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…

a message to my readers

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will probably have noticed that I haven’t posted any new material since the beginning of last month. The problem started in the middle of last month. I’d just been for a short bike ride (35km), and when I got home, I found a note in my letterbox to inform me that someone had tried to deliver a parcel, realized that I wasn’t in and left it with a neighbour across the street.

When I went across the street to retrieve this parcel, I found that it was too heavy for me to lift. I could raise it just clear of the ground, but there was no way that I could have carried it across the street. However, the neighbour had a child’s push-chair, but when I tried to lift it onto this conveyance, I felt a slight pull in my lower back.

You probably think that I should have sought the assistance of a younger—and stronger—neighbour, because I have a long history of lower back problems, which started in 1968. I was working in Libya, on oil rigs in the desert, and I was driving a Land Rover across what appeared to be a gently undulating plain of firm sand at about 50mph when suddenly I was airborne. As I touched down, I felt a sharp stab of pain in my back. I did need some treatment by the rig’s medic, but I recovered quite quickly, and because my lifestyle has always involved a lot of physical exercise, adverse back episodes have been quite rare and easily dealt with, apart from one in 1983 when I was hospitalized on traction for two weeks after an incident when I was working at the Outward Bound School in Hong Kong. The school had just been hit by a severe squall that had caused the school’s pontoon jetty to break free from its moorings, and effecting a suitable temporary repair involved doing things that my back didn’t like. The problem was that I couldn’t just stop, which probably explains the eventual severe outcome. Incidentally, although I quickly returned to full fitness after the hospital stay, I was refused a new contract and kicked out when my existing contract expired on the grounds of ‘doubts’ about my fitness.

The parcel incident that I described above also seemed quite trivial. I expected my back to be okay within a few days, but a few days later, I woke up to a slight feeling of numbness in my right leg. This also didn’t seem significant, and I continued with my routine of long walks in the morning and evening as usual. I seemed to be able to ‘walk off’ the numbness in my leg.

Unfortunately, this numbness has slowly changed to pain, which means that I haven’t been able to do any cycling since the ride I referred to earlier. I haven’t even been out of the house for more than three weeks, apart from a visit to the local health centre for a detailed assessment of my condition, because I can’t place any weight on the affected leg without triggering excruciating pain. And I can’t sit in front of a computer for any length of time either (it has taken me almost two weeks to finish writing this short note). I don’t expect to produce any more posts for quite a while, although I do have a few posts in the pipeline, including a hold-over from last year that will answer the question of where you would take someone who had one day to ‘see’ the Lake District; a detailed description of a bike ride that Paula and I did south of Penrith at the beginning of July (with videos); and the usual selection of photos that I post every year after my stay in my home town.

We’ll be heading back to Hong Kong at the beginning of October, and I’m optimistic that I will have fully recovered by then (I am making progress).

ma shi po: a recent history

When we moved to San Wai, a village about a mile east of Fanling, in 2008, it didn’t take us long to discover the area between Ma Sik Road, which at that time marked the northern boundary of Fanling, and the Ng Tung River. It wasn’t densely populated by Hong Kong standards, but there was a substantial population, mostly living in tin shacks, and the area was extensively cultivated:

The third photo shows a typical dwelling in the area at the time.

There was once a stone device for milling rice outside a house that, as I noted years later, hosted several meetings, I assume to discuss the many adverse things that were starting to happen in the neighbourhood—and, presumably, what to do about it. On this basis, I conjecture that the house was the home of the local tai fu (headman). The following photo, taken in October 2008, also shows the path that runs past the house:

This grinding machine disappeared many years ago, probably taken by someone as a souvenir as events progressed.

I think that we can be forgiven for regarding the area as a kind of bucolic idyll, but what we didn’t know at the time was that the area was scheduled for ‘development’. What follows is a series of hyperlinks to posts that I’ve published over the past 14 years that document the significant changes that have taken place during this period.

I first wrote about this area, which was known as Ma Shi Po (‘horseshit area’) at the start of 2010:

Hong Kong Country

This account also includes photos of the local river and images of the Wah Shan Military Road and the nearby hillside. In November 2010, I returned to Koon Garden, of which I’d photographed only the entrance gate. It had been abandoned, and I wanted to take a look inside:

Return to Koon Garden

This is a view of the entrance to Koon Garden that also shows the house, which wasn’t visible in the photo that I used in Hong Kong Country:

Things first began to take an unwelcome turn in 2011, when major property developer Henderson Land planted a large number of ‘keep off’ signs. This post focuses on the signs erected by protesters:

Turf Wars

Several of the huts in this area have had artwork painted on the external walls, including this one:

The Cat Man’s Hut

In the summer of 2017, a statue of the cat farmer appeared next to the site of the cat man’s hut while I was in the UK, and I included a photo in Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes. This photo was taken in March 2019, shortly after the cat had been given a new straw hat:

I wonder what happened to it.

By 2015, previously cultivated areas that had been fenced off by Henderson Land had become completely overgrown:

A Blot on the Landscape

The following year, artwork began to appear on footpaths and nearby buildings:

Art Promenade

The frogs were painted on a section of path that remains accessible, but there is now no trace of their existence. The next photo is a view of the left-hand hut, which I described in Art Promenade but did not provide a photo. The hut on the right had yet to be decorated when I took this photo in October 2011:

Painting of the right-hand hut did not get underway until December 2016:

A short distance to the left of these two huts, there was a large hut that had already been decorated when we moved into the area, although the following two photos were taken at the same time as the two previous photos:

This building extends away from the main path. And this is a closer view of the hen on the right, next to the path:

More protests erupted in October 2016, and this is an account (with photos):

Turf Wars Update

In April 2017, large numbers of terracotta figurines appeared next to the main footpath in what was clearly an organized display. They were meant to represent the people and traditions of the area, but like everything else here, they have now been bulldozed into the dirt (I did rescue a few before this happened):

Terracotta? Ah! Me

Although most of the land under cultivation when we moved to the area was fenced off more than a decade ago, some land was still being farmed in March 2020. Why? I’ve no idea:

A Farming Mystery

I wrote several posts towards the end of last year that described recently abandoned houses in Ma Shi Po. This is a particularly poignant example:

More Abandoned Houses

So what does the area look like now? I gained access to the area on a Sunday in October 2021, when no work was being done, and took the following photo:

Farewell Ma Shi Po!