I managed to avoid Halloween by the simple expedient of going to somewhere where nobody else was. Yesterday I didn’t write and didn’t take any photographs, one or two maybe.
I got showered off, cleaned the shower drain…twice. Dressed in clean clothes, a shirt and proper trousers, shoes with laces, clean hankie, clean knickers (in case I was run over),under arm spray. Was I the Bobby Dazzler!
I went out for Sunday lunch I was thinking of Dickens pub The Morritt Arms but we went somewhere else, just as well, we drove over a gorgeous bridge. The weather was appalling so a drive was appreciated. It was Molly’s birthday yesterday or I decided it was, having forgotten when it is. After I had dined on roast beef to bursting I fed the dogs.
Brown rice and chicken cake wrapped in a strip of omelette topped with a perfect free range hard boiled egg…. A cake fit for a Corgi!….. I’ll spare you pictures of the birthday tea, not out of sensitivity but because I never took any. One has to be fast. Took longer to write, ‘One has To be fast’, than it takes them to eat it.
I was going up to Swaledale today but after perusing the weather forecast decided to stop and take a wander to the bridge. The light was superb, some of the time, black threatening clouds with bursts of low sunlight.
Panorama looking over Greta Bridge. And the A66 but forget the latter, this is what Turner came to see.
A few spots of rain as I took this but a perfect autumn day for a stroll.
On we went and found at the edge of a wheat field an area left for the birds, sown with corn, sunflowers and…………………………………
Something blue…………help required please. The sunflower was still, if not in the first flush of youth, presentable. Much as I was yesterday!
This one isn’t but these seed heads will help hungry birds survive the winter.
On we wandered towards our destination………..Where am I? County Durham, North Yorkshire or Northumberland the stiles remind me of delightful rambles in the latter. Passage through hedge, wall or fence, though not obstructed being challenging enough to exhaust a Royal marine…..I’m old, the dogs are small, it’s not supposed to be an assault course between fields.
The Bridge….Whorlton Suspension Bridge. Eight road signs for one little bridge plus two behind me , plus the same heading south. Come on Highways…. Drivers manage cars, eating sandwiches, drinking Starbucks, applying mascara, lighting cigarettes, texting on mobiles, re programing Sat Nav………….some, the best, all at the same time. Get a grip…….spend the money on potholes not on roadside graffiti. We can see it’s a narrow bridge! A beautiful narrow bridge before you lot got to work. An informed though not expert observation, ten miles per hour would be appropriate plus a sign for marchers to break step.
Whorlton Suspension Bridge a wonderful structure but impossible for me in todays light. I need to get down stream in the river, so will say no more as I’m writing for permission. The gentlemen on the bridge are Gillie and client. The wriggle in the bridge deck is real and means adjustment in the hangers is urgently required. Otherwise it will be an excuse to demolish a perfectly good and beautiful piece of Victorian civil engineering. Highways! The deck should be flat at best and ideally a catenary curve….means no kinks…kinks is bad for bridges. Really bad for suspension bridges. Get your backsides in gear and sort it!
Whorlton Bridge Toll House. The bridge was built around 1830 from what I have gathered and is still suspended from it’s original wrought iron chains. It must be unique. I’ve taken loads of snaps. The bridge deck is still wood and it is drop dead gorgeous.
The view downstream towards Whorlton Lido, once open to the public but now sadly private.
A beautiful place and one I will revisit……………….with or without permission.
Now onto… THINGS I DON’T KNOW AND WANT TO!
What is this? A white Sycamore Leaf?
Is this Shaggy Scale Head?
Is this Leyland Cyprus with male flowers or something posh like a baby Giant Sequoia?
Scaly Ink Cap A good eater if caught just a bit earlier than this. You have to pick on a morning walk and fry for breakfast they don’t keep an hour.
Finally, thank the lord, we are at the end. For those sick of autumn colour here is autumn no colour.
Tomorrow we are back in the Yorkshire Dales. No internet there. Unless I can piggy back. Have fun, have a good week. All the best.
A bumper post.
ReplyDeleteYour dogs eat better than me! I'm up for adoption, if any takers?
Have to agree on the signage for the bridge; just a little over the top.
Can't help with the ID's, but the views down the river are beautiful.
A beautiful blog, and the food, nice for the doggies.
ReplyDeleteI agree with holdingmoments- your dogs eat better than me as well.
ReplyDeleteI really like your autumn no colour shot.
The first fungi does look like Shaggy Scalycap, Adrian; the second is a Shaggy Incapp or Lawyer's Wig. Super pictures of the bridge and river and the wide panorama is great too.
ReplyDeleteThink that's a white poplar leaf Adrian. The blue flower looks like chicory..
ReplyDeleteSome lovely colourful pictures here. The autumn is much further along here... Many of the trees have lost all their leaves.
ReplyDeleteLots to digest but worth the journey. I can never get enough of autumn color or dynamic skies and perfect golden light.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe you put such artistic effort into the dogs' food. I guess that was just for a special occasion?
ReplyDeleteI really like the shot of the dead sunflower and the countryside behind it.
And all that signage on a beautiful bridge is such rubbish! One of the best things about where I live is that there isn't a speed sign for miles, we are trusted to use our common sense (or perhaps that is our sense of self preservation) with our one way bridges. And guess what? It works.
I have no idea what your mystery items are but then you wouldn't expect me to, would you? Nice shot of the pretty blue flower.
keith, only two days of the year birthday and Christmas. You are welcome to dry hound meal the rest of the year. Road signs seem to be breeding.
ReplyDeleteBob, thanks, a grand day and despite the threat no rain.
Trevor, they don't deserve it but what the hell. I shouldn't say it but it is getting a bit much all the gold and yellow.
Emma, thanks for the confirmation on the ID, very difficult are some fungi. It was a grand day for light.
Phil, thanks for the ID. It was good to see that bit of set aside.
Dawntreader, this has been the best autumn I can remember. Thanks.
Jolynne, thank you, it is beautiful here when the sun shines.
Pauline, lack of anything better to do. Here we have so many tiers of bureaurcrats that I suspect they duplicate and in this case triplicate the work.
This is a great and varied blog Adrian, sorry I didn't get the chance to comment sooner. The birthday tea, the flowers and the fantastic shot of the cloud reflection.
ReplyDeleteI am a bit more educated about the bridge which I have walked over once from Egglestone Abbey and by car to the Lido ( I remember it was a bizarre piece of land with a miniature train running around it and a catering cabin near the river).
After the money spent on the permanent signs, I wonder how far up on the list of priorities it is to get the bridge done...shame. 30mph, I'm not sure I would risk that with this entrance to the bridge.
Jay thanks for that. they seem to have done some work on the deck but it has a nasty kink in it. This is a lovely stretch of river and it is a pity the bank is fenced off. What's the abbey like as I will be back here next weekend or shortly anyway?
ReplyDeleteA marvellous post to which to return after a few days in transit and away from Blogland. No one has mentioned the third photo - so bold. My favourite.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid it's a sad reflection on modern life that as we are all assumed to lack any common sense (whereas in fact only everyone else lacks it!) and as a consequence if you don't put up signs and something happens the next thing is that the ratepayers will be picking up a huge legal bill and paying compensation for some clot who drove over at an excessive speed and into another car that was doing the same> It won't be the drivers faults but the Council for not providing signs. A duty of care exists these days has to cope with the idiots of the world who employ lawyers who, unfortunately, are not generally idiots (whatever else they may be!).
I started from the Egglestone Abbey car park with a group of walkers ( loosely termed ! ) from work about 10 years ago. Unfortunately there was a mix of just a little time at the end of the walk while some of the party didn't seem that interested. I remember that there were a few mainly intact walls and some that had been completely destroyed. I think it is English Heritage so there will be a nominal entrance fee.
ReplyDeleteI agree about the bridge. I am not a driver. Never have been. Yet even I can see it is narrow. Even if I couldn't, by the time I reached the bridge at reckless and breakneck speed, it would be too late to do anything about it. Warnings ahead are one thing, this is . . . daft unsightly and, as you say, wasteful.
ReplyDeleteAbout IDs. Have you come across the Ispot site?
http://ispot.org.uk/
It's run by the Open University. It's for recording 'nature' and for getting expert (and amateur) help with IDs.
Lucy
Well, Adrian...you have many Adrians inside!
ReplyDeleteSo many different wonderful photos: strange landscapes, close up, colors, black and white and ...food !
Like each of you has a camera...
My compliments!
Regards
Lovely interesting and colourful post, and sounds like you were dressed to the nines ~ spiffy like ;) Hmmmm...I wonder if we share a birthday? Very picturesque area (other than the signage). It reminds of a sign I saw on a bridge in Wales ~ "Weak Bridge" ~ two words that shouldn't show up together, I thought. I was happy to get to the other side. Hope you are enjoying the Yorkshire Dales.
ReplyDeleteJay, means getting there early then. I'll go and see what it has to offer, many thanks.
ReplyDeleteLucy, thanks for that, I'll have a look but they seem an educated lot my readers and we usually get ID's sorted. The problem with fungi is is one looking at a baby one an old one past it's best or one in it's prime.
Wind, thanks but my blog is really a diary so it is accidental. If I had a favourite it is landscape but I've only been doing photography for a few years so look to you and people like you for inspiration. So thank you.
Glo I can polish up okay assuming the lights not too unflattering. This says Weak Bridge, one could have a bump just reading the signs.
GB, didn't mean to leave you till last just started in the wrong place. I liked the third one, not straight off camera but the reflection dodged and burned a little. An image I am happy with can nearly always be shoved a little more. Knowing when to stop pushing is my problem!
GB, I know what you are saying but two signs a hundred yards from the bridge saying. 'You cross this bridge at your own risk it is 180 years old and well past it's prime.' surely would cover them. If I bumped into someone on the bridge I would say. Sorry your Honour, I was just reading all the signs. On a lighter note, the best sign I have seen recently is Accident Blackspot and on it's supporting structure this sign is mounted on a crash friendly structure. That's alright then.