Living in the Peak Park it’s a little strange that I’m tempted to drive prior to starting a walk. Every other blighter and their dog are driving here and whilst I might not be reciprocating exactly, it is a touch illogical to drive to walk.
So whilst pondering on where to go I remembered I’d forgotten to fuel the truck. Fortunately I recalled there are numerous walks within, well, walking distance.
Leaving home with Molly plus Olympus 560-UZ we meandered our way onto the Limestone Way and headed south towards Millers Dale. It really is a great season, lush, vibrant greens, new life everywhere, rain, wind and yet more rain.
Having negotiated half a dozen stiles, I began to think a larger dog would have been a wise aquisition. West Highland Terriers can’t climb walls and negotiate stiles without assistance. What’s worse is that you can see the cow muck they’re covered in and their long coats hold copious quantities of it, unfortunately not securely. The result is that after less than an hour we both look and smell as if we’ve been rolling in a midden (dung heap). One of us has. The other acquired it by proxy.
BUGLES
We happened upon a clump of tiny blue flowers buried in the grass, kneeling down I carefully bent the most obtrusive grasses to one side and tried to focus, auto focus is great, got three exposures of blurry blue and sharp grass. I stretched out flat, Molly thinks this is a great game, leaping around grabbing bits of clothing and barking, this almost solved the problem, it was a miracle there was anything left to focus on.
I hadn’t got a clue what they were, looked in the book, not that it did me any good. There is a plethora of blue flowers out there, a goodly number of yellow, white and purple ones too! Pity they weren’t red, not as many pages of them!
Is it too much to ask that botanists classify flora according to colour? Now there’s an idea for a budding author. A natural history guide classifying plants according to size and colour, Big Blue things, medium Yellow ones titchy white jobbies etc.
I have developed an almost infallible method of solving this problem. I upload the images to Filckr, and put any old tag on it, this demonstrates enthusiasm and interest. Make Jim Horsfall a contact and within an amazingly short period of time back comes the answer. Bugles! Thank you once again Jim.
Back to the walk and the rain, Three miles or so out and another four back home, things were starting to feel and look a little grim. About to be made a whole lot worse by an inappropriate solution to a problem more perceived than real. A galvanized gate of truly epic complexity married to oak stoops, gate posts to the rest of the world. And with a sign and post advising that I was on a Bridle Path and that were I on a motorcycle proceeding was against the laws of the land, presumably only if heading downhill as the gate at the northern end is a reasonable oak job sans sign.
EYESORE
I’ve never been one to gainsay a person's employment but can’t perceive any logic behind the design and execution of this eyesore. It can’t be policed effectively and in the unlikely event of a successful apprehension the penalty would, I suspect, be derisory. The solution is worse than the problem. Perhaps the next stage is to have wardens to enforce the unenforceable. They could then be furnished with off road transport.
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