And Then I Toppled In …

About once a month, I re-blog a post from our years in France. Hunting for a Top Theme for Becky, I came upon this one.

April 19th, 2010

Terre Rouge – Ciel Bleu

Whenever we think we’re beginning to know the areas near home quite well, something comes along to surprise us.

Take Couiza, for instance, a town in the Aude that has been the centre point for quite a few of our walks. It can offer, within easy reach of the town, a typical Audois landscape which is almost Tuscan, with rolling hills, vineyards and cypresses. Or craggy, scrubby garrigue, almost Spanish looking. Or there’s le Domaine de l’Eau Salée, where the streams are pink with salt washed from the earth, and have been exploited by man for centuries.

Yesterday, however, we went with le Rando del’Aubo to Terre Rouge, an area near Couiza which astonished us with the rich red colour of the earth which dominated the landscape.

It supports a rich variety of plant life which is just springing into flower: Tiny daffodils, less than 3 inches high, bright yellow potentilla, grape hyacinths. Bluish grasses bind the dry and sometimes sandy earth, and the air is rich with the strong scent of various wild thymes and lavender.

This red earth is all-encompassing. And then suddenly, it stops. And we’re back again among more pallid yellowish soils, enjoying views of the distant Pyrenees, and the mountain which dominates this part of the world, Bugarach.

Bugarach. The dominant mountain top around these parts.

The walk was on the hottest day of the year so far, with clear, vivid blue sky. We shed jumpers, long trousers, and our pasty winter skin turned the colour of that red earth. There was a wide shallow stream at the village where our walk began and ended, and a few of us enjoyed a paddle. I greatly contributed to the end-of-day bonhomie by toppling in…….

Taken just before I toppled in. Nobody was unkind enough to take a snap of me all bedraggled.

#Squaretops 21

Simplicity

Life in our home has become simpler, pared back to basics. All the things I cheerfully filled every day with – the volunteering; the classes and choir; the must-get-to-the-shops; the to-do list; even seeing friends – have all vanished. Astonishingly, I don’t mind. The one thing that is a constant now is Daily Exercise, as prescribed by the Government: ‘People can leave their homes for exercise once a day’. For Malcolm, it’s a bike ride. For me, it’s a walk.

Denied trips out to the Dales and wild places, I’m exploring our home patch anew- every ginnel, every bridle way, every woodland and farmland path. My Daily Exercise sometimes lasts an hour, more often two or three. I rarely meet a soul. It’s just me, the ground beneath my feet, the sights I observe, the landscape, the cloudscape, the satisfying rhythm of my feet as I pound my chosen path for the day. Every day I choose a slightly different route. Every day things change a little. Buds, once tightly furled are now tender young leaves: new flowers burst into bloom; lambs grow stockier, more playful. I have time to notice these things.

I value these hours. Like everyone else, I want this horrible crisis under control. I want to meet my family and friends again. But when that time comes, I want to continue savouring quiet moments like the ones I’ve enjoyed so much over the last few weeks.

Primroses.

Celandines.

Marsh Marigolds.

Wood anenomes.

Violets. White ones are commoner round here, but for me, violets have to be -violet.

For me, these are early April’s Top Flowers, and my walks have given me the chance to enjoy them. What have I left out? Wild garlic isn’t flowering yet round here, nor the hedgerow plants.

This dramatic cloudscape evolved over the course of my walk, holding my attention.

A simple view through trees at the fields beyond.

Back in the village, a greylag goose guarded the village pond, hissing at me as I paused to admire narcissi, a magnolia, and beyond these, early cherry blossom.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #91: Simplicity

Square Tops #7

Round the Edge of the Village: It’s All About the Texture

Sunday’s walk, on a cold blustery afternoon, along a too-familiar path, could have been a non-event, a means to burn off a few calories and not much more. Jude’s challenge this week brought me ideas though. ‘Look for texture’, she said, ‘close in on your subject and capture the texture and not the context’. Challenge accepted.

Here we are by the village pond. Here’s Mrs. Mallard. And here are her feathers.

And – a sure sign that spring has sprung – here’s a dandelion.

Off to the track through the fields now. I trudge past the sheep, stolidly munching grass and hay, and spot a rusty old shed at the end of the pasture. Lichen on rust. Perfect.

Well, you can’t wander through the woods without finding a fallen log. And fallen logs mean knots, nooks and crannies, velvety moss. I take a couple of shots.

Oh look. Here’s a muddy bit: and I haven’t got my decent boots on. But oh, look again! Here’s texture a-plenty. A goose-print; a – er – what – squirrel perhaps? print; a different bird print (offers, anyone?); and a dog-print. And finally a cracked-mud print. That was good value.

Any walk in our countryside produces any number of long-established oak trees. So here is some bark – both shots from the same tree.

The last shot of all doesn’t follow the rules. But here’s a farmer doing his Sunday afternoon ploughing. Unturned earth, turned earth, and all being thoroughly investigated by a host of sleek white black-headed gulls. If that isn’t a symphony in textural contrast, I don’t know what is.

And since this is a post for Jo’s Monday Walk too, I’ll just mention that there was tea and Drenched Lemon Cake waiting for me when I got home.

#2020 Photo Challenge 13: Texture. ‘Get close to your subject and capture just the texture itself, without the context’.

Jo’s Monday Walk.

The Last Walk Before Lock Down

You didn’t need a crystal ball to know that my walk yesterday, reached by car rather than directly from home, might be my last for a while. The thought of impending Lock Down made my hours alone near Masham, walking by the River Ure and through the nature reserve of Marfield Wetlands, special, memorable and something to be savoured, even if it’s not actually a Great Yorkshire Walk.

After a couple of miles there’s some pasture land. Some trees there are dead or dying. Ancient trunks have actually fallen. They were demanding to be centre stage for Jude’s Photo Challenge this week, mixing textures with other colours and patterns.

See? Lichens have cunningly introduced themselves into the regular fissures of a fallen log. Lush young nettles complement the bleached dry bark of a different trunk. Peep though knotted holes to spot the greenery beyond. Wisps of white wool wander across the surface of moss encrusted ancient branches.

Then I met stones, originally smoothed and polished by the River Ure as it hurried and bustled noisily along. Now they’re covered again: not by water, but by springy mosses and young creeping plants, and pert little celandine squeezing between them.

Then though it was time for sheep. Not just sheep, but their lambs, endearingly new-born, in their two-sizes too big overcoats. Who could resist?

Keen not to abandon Jude’s assignment, I found two last shots. A row of fat cattle, chewing away in their barn, contrasted with the diagonal and vertical lines of their shelter. And then a rusted old bit of farming machinery provided a perfect picture frame for a view. A fine use for a bit of tackle that’ll probably be on the scrap heap any day now.

The Wetlands were surprisingly quiet (lunchtime…). But I had a bit of fun with a teasel, getting up close to get a shot of its spiny plump body.

A good walk. Lots of memories to store up for a long, odd summer ahead.

2020 Photo Challenge #12: Texture: ‘mix your texture with other colours and patterns.’

Jo’s Monday Walk.

Snowshoeing x Two

I’m continuing my monthly habit of re-blogging a post from our days in France. Now that daily life is on hold to a large extent, new material may be in short supply quite soon.

This time I’m more or less amalgamating two posts from February and March 2013, my early experiences of snow-shoeing. I had a love-hate relationship with this sport. I loved the peace, and the opportunity to explore pristine snowscapes. But my goodness, it’s taxing.

Here I am in February – the 17th to be exact….

Snow shoes at Scaramus

It’s 7 o’clock. I can’t see me having a late night. We’ve had a day of ‘raquettes’ – snow shoes. Gosh it’s exhausting. You strap great oval saucers of plastic, webbing, and toothed metal to your feet and spend some minutes feeling like an ungainly baby taking its first uncertain footsteps across the endless wastes of the living room carpet.

Here I am, modelling my raquettes – snowshoes.

But equilibrium returns, and without these cumbersome contraptions, how else would you walk across the undulating white snowfields of the Plateau de Sault, with views of snow-sculpted hillsides nearby, jagged snow-crusted peaks beyond? How else could you enjoy the sound of the satisfying crunch and crack as feet break through the crisp crust of the surface snow. Thank goodness for that icy layer. We found our 5’ long batons, plunged deep below the surface, wouldn’t touch the frozen ground beneath.

And with a bright blue sky, a hot sun enabling us to walk wearing T shirts and summer hats, what better way to spend a February Sunday?

That’s the road we arrived on – signs half buried.

We set forth.

The high peaks of the Pyrenees in the distance.

Ever onward.

The mountains glimpsed through the trees.

More pristine snow.

Our lunch spot. Time for home-cured sausage, cakes ‘maison’ and wine.

Here we all are!

The final stretch.

But by March 4th, I had a surprisingly different story to report….

Snow Shoes II, The Sequel

We walkers of Laroque got our snowshoes out again today (well, in my case, I borrowed some), and went for a much more local sortie, just above Montferrier and en route for the local skiers’ playground, Mont d’Olmes.

How different from our last walk. Instead of wide open snowfields with distant views, we had woodland walking and bright sunlight casting blue shadows across our path.

Instead of gentle slopes rising and falling before us, we had an upward slog; unremitting, tough. Micheline and I, discouraged and tired, failed to reach the top, and missed the prize: a frozen lake with snow-clad views in every direction. Most of the party stayed with us and kept us company. Though our views were less exciting than those of the intrepid climbers, our picnic was the better one. We low-achievers had wine, home-made cakes and hot coffee with us to supplement our bread and cheese.

And the journey down was completed in record time. We arrived home as our gardens were gently baking in the last of the hot afternoon sun. More of the same is forecast for several days: there won’t be much snow left this time next week.

Sunlight through the trees.

Walking through the forest.

The walk continues.

Wide open spaces once more.

Glistening snow.

Whose prints are these?

White snow, blue sky.

Tree shadow.

More tree shadow.

Buried information board. The snow really is that deep.

We should be looking up at this signboard, not down.

Lunch spot.

Roughly the Same Walk as Last Week …

… except the same walk is never the same walk. Last week, Chris and I walked from Lofthouse to Ramsgill to Middlesmoor and back to Lofthouse. On Sunday, we did the route again, joined by eight friends from our walking group.

It was less sunny. It was more muddy. The intervening week had been largely dry and breezy: but before the walk, it had rained all night. It was a day to pick our way carefully through mud, artfully stamped with the outlines of sheep hooves, tractor tyres and farmers’ boots.

It was a day to notice dry stone walks, scabbed with moss and lichen.

Discarded bits of farmyard furniture and buildings.

Swollen streams, tumbling and scurrying.

All of these were subjects for Jude’s 2020 Photo Challenge, requiring us this week to look for texture – rough texture.

But it was a day too for moody landscape. Look! I didn’t take this view over Gouthwaite Reservoir in black and white. But where’s the colour?

And here – this rainbow appeared more than once on our walk that day, always elusive, always vanishing as we approached.

Join us. It’s a virtual walk. You won’t need to clean your boots at the end.

The walk starts as it means to go on. Plenty of water.

Sheep prefer eating dry hay to wet grass.

A well-dressed dry stone wall.

Teenage lambs.

There’s a prevailing wind on these hills. As you can see.

Peeking through a dry stone wall.

The last half mile.

2020 Photo Challenge #10

Winter Walking in Nidderdale – with Added Mud

Mud. I can’t be doing with it. Viscous, squelchy, squishy, sticky, over-the-top-of-your-boots kind of mud. We’ve had ground slick with treacly mud here for weeks and weeks. But then there’s also Cabin Fever, and the need to plan a walk for our walking group in a fortnight’s time, when spring might have sprung. Walking won out over yet another day indoors.

Just outside Lofthouse, our walk begins.

My friend Chris and I set forth for the Yorkshire Dales, parked up in Lofthouse, and set off. Really, it could have been worse. It was a full twenty minutes before we came upon our first serious mudbath: prior to that we’d only had water-on-the-path to deal with.

Chris paddles across the path previously trodden only by sheep.

But climbing now, we saw what the fields were like: yes, those are fields you’re looking at. Gouthwaite Reservoir’s not here: it’s over there in the distance.

The path between Lofthouse and Ramsgill, with flooded fields down below and Gouthwaite Reservoir in the distance.

We had our rewards though. The views: the remnants of a snowscape: sheep – and oh look! Our very first lambs of the season – a little huddle of black ones, and just one snowy specimen with its mum.

The last remnants of the snow.

Nidderdale, between Lofthouse and Ramsgill.

White mums, black lambs.

A single lamb resting near its mother.

Middlesmoor in the distance.

Surveying the scene.

This sheep inspected us as we sat on a log for a snack.

Swaledale sheep make the logo of the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

And then, a pleasant surprise. The café at How Stean Gorge was open – on a weekday in February! Coffee and home-made cake while enjoying the view of the stream jostling and hurrying through its narrow ravine. I forgot to take a photo for Jo, but the website shows the Yorkshire Slice Chris and I shared.

The view of Nidderdale and Gouthwaite Reservoir from Middlesmoor.

We were on the home straights now. All we had to do was struggle up a steepish hill to the now barely-populated village of Middlesmoor. Just outside its church, on the path that plunges down to our starting point are thoughtfully-provided seats. This is one of the best views in England, and despite the wind, we wanted to appreciate it.

And then, half way down the hill- a traffic jam. This herd of cattle blocked our path. The farmer asked us if we’d mind waiting five minutes. He turned out to have a countryman’s clock, but no matter: we weren’t going to argue with all those cows.

More mud …

… and more mud …

Finally, the cows moved on, and so did we. We got back to the car just as the rain, and then the sleet, started once more.

It was good to be out walking again.

An entry for Jo’s Monday Walk.

A Line of Trees

I don’t know about you, but I need a break from the world and its vicissitudes. And I’ve got just the thing. One of our favourite walks, near Masham, near home. It offers wetlands with waterbirds, calming pastures of sheep, woodland, a stretch along the riverside – all available in a four mile stroll.

This month, Jude of Travel Words invites us to consider Pattern. This walk has plenty, starting with the skeins of geese often to be seen designing sinuous flight lines across the sky.

I’m going to show you a particular line of trees that I’m fond of, towards the end of the walk. A repeated pattern, tree after tree after tree. Sometimes, especially in high summer, these are enough to fill my mental screen. At other times, I notice the pattern echoed. A line of sheep, maybe. A different line – of fencing. Even – and I never manage to catch this in the same shot – a line of snagged sheep’s wool caught on nearby barbed wire.

Stark winter trees. Fencing edges the nearby field.

Winter again. I like the shadowy trees lower down echoing the crisper line above.

Another much longer view of those trees. With sheep below following the same horizontal line. It’s still winter.

That line again. It’s summer now, and other stands of trees draw the eye down to the lower edge of the shot.

Sheep again. They just left their wool behind.

I’ve chosen in many cases to echo the linear nature of the pattern by a spot of judicious cropping.

There. Did you forget the headlines just for a few moments?

A Sunday Walk, Accompanied by Thirteen Dogs

Our good friends Gill and Dave host a mid-winter walk for all their friends after Christmas every year. We’re invited, and we’re never sure why. We’re not known for showing much interest in horses, and we don’t own a dog. As you can see from this shot taken just as we set forth, fortified by bacon sandwiches and coffee, having a dog in tow is pretty much expected.

We love this post-Christmas event, and this year I was especially keen. I’ve not been able to go on a decent hike for six months now because of a knee condition, but today was the day to begin to put all that behind me.

So here we all are. Here are the dogs, here is the mud, here are the woods and the local views – understated, pleasant good old rolling English countryside. I’ve deliberately overstated the mud for dramatic effect – it really wasn’t bad at all, and with enjoyable company we didn’t notice it anyway.