shepherd’s warning

You’re probably familiar with the old nautical proverb:

  Red sky at night,
  Sailor’s delight.
  Red sky at morning,
  Sailor’s warning.

However, I come from a part of England where wool was a major part of the local economy for hundreds of years, until a rapacious king, Henry VIII, confiscated the accumulated wealth of the mediæval monasteries, including Furness Abbey, which had been responsible for introducing sheep onto the fells of the Lake District in the first place (fell derives from the Old Norse word for ‘mountain’—all the local words for topographic features derive from Old Norse). Nevertheless, sheep (and shepherds) remain a fixture on the fells, and locally the familiar wisdom attributed elsewhere to sailors I automatically assign to shepherds.

The purpose of this digression is to serve as an introduction to what I saw this morning. I always enjoy my morning coffee sitting on the roof of our house, where I can listen to the cacophony of the dawn chorus (mostly crested mynahs), but I’d no sooner put my coffee down than I had to rush back downstairs to get my phone. Here’s why:

I took both these photos at 6.10am, and the next two at 6.20am:

…with this one just a minute later:

I took the next two photos at 6.28am to illustrate how far across the sky the colour had spread. This was the view looking southwest:

…and this is what it looked like to the northwest:

I took my final photo at 6.30am, when the display had reached maximum intensity:

Notice what appeared to be a perfectly circular yellow curve (it was much more obvious in reality).

And as for the dire warning that is enshrined in the Cumbrian shepherd’s message? It’s been sunny all day!

favourite photos: summer 2024

Paula and I will be heading back to Hong Kong in a few days, and as I usually do, I’ve put together a collection of what I consider to be the most interesting photos that I’ve taken during the summer. I took more than 600 photos during our two trips to Toronto last month and this month, but with two exceptions (see below), I’ve not included any of these in this collection. These will be used next month to illustrate things that we did in this fascinating city during our visits.

We often go for walks (if we’re not cycling) when we’re in Penrith, and we frequently visit the Thacka Beck Nature Reserve during these walks. On one occasion, we saw a rainbow as we emerged onto Bowerbank Way, part of the Gilwilly Industrial Estate, on our way to the reserve:

The entrance to the nature reserve is marked by the litter bin on the right of the photo.

One option after we’ve exited the nature reserve on the far side is to continue along Thacka Lane in the direction of Newton Rigg Agricultural College. We frequently see horses in the fields bordering the lane, including this pair, who appear to be looking for attention:

Foxgloves are common on the fells (local name for the mountains of the Lake District), but I was surprised to see this specimen growing out of the crack between a wall and the pavement in front of Penrith Methodist Church:

I spotted this splendid example of a stile as we cycled through the village of Reagill, south of Penrith:

Notice that no mortar has been used in the construction of the wall, which is standard practice around these parts. The rock is limestone. You can also see this technique being used in a wall alongside the road leading out of Penrith towards Great Salkeld, where the principal rock is sandstone (although some boulders have also been incorporated, sourced from boulder clay, the ubiquitous glacial deposit around here):

The next photo shows a view of Blencathra, one of the few Lake District mountains with a Cumbric name (although it is often referred to by locals as ‘Saddleback’) that I took while out cycling:

This road used to be the main road to Keswick, but it was replaced by the A66 more than half a century ago, making it ideal as part of a cycling route nowadays.

‘Sunset’:

When I asked Paula which bike ride she would like to do to mark her birthday, she immediately replied: “Haweswater”. I took several photos here, but I particularly like this one, looking back towards the head of the valley:

When we flew to Toronto last month, I had a window seat, and I suddenly noticed that we must be crossing the southern tip of Greenland. I always switch my phone off when flying, and in the time it took to get it up and running again, I probably missed the best shots, but you can still see the glaciers in this photo:

On our second flight, the plane passed many miles south of Greenland, so there was no opportunity to take more photos.

The walk along the River Eamont, from Eamont Bridge to Brougham, south of Penrith, is a pleasant excursion, and we followed this route on a walk at the end of last month. The river appeared to be flowing unusually fast, but the water level didn’t appear to be higher than usual:

Notice the three ducks in the bottom left corner of the photo.

The day after our Eamont excursion, we did a bike ride north of Penrith that included a road we’d never cycled along before. At one point, I noticed an unusual plant that dominated the verges on both sides of the road:

This is Himalayan balsam, an invasive species that, in this location, was almost the only plant on both sides of the road for about two miles.

This photo shows a quaint road bridge over the River Lyvennet in Morland, southeast of Penrith:

I discovered just this summer that there’s a skate park next to Penrith Leisure Centre. I took several photos of the colourful graffiti on the sidewalls supporting the ramps, including this one:

On our second trip to Toronto, we were taken to watch a major league baseball game, and on our way to the stadium, we passed this installation, which I saw as a ‘must’ photo opportunity. Paula took this one with my phone:

Another ‘must before we go’ was a bike ride to Ullswater, which we tend to avoid at the height of summer because of the sheer volume of tourist traffic. On this occasion, we approached the lake from Matterdale End, and where to take a photo from was self-evident as we descended the hill towards the road that runs alongside the lake:

The subject of my final photo is a tiny flower that I spotted just a couple of days ago growing out of a crack in the external surface of the low wall surrounding my neighbour’s backyard:

I have no idea what kind of flower this is, so if you can enlighten me, please leave a comment below.

favourite photos: summer 2023 (part 2)

…continued from Part 1.

There are five named rivers that flow for part of their lengths within a five-mile radius of Penrith. This is a view of the River Lowther, looking upstream from the bridge that carries the A6 across the river:

Many farms in the Penrith area have fortified buildings as a defence against marauding Scotsmen, like this one in Newton Reigny, on the road out of the village towards Catterlen:

This photo was taken looking back towards Newton Reigny.

And this is a view of the Beacon (see Part 1) from the only road leading out of town to the northwest:

In the foreground is a large area of ‘allotments’, land rented by the local council to local people who probably don’t have a garden. Beyond these is the oldest part of Gilwilly Industrial Estate.

And this is another long-range view of the Beacon, this time taken from a dirt track that connects the newer part of the Gilwilly Industrial Estate with Thacka Lane:

If you’ve looked at Part 1, you will probably have noticed that I like to take what I call ‘disappearing perspective’ photos, where straight lines converge on an imaginary point in the distance. This is a chicken farm somewhere north of Penrith:

I couldn’t resist taking a photo of this solitary foxglove:

…although it does look rather lonely!

I don’t see many scarecrows around Penrith nowadays (they’re still common in Hong Kong), but this one in the allotments I referred to above is quite amusing (but not scary):

I included several photos of horses in Part 1, and this is probably the reason there are so many:

The next photo is a view of one of the most easily recognizable mountains in the Lake District: Blencathra, known colloquially as ‘Saddleback’, although it isn’t a name that I use, because ‘Blencathra’ is one of the few ‘fells’ with a Cumbric name, and all the local toponyms derive from Old Norse:

The next photo was taken in a newly developed area of town that has been named Carleton Meadows:

We’d been cycling along the road behind the camera (informally known as Grass Dryers’ Lane) when I spotted this path and thought that it might be worth following. In fact, it leads to Scaws Estate, where I grew up, and I was able to point out our old house on Brentfield Way.

I took the next photo somewhere in the Beacon plantation, and I think that this is another foxglove:

As a variant on a photo that I included in Part 1, this is Paula trying to take a photo of a Highland cow (Carleton Meadows in the background):

I don’t take many photos of petrol spills on wet roads nowadays, but here’s one:

Two curious sheep:

There is a third sheep somewhat further away that also wants to know what is going on.

I included a photo of the entrance to the tunnel under the railway at Skirsgill in Part 1, but this is what the light/dark contrast looks like from inside the tunnel:

Another couple of horses in a field adjoining Thacka Lane:

On the same day that I took the previous photo, we’d noticed that there was the usual back-up of traffic turning off the M6 from the north at Skirsgill (junction 40—it was a Friday afternoon), and we would eventually be walking back into town over Castletown Bridge. The usual pedestrian route crossing the bridge is on the north side, but I crossed over to see if I could get a photo of the traffic jam. I got much more than I expected:

The northbound carriageway is also clogged up, apparently because someone lost control of their car and crashed into the wall marking the central reservation (gawping at the traffic jam on the opposite carriageaway?).

The next photo is a ‘challenge’ for Penrith natives:

Where was it taken? The location is within the generally accepted town boundary.

On the day that I hurt my back in July, I went out for a bike ride, during which I stopped to take the following three photos.

This is a view of Ullswater taken just outside Pooley Bridge:

That’s my bike leaning against the wall on the right.

The next photo was taken from the bridge over the River Lowther at the bottom of the hill leading east out of the village of Askham:

I’ve cycled through Great Strickland several times, but I’d never taken the road out of the village to the east, which leads to Morland. Naturally, I stopped to photograph the church on the outskirts of the village, which is the parish church of Saint Barnabas:

The final two photos were taken in the Thacka Beck Nature Reserve. I think that this is an escapee from a nearby garden:

I took many photos of Belted Galloway cattle in the nature reserve this summer, but this one, which captures two cows standing in the central pond, is my favourite:

favourite photos: summer 2023 (part 1)

I usually post my summer photo collections before heading back to Hong Kong for the winter, but sitting in front of a computer for long periods remains uncomfortable. However, I’ve been back in Hong Kong for more than a week now, and I do want to maintain some semblance of continuity, so here is Part 1 of this summer’s collection. I should point out that all the photos in this latest collection were taken either in June or the first half of July, a period during which I took over 1,200 photos, but being confined to the house for several weeks, followed by severe restrictions on how far I could walk without a rest, meant that I took very few photos in the second half of my latest stay in Penrith. All the photos here are posted in chronological order rather than being grouped according to their subjects.

*  *  *

My first photo is a view of the bridge that carries the West Coast main line across the M6 motorway a short distance west of Penrith:

The bridge also carries a public footpath, signposted to the village of Stainton, and there is a graffito, not easily seen in this photo, on this side of the bridge. In fact, there are graffiti on all four corners of the bridge.

From the top of our street in Penrith, there is a lane that runs parallel to the railway. When I was growing up, this merely led to a private abattoir and beyond, a nondescript area of open fields. However, this area is now Penrith Industrial Estate, sandwiched between the town and the M6 motorway (which also wasn’t there when I was growing up). There is a footpath linking the end of the lane (Myers Lane) with the industrial estate, and although short, it is quite scenic:

I don’t know the identity of the pink flowers here, and I’ve not seen them anywhere else, but the yellow flowers are Welsh poppies, which are extremely common.

The wooded hill that you can see in the distance in the first photo above is the Beacon, which is inextricably linked to Penrith’s history (the name reflects the practice, until quite recently, of lighting bonfires on the top of the hill to warn the town’s population that yet another Scottish raiding party was on its way south. This is a view from the top of the Beacon, looking west:

Nowadays, the Beacon is a commercially managed forest, but the area immediately surrounding the summit has always been accessible to the public during my lifetime. I took the next two photos on the way back down after taking the previous photo from the top of the hill. This is what happens when you grow trees too close together:

Even the bracken develops attenuated stalks in response to the limited availability of light:

After leaving the Beacon plantation, we always follow the same path, which leads to an area of extensive housing development on the southeast corner of town (all fields when I was growing up). The one surviving field here always seems to contain a few Highland cattle:

However, sheep are probably the most common animal to be seen in the fields around Penrith. This field is located next to the lane connecting Thacka Lane and the Newton Rigg Agricultural College:

On the other hand, horses are also surprisingly common. This photo was taken from Thacka Lane, looking east:

The Beacon is on the skyline on the right of the photo.

We often walk along the banks of the River Eamont, a mile or so south of town, between Eamont Bridge and Brougham. There are plenty of opportunities for scenic photos like these:

Another horsey pic:

…this one was taken west of Penrith. I don’t know why its bridle has been left on.

This view of Penrith was taken a couple of miles west of town:

In fact, most of the town isn’t visible, because if you start in the town centre, whichever direction you choose to drive or cycle in order to leave town, you will have to travel uphill. The faint mountains in the distance are the Pennines, ‘the backbone of England’, and the highest point you can see in the photo is Cross Fell, which is the highest point in England outside the Lake District.

I mentioned Eamont Bridge above. This is the eponymous bridge:

And this is the bridge over the Eamont that carries the public footpath from Sockbridge to Penrith, a couple of miles upstream from Eamont Bridge:

…while this is a ewe and two lambs that I photographed further along the same path towards Penrith:

…and this is the tunnel whereby the same path crosses the railway:

This is a view of the main railway line from a bridge a couple of miles north of Penrith:

Paula and I decided to eat dinner at the North Lakes Hotel, on the western edge of town, to mark our 34th wedding anniversary. We couldn’t help but notice these ‘stick sheep’ in the grounds:

The next photo is of the public footpath between Penrith’s golf course and Beacon Edge, the road that marks the boundary between the Beacon plantation and the town:

The town’s cemetery is on the left, and the plantation is on the right.

I took the next photo, which I believe is of a cluster of wild rose flowers, because of the bee that appears to be drinking nectar:

The next photo shows houses on Folly Lane, which I remember being built in the 1950s because I grew up on the same public housing estate (Scaws):

This is a photo of Brougham Castle, about 1.5 miles southeast of Penrith on the south bank of the River Eamont:

This castle was founded by the Clifford family in the early thirteenth century and is now a ruin. Entry used to be free, but it is currently run by English Heritage, so you have to pay to enter.

And this is a photo of the nearby Brougham Hall:

The gatehouse that you can see in this photo is the oldest part of the hall, dating to the thirteenth century. Although most of the hall is currently in a ruinous condition, it is being renovated by volunteers and is open to visitors.

Finally, how’s this for a door knocker…?

It’s located on a door well to the right of the gatehouse in the previous photo.

Continued in Part 2…