Thread by @TLWforCumbria

I’m back. (I know. You didn’t know I’d gone. It’s OK).

Had an unplanned adventure yesterday. It went meanderingly well. Looked for fungi first, for BBC radio.

Overheard one of this trio reading aloud. They told of the local ‘Grumbletrog’. I knew exactly what they meant.

THREAD

I once read a story aloud outdoors about the Raven of Eycott Hill. Bit intimidating as the writer and her family turned up.
And she is very tall and beautiful. I am neither.

She writes & draws story maps for nature reserves.
They enjoyed their Grumbletrog tale trail.
Then this

It felt like the government asking for donations to run their nature reserves? Well, I’d heard schools had been doing the same for ages. Natural England is ‘independent of government’ and skint?

I’d missed a nearby village’s exhibition but this cheered me up after that thought.

A week away on Torridian sandstone, had reminded me that sandstone’s a speciality in Cumbria’s Eden valley.
Decided to go and look for some of its ‘secrets’.

Do you remember this stained glass face?
From my midsummer story about Shalom & Emmet.
We’ll come back to it...

Everything’s built of red around here.
From Long Meg to the bridges, monuments, walls and more.
Meg’s the tallest of 69. Her daughters are rhyolithic.

Went looking for caves.
I thought I wouldn’t need a map. (I always need a map...)

A lunatic Lieutenant-Colonel Lacy had tried to blow Meg up in the C18th ‘to plough the field’.
A sudden storm is said to have scared his servants off.
I bloody hope so too.

They went and did something else instead...

I’d gone way off track to find them.

A very, very steep, deep, wet woodland gorge.
(Found the path afterwards of course).

But some steps, being slowly reclaimed, then led me astray.

No idea at all as to what the sign had once said 🤔

Discovered it had been an old gypsum mine for a century, that closed, just before I started school.

I liked everything I’d found here.

Just enough time to follow the river north. Find the face from the window.

Carved in cliffs, you’ve to paddle, canoe or swim to reach them depending on rain. Test of faith. I chose to swing round an overhanging tree like a fat Indiana Jones.
As I did, this appeared at eye level

Do you remember my story of the Jew Stone?

William Mounsey, the multi-lingual wanderer “who wore his beard long” had been at work/play again.

I’m not into strife, so just sat and read whilst listening to fish leap and feed. This from Walton’s ‘Compleat Angler’ & Irreplaceable.

Best of all, Mike was sat nearby and I got to share it all with him. He’s one of our greatest living conservationists. He looks after wildlife on Mounsey’s land. I’d not seen him since February.

And conkers (one of #thelostwords !) started to appear.

Have the best days you can.