Category: North Yorkshire

Virtual dog goes on a Virtual Walk

Virtual Dog has been coming along with me on my Actual Walks for over a month now. She’s been complaining that we have yet to go on a Virtual Walk. She has a point. Let’s go on one today. It’s raining, and there’s mud everywhere. We could do Jude’s challenge while we’re about it, Life in Colour: Brown, and look for brown in anything but mud.

We’ll start off by the village pond. There aren’t usually ducklings at this time of year, but on a Virtual Walk, anything goes. Down the lane towards Sleningford Hall we’ll pass a friendly goat. And a herd of cows. Now I know that this hike is a virtual one. We have no cows at all north of our village, and I’ve never seen a goat either.

We’ll head towards Musterfield, and this involves a walk through the woods, and my favourite ancient oak. Look at the size of it. How many kings and queens, wars and eras of social change has it lived through?

And we’re sure to find some interesting tree fungus too. And butterflies. I’m not good at butterflies. Some kind of skipper? Can anybody help?

There are always a few friendly horses glad enough to wander over and chat. This one has a foal though (Virtual Walk, remember?) and takes no notice of us.

If we’re passing through farmland, we’re near barns. And if there are some (brownish) geese, so much the better.

And finally, because this is a Virtual Walk, just before we turn for home, we’ll visit this tiny dwelling, a home surely to fairies or elves. It’s actually at Nidd Hall, 15 miles from here. But on a Virtual Walk, we can achieve anything.

PS. It IS a rainy day today. A Virtual Walk would be very welcome. But needs must. I will go out with Virtual Dog for an Actual Walk too. And Jo, do Virtual Walks count on Jo’s Monday Walk?

Sun getting up? Or sunset? The Answer

Well, you were game for a bit of a bet yesterday, and both sunrise and sunset got pretty much equal scores. Shall we go for a walk and see who’s right? Click on any image to see it full size and to get rid of the caption.

  • Leave the house ….
  • … go through some woods ….
  • …. along a track …
  • … and out into flooded pastureland …
  • The lake here has burst its banks, and the birds have flown.
  • Beatswell Woods. Nearly home now.

I took my puzzle picture, now shown in a different format as my feature photo, shortly after I’d left the lake. But this wasn’t overlooking another lake. It was yet another flooded field. Time? One minute past four. Sunset: the first moments. So I was up to no good, offering you sun down instead of sun up on a challenge featuring All Things Up,

Jo’s Monday Walk

Square Up

Eat up!

All that snow we’ve been having. It’s so pretty, but I bet those poor sheep were fed up. Look at that featured photo. Not much evidence of grass there. So when I passed a neighbouring farm while out with Virtual Dog on Sunday, I wasn’t too surprised to find any number of sheep gathered round the serving hatch. Nobody needed to encourage them to eat up.

Square Up

Upbeat Brown

This month, Jude has asked us to find photos featuring brown. Well, I know about brown. Here is brown:

That’s right. Mud. We have mud everywhere.

I could cheer things up a bit however. Look at these. My featured photo was taken near Fountains Abbey only a few weeks ago, and here are more uplifting shots of the world in brown. We’ll start off with some that have been squared up – and can anybody help me identify that butterfly please?:

… and move on to a couple more autumnal scenes from Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal; a fish – part of a wall decoration at the Natural History Museum, London; tree bark: and our logs all stacked up for winter. Click on any photo for a close-up.

Life in Colour: Brown

Square Up

When Life with Covid-19 was Still a Novelty

The last day of 2020. We began our year with Emily and Miquel, in Spain. Then – Covid-19 happened, and has dominated everyone’s lives ever since. Optimism and general feel-good is in short supply after all this time, so I choose instead to remember those three months of Lockdown in the spring and early summer. This was a desperate period of isolation, anxiety and money worries for many, so I feel almost ashamed to admit that for me, it was a time when I did little but get out into the fine spring weather and walk, walk, walk, discovering in a way I never had before, the delights of our own home patch.

I was also beginning to get stuck into Jude’s 2020 Photo Challenge, and always took my camera with me to reflect on her latest demands. This review of a year of challenges is only partial: it leaves out all of the later tasks which as the year wore on, relied for me increasingly on archive material. But I’ve discovered a lot about getting the best from a shot – the benefits for instance, of a low viewpoint, or of framing the scene. I’ve had reinforced what I already knew: that fiddling around with dials and apertures ain’t for me, It’s my loss, but I’ll live with it. I’ve discovered too that black and white photos are anything but snaps with the colour removed.

And Su, I’m including this post in your The Changing Seasons theme, even though there are four seasons in every year, not just one. On this occasion, I wanted to remember the best of the year that’s on its way out.

Just click on any image if you want to see it full size. Thank you, Jude, for a mind-stretching challenge during a year when my brain usually seems to be filled with little more than bran. And Su, yours is a challenge I’ll join again too. Next time, I might even stick to the rules.