking pals passed away last week. I think other regular readers will appreciate that this blog is the closest she can get to 'social media' with the family.

With Nell in Wales, the rest of us congregated at Mike and Sarah's house in Didsbury, then made our way into Fletcher Moss Park for a picnic lunch.

Isabella nodded off, so whilst she enjoyed a late lunch, the Bacup team headed home.

Rejuvenated, Isabella was then taken on a tour of the section of the park where numerous performers were making music. Even JJ (pictured below, far left, without his kilt today) was performing with his squeezebox when not taking time out to chat to passers-by such as ourselves. His band looked enormous. In a delayed reaction to the music, Isabella clapped all the way home!

We also bumped into some other folk we hadn't seen since the start of Lockdown, which officially finishes in England tomorrow, despite another exponential rise in Covid cases, if not deaths. So this is the last entry to which the Lockdown label will be applied - until the next Lockdown.

We will continue to use face masks. I've found them to be a bit like seatbelts and my bike helmet - whilst very odd to be wearing them initially, I now almost need to put a mask on to feel comfortable in shops and other enclosed spaces.

March 1980 - A Brief Diary Entry

The diaries that are now up to Volume 103 started in April 1980. Today I scanned some slides from March 1980, the results of which are here, and may be of some interest to the participants.

The first picture is of Dafydd, alighting from a taxi which had taken him the short distance between my house in Adria Road and the Red Lion in Withington, where it was customary for members of TDHHC (our University hiking club) to congregate the day after completing the 55 mile Bogle Stroll. We did this for many years, but only Dafydd ever arrived by taxi. He wasn't able to walk!

The following weekend, the club visited Cheddar Gorge.

I must have struggled for 'picture content' as one of the very few images shows John Mansell and Ian Inch peering into a quarry near Priddy.

This was on a hike near Priddy.

It was often dark by the time we finished our walks, and on this occasion I was inspired to photograph the sunset over glasshouses at Halfway Farm.

It's a shame there's no diary entry. I'll insert a hike report if I find one (very unlikely).

The following day, 9 March, looks much brighter as we gathered outside the Youth Hostel in time honoured fashion.

We rose to a tower that offered a good view over Cheddar, and one of very few of these slides that I haven't had to 'brighten up' in order to look vaguely acceptable.

Cheddar Gorge looks quite bright here, thanks to Photoshop.

I captioned the next slide 'Ancient Monument at Priddy'. It's actually a pile of hurdles capped by a thatched roof. The information board explains:

'These hurdles are a symbolic reconstruction of the original collection which were kept here to form the pens for the sheep fair which moved from Wells to Priddy in 1348 during the Black Death. It is still held annually on the nearest Wednesday to the original date of the 21st August.'

I wonder whether it's still there?

The next picture shows a little girl running away from someone who looks suspiciously like my son Michael!

Another week went past. I remember it being an extremely challenging time at work, but on Sunday 16 March I managed a trip to Blencathra with Alison. David, Bob and Annie. The weather wasn't ideal. Here they are near Threlkeld, David fumbling with his boots and the others showing signs of apprehension.

We tried to spot the summit. "It's not up there!"

Bob and Annie emigrated after this.

Alison should have been warm in that gear. Note that it's snowing in all these pictures.

David looks remarkably cheerful in his Helly Hansen sailor's uniform.

This was the only picture I took 'on the hill'. [Happy Days!]

Back down, and Alison looks positively cheerful. Probably ecstatic to have survived.

Two weeks later, Nell and I visited Alison and David in Eltham (London). We visited Greenwich.

My colour slides of the Cutty Sark and Gipsy Moth seem to have an embedded monochrome feature that no amount of Photoshop will shift.

It seems that we went up Maze Hill and took photos of the National Maritime Museum.

Then we went into London, where I took a last photo of March (what relief!) of a random square - who knows which one!?

Well, wasn't that fun...

PS Nick comments: "the building in the background is the Royal Observatory. And the statue commemorates General James Wolfe, whose victory against the French in Quebec secured Canada for the British."