Just Snow You Know

‘Has the snow gone up your way yet?’ lowland colleagues ask me, ‘ Just a few drifts are still lying under the walls on high ground’ I tell them. I may be under-exaggerating, if you get my drift,  it seems I’m not looking in the right places.

Mr Uhdd took this photo on his phone today, whilst he was out on his new bike. He’s left his bike in shot for scale (it’s leaning against the drift on the left.)

The location is Bolehill clough, Roych track, Rushup Edge

Ghost Images

Swiftly it seems, my turn to post over at Vision and Verb is here again.

This is my post

Ghost images, I’m haunted by them, they are the photographs I captured in my head, but not the lens. When I look at this shot, I see what is to me the most beautiful beach in the world, its the bay at Laig  on the isle of Eigg, a small island just 10 miles off the west coast of Scotland, I’ve  danced till dawn on this beach, on the  evening of the longest day ( and the party didn’t stop through the shortest night, darkness never fell).

But the image also reminds me of a walk to this magical place; when I missed ‘one of those shots’ the never to be seen again snapshots that only develop in your minds eye.

Walking down the track ahead of me was a young girl, probably aged about 11 she was carrying a fiddle case, swinging it in time to her pace,  before I could rummage in the rucksack for the camera (this image is from 2007, before I’d embraced my digital SLR)  she’d peeled off into one of the cottages, the moment was gone. With the bay to her left, the  cliffs to rising up to her right and a slender ribbon of crofts and cottages ahead of her, the young girl with the fiddle, captured the beauty of this landscape and the heritage of its music, in a frame.  The two are inseparable.

What are your ghost images?

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I enjoyed trawling through my photos of the Isle of Eigg last night. I’d hoped to visit again this year with a friend, I’m itching to go back and just play with the camera, (when we were there in 2007, I’d just the week before started writing this blog and my renewed interest in photography was probably born here). But realistically, I can’t manage it not this year. I’ve posted some of these shots before, others like this panorama are making a debut. 

An Sgurr ‘The Notch’

The boys have changed so much since this shot was taken, you wouldn’t recognise them now (so they will probably let me get away with posting this.)

Bluebells

Mr Uhdd thinking

Primroses and the remains of a harrow?

Cutting Action

The tree felling continues. 10 trees down, including the digging out of the stump and roots, which is a bigger job than getting the tree down. The new axe is splendid,

err, there is however a problem, with Mr Uhdd’s chainsaw, it’s broken, a tree fell on it. So the time has come to replace the old one (electric) with a whizzy new model (petrol). For a long, long time, since BC (before children*) Mr Uhdd has had a hankering for a Sthil chainsaw, he’s scoured the Internet, as Mr Uhdd doesn’t like going to the shops, but he found he can only purchase a Sthil saw from a dealership, not on line. It is for his and the chainsaws safety, apparently.

We once had a splendid demonstration of the powers of such a tool at the Sthil trade stand at Bakewell show, interestingly we both noted how the salesman had a digit missing from his left hand (do you know I can count on one hand the number of people I know with a digit missing, what’s that all about eh?) So Mr Uhdd is off to the chainsaw shop tomorrow, I’ve added some Kevlar trousers to his shopping list ( I note the Sthil trousers also have a UV protection factor of 40+ which is handy.)

* The arrival of whom, put paid to the purchase of ‘luxury’ goods such as chainsaws

Up and Down

Sun up, the promise of sun through the clearing clouds this morning.

Sun down, the setting sun this evening.

The dip in  the skyline is a clough, (I’m rather proud that the only definition of a clough I could find, was in connection with a real ale we northerners weave our words into our landscape and our ale) a  clough is steep sided ravine, an old track passes through this one, part of the network of paths, tracks and packhorse routes for carrying salt out of Cheshire, into Derbyshire and beyond.

Caption Competition

I’m lost for words, so you write them.

Location, frosty field, February morning, the cast, a rook and ewe; here is the story board.

 

 

Frosted Morning

I chose to walk to work this morning, I had to budget enough time for a few pauses along the way

(you knew I’d take the scenic route)

Although maybe it was just as well I didn’t drive this way, the lane was a bit icy.

It was very pleasant, I found some moss that looked like sea anemones 

When I got to work, the first thing I was asked was ‘What on earth have you done to your eye?’ A quick check in the mirror revealed that the cold wind had made my eye water and my mascara had run (if I ever knew how to do elegant, I’ve lost the knack) and I looked like I’d been beaten up, which would explain, the sympathetic sort of smile and nod of acknowledgement I got from the lady I walked past at bus stop. Oh well.

Taking Tea

We had a pint sized guest this afternoon. Who took a liking to tea.

Meet Rani a young Patterdale terrier, she brought friend and regular reader Joss, along too.

Spud was exuberant in greeting his guest, but Rani, despite her diminutive size was not fazed by such giddiness, she’s a terrier after all. I’d show you more photographs, but my addled brain can’t manage to get the ‘red eye’ out of the images (it’s ‘green eye’ actually, and I suspect that’s why my technique is not working). I’ll get there in the end, but not tonight.

This dog is not allowed on the sofa, so how she came to be drinking tea on the kitchen table is anyone’s guess.

Another one down

This time I’m not referring to trees (although another 3 have come down today, Mr Uhdd has a new shiny axe).

I’m referring to the demise of another rural pub, Tom and I drove past The Highwayman, Nr Rainow in Cheshire this afternoon. It was boarded up with all too shiny metal sheets at the windows and official notices pasted to the door, in that repossessed ‘got the bailiffs in’ sort of way. Last week saw quarter day when leasehold payments and rents are due, maybe that was the final straw. If you’ve not dug yourself out of a financial hole after the Christmas/New year festivities you’re not going to do it in January (especially given the snow and ice we’ve had in the last few weeks). Very sad for the landlords, and for those awaiting monies for goods and services supplied. The only winners are the collectors of taxes and the banks. There are rave reviews online about the food at the Highwayman, but problems like this can’t have helped

On no account follow the directions in the Good Pub Guide, which claims that The Highwayman is located on the A5004. It isn’t. It’s on the B5470, between Whaley Bridge and Macclesfield,

Other than that sorry sight, it has been a glorious day, blue skied  and sunny; cold, yes, but invigoratingly bright.

The pond froze over last night (note to self, fill Dandy the cats water bowl before retiring tonight) and a light shower of hail had fallen, very pretty it looked.

Iris seed head

Pondweed and ice

And the pussy willow hints at spring.

One Down

One down, twenty two to go. Mr Uhdd  felled a tree today, it’s part of a clump of  twenty three ‘Christmas’ trees that have out grown their welcome (We’ll planting again, with trees more suitable to the location).

It’s no easy task, they are 35 ft high; but he’s done this sort of thing before and developed something of a technique that manages to pop the stump out of the ground in to the bargain.

I’m sorry to disappoint if you were anticipating an action shot of the tree falling. I tried, I really tried, I’d hung around, keeping Spud from under the axe and providing hot tea, if fact I’d expected to be called upon to give a bit of weight on the rope (husbands have a way of emphasising words such as weight.) But having cut through the main tap roots, Mr Uhdd gave the rope a tug and it popped out like a cork from a bottle. Never mind, I’ve another twenty two falling tree opportunities to go.

He was pleased with how the tree fell, however he’s not pleased with Draper axe shafts , this is the second one to fail like this. You can see how new it is, he hadn’t even worn the sticky label off the head.

I’m not sure what to make of this shot, it’s a ‘string thing’ a cluster of bailer twine and frayed rope blowing in the wind. I like it because it is colourful, I like colourful.

The sun shone today, I was very pleased, I been very hacked off with grey this week. I’ve not been myself.

Where are you going?

Mr Uhdd went running yesterday. On Bleaklow.

The snow might have gone down in the valley’s but on Bleaklow there was no shortage of deep snow that was frozen enough to run on, which is actually easier going than the normal terrain.

How deep was the snow? Well this is how it normally looks,

the  snow filled gullies, know as peat groughs.