A Long Walk!

Beckside Post Box

• Standing at the roadside at 4.00am in the morning waiting for the minibus to pick my son up for the Keswick to Barrow walk.
• Buying flowers and chocolate biscuit cake at the village plant sale.
• Pouring a hot bubbly bath for my son after a long hard day of walking in the brilliant sunshine.

Garden Treasure Hunt.

Today I just wanted to share with you the simple pleasures of our annual village garden treasure hunt. This year over 100 residents placed an unusual object in their gardens for us to find, Here are some of my favourite photos. I hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoy the excitement of finding things. The treasure hunt symbolises light evenings and summer holidays ahead!

St Cuthbert's church Kirkby in Furness

A village garden

Weather vane

Cottage at Sandside

Black Combe at dusk

Passing the time of day!

Camelia in the garden

• Conversation over the garden wall about bird watching with a gentleman who it turns out is recently widowed and appreciates the conversation.I now have to research Skylarks !
• Appreciating the waft of lily of the valley as I walk out the kitchen door.
• Welcoming our new neighbours with a home made card and some newly laid eggs!

Sticky Toffee Pudding and Alice!

Cartmel Priory

Door from Alice in Wonderland!

• Sitting in the sun shine watching the ducklings as they bob down Cartmel beck on the current.
• Eating delicious warmed chocolate brownie and ice cream in the home to famous Sticky Toffee pudding as we gaze out the window into the village square and to Cartmel Priory beyond.
• We walk past a small door hidden in a dry stone wall, too small to get through .which reminded me of Alice in Wonderland.

Wild flowers and Butterflies

Orange Tip

The hedge rows are full of wild flowers now and I spy an orange tipped butterfly on the grass verge.We are so lucky that they don't spray the  verges in the village!

My son showed me a ladybird he found basking in the sunshine.

The newly painted cottage next door blinds me with it's glare from the sunshine.

Greater Stitchwort

After the Rain!

The grass verge in the village today.

Toffee drizzle cupcakes

• All the pear blossom has blown off the tree following the wind and rain in the night. Blossoms lay like confetti on the grass.
• The countryside looks clean and new in the sunshine,after the rain, like an oil painting newly restored.
• I get to make toffee drizzle cakes in the kitchen as the steam rises from the grass in the sunshine.
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A Day off!

Coniston Water

Driving along the banks of Lake Coniston at 8.30am on a sunny Friday morning to collect my daughter from school as she has rung to say she is feeling ill. The mountains are magnificant and the lake is as still as glass! Every cloud has a silver lining
Thinking how lucky I am to have my son and daughter at home with me today.
Walking out into the sunshine to peg the clothes on the line. Our labrador comes bounding out, making his escape and rushes out to find his football!

Bluebell Time!

Bluebell time

• I notice that the seagulls are especially noisy this morning as they circle over the adjacent field and wonder whether we are in for a storm.
• The woodland area of our garden is full of bluebells now. I love the wilderness and informality of it all.
• The grin on my Autistic son's face when I suggest that he goes round the Garden Centre in a wheelchair because he is feeling overwhelmed by the noise in the cafe. He immediately relaxes.

Green Energy- what do we think?

Walney offshore wind farm in the distance.

• The dolls pram abandoned in the lane by a toddler and she walked her dog with her mummy and baby brother along the track this morning.
• Wondering whether I really liked the change to the scenery made by one of the biggest off shore wind farms in the country. I decide whilst I agree with them in principal on this occasion they have built too many and wonder how they will effect the ecology.
• Mulling over the question of green enery and deciding the wind mills are preferable than government's horrific proposal to bury nucleur waste under the ground on the other side of the estuary. Perhaps they would like instead to bury it in their own back yard!

Evening in the Countryside!

• The peal of church bells over the fields as I tend the front garden in the dusky evening.
• The bluetit chirping quisically at itself in the wing mirror of my car standing on the drive
• The sound of the lawnmower and the smell of newly mown grass as I walk up the drive at the end of the evening.

Sounds of the Country.

• Realising as I watch the sheep run across the field to where the farmer is scattering food, just how noisy it is in the countryside.
• Watching two green finches dip and dive round the garden.
• Listening as the sun sets and the noises of the countryside fade away  as the birds go to roost in the nearby trees.

Keep up the Easter Tradition!

Rainy view of Ulverston from Hoad.

We have rolled pasche eggs down our local hill for as long as I can remember. For at least half a century and probably much longer than that, the inhabitants of Ulverston have lovingly hard boiled and decorated eggs in order to watch them splat into pieces at the bottom of the hill in only a few seconds.It's an ancient tradition in Cumbria and many a family have spent a wonderful afternoon in the sunshine, picnicking then climbing 'The Hoad' after the pasche egg rolling is over. Hoad, for those who don't know, is a monument similar to a lighthouse sitting on top of a hill on the outskirts of Ulverston. From the top you can look down on the town and watch the train leaving the station as it travels along the railway line and over the viaduct which spans the estuary to the other side of Morcambe Bay.
Yesterday I learned that the local council hadn't organised pasche egg rolling this year as they had no volunteers. Now, don't get me wrong,I don't agree with maintaining tradition for tradition's sake but the children of Ulverston have been rolling pasche eggs for years and we don't need an organiser to hard boil some eggs and roll them down the hill. So in true militant style off we set on a rainy cold day to roll our eggs!
We met a lovely lady at the bottom of the hill, she was waiting for her grandchildren and was surprised that there were no people around. We decided to climb the hill first and after a short sharp pull up ,a very unfit mother and much healthier daughter, arrived at the summit where various families in all sorts of waterproof attire were admiring the wet and hazy view.After the obligatory photo of Morecambe bay my daughter set off the quick but straight down route whilst I sauntered down the more leisurely way, lost the path through a haze of mist on my glasses and slipped sideways through the bracken to the bottom of the hill out of view of  my daughter . I puffed my way along the bottom path and finally reached an anxious daughter who had climbed the path I was supposed to be descending 3 times!

We climbed the gentle incline to the starting line. Another family were there before us complete with a home made scientific contraption that only dreams are made of. You rolled your egg down a wooden plank with rails on either side to stop it falling off, from there it rolled down the hill and if you were lucky through an upright  large wooden triangle sited at the bottom of the slope. Our plans were far more basic. You took your egg and rolled it as hard as you could towards the path below, trying if you could to avoid the gathering crowd of passers-by and families gripping tightly to supermarket bags of hard boiled eggs. All too soon our four eggs lay smashed to smitherines at the bottom of the hill but honour had been served. We had continued an age old tradition regardless and what had been written off by the local council had once again been observed by the residents of Ulverston!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1-jjhomJp8&feature=related  for an ariel view of Hoad.

Keeping up Traditions!

Traditional Egg rolling in the rain!

• Rolling pasche eggs down Hoad hill in the pouring rain, a tradition which has continued in Ulverston for as long as I can remember.
• Warming up with a cup of coffee and a Ploughman's lunch in the peace and tranquility of our local Hospice cafe.
• Watching the young children on a treasure hunt in the Hospice grounds and chuckling when their Grandma came in to collect their prizes because they were too cold and wet to get out the car! 
• View from Hoad on a good day! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpjJiS7jMWo

Easter Celebrations

Hunting for Easter Eggs

• The lilac tree overhanging the gate post is just coming into bloom.
• We see the stork again flying over the dual carriageway on our way to the station.
• The cockerel crows three times and I'm reminded of the Easter story.
• Children running round the orchard looking for Easter eggs followed by hens in hot pursuit!

Simple Pleasures!

Tarn on Torver Back Common

• Wood anemones growing on the grass verges.
• A Stork sitting on the top of a telegraph pole! (Yes it was a stork! I think it must have escaped the nearby zoo!)
• Making a chocolate fudge cake with my eleven year old daughter in the kitchen on a rainy afternoon!

Who says nothing happens in the Country?

• Jumping as two curly horned sheep jumped out from behind the dustbins as I walked down the drive.
• My neighbour sitting in the sun amongst her hens and ducks waiting for two scavenger seagulls to arrive and plotting how to divert their attention from her flock and its eggs.
• Escorting lamb number 25 back through the five bar gate through which it had escaped onto the lane.

Indian Runner Duck

In my back Garden.

• The faint buzzing of a bumble bee as it hovers over the newly mown grass
• The chack, chack, chack of the magpie that is watching me from the dry stone wall
• Wilma the hen who is having a dust bath in the sunshine
• The wiggling tail of a lamb in the back field as it suckles its mother.

Going with the flow-not with the Crowd

As I went to fill up with diesel as I normally do on a Thursday I was met with queues of panicking motorists eager to fill up with fuel because of the impending tanker stike (that's if it actually happens) It seem that the U.K.  media have successfully stirred up panic buying, causing problems before there even is one.
It occurred to me that society sadly so often follows the herd. People were buying petrol because they saw queues at the filling station and realised if they didn't stock up there would be none left so they refuelled too. Mostly to full capacity!
We are fairly sheltered in the country side, there's  a community here and people are more resourceful in emergencies. They have to be, there is little public transport. I remember a pensioner joking that whilst he was delighted to have a free bus pass it would be even better if a bus came with it!
So often there is a good side to such emergencies. We take our transport so much for granted. A hundred years ago in our village you would have taken your horse and cart to market every Thursday over the Fells, a round trip of 16 miles and it would have taken all day. You would probably have sat on the moors with a picnic overlooking the estuary on your way back watching the sun go down over Black Combe, a much healthier and contented lifestyle than most of us have now! Obviously there were great hardships too but people didn't expect the government to sort it out, they pulled together and helped one another.
Here we have another beautifully sunny day, I have my weekly shopping and I intend to spend the rest of the day working in my garden. The problems of tomorrow can wait (after all only 80% of what we worry about actually happens anyway.) So until it does it's not worth stressing about!

Black Combe

The Easter Holidays Approach!

Duddon Estuary

• Only two days to go before the Easter holidays begin. Woo-hoo I can't wait!
• Saw the first violet in the hedgerow yesterday. The forget- me- nots are out too!
• A wren hopped along a tree branch peering at me whilst I was out with the dog.

Sights and Smells of Spring!

Never did sun more beautifully steep 

   In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill; 

Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! 

   The river glideth at his own sweet will:  

Upon Westminster Bridge, William Wordsworth

• The clocks have gone forward for British Summer-time and, as I shut in the hens for the night, I notice bats circling in the dusk.
• The crescent shaped moon shines brightly through the bare silhouetted trees which have not yet come into bud.
• The fragrance of Viburnum  bush wafts through the garden in the warm air and the redcurrant bush is in full bloom.