The Lost Words for Cumbria Profile picture
Jun 30, 2020 7 tweets 5 min read Read on X
Today started with a bang on the window.
Yellow feathers still looping & drifting in the air.
One of the fledglings I’ve enjoyed watching ‘learn the ropes’ this month. A goldfinch.
It flipped over & when I gathered it up, watched me with one eye.

Final day of #30DaysWild
THREAD ImageImageImage
As it warmed up in my hands, and came round from being stunned, it calmly alternated between watching me and nodding off. I left it safe, warm, with food, water and a way back out if it felt better.

Then headed off to the meadows.
I’d meant to visit Hannah Hauxwell’s farm for years. Not sure I used official roads...got there in the end. Hannah who?
A farmer who farmed traditionally until the 1980s.
With no running water or mains electricity for most her life.
Her meadows are cared for by @durhamwildlife ImageImageImageImage
Then to Bowlees where they kindly asks for donations for parking rather than the restrictive tenner asked for where I’m from.
Veteran Juniper, gatepost bilberries, stories in stone and Heartsease... ImageImageImageImage
I kept thinking about the goldfinch though.

Exceptional flowers, wading birds, and one of the most diverse sets of visitors I’ve ever seen, walking to High Force in the rain. Young couples, all ages, many ethnicities. All smiling.

Interesting signs of our times.

Steamed the car up with our first fish & chips for 4 months ImageImageImageImage
When we got home, I went to check...
The goldfinch’s den was undisturbed.
It had eaten well.
Left me something.
And gone.

Every little kindness helps.
Try your best for wildlife.
Involve others.
Who knows?
Might help. Image

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More from @TLWforCumbria

Oct 1, 2020
Recently, a well-meaning national park worker posted a photo of The Howgills. Got ten times the usual "likes" but also caused a PILE-ON due to the overgrazed, bare land it showed. No point repeating it.

Instead, I bought a book and went for a look.

a THREAD: LOVELY / DESOLATE ?
Alfred Wainwright understated most things in his guides. How hard these walks can be. How beautiful they can be. But he leaves plenty of clues.
Like his amazement at seeing a single tree here.

As he wrote "even God has been driven out"
Alfred found loveliness & desolation here.
Just after his visit, a film was made: "The Dale That Died". You can watch it for free here thanks to @BFIPlayer

(Watch the first 3 & last 3 mins if you're in a terrible rush).

player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watc…
Read 15 tweets
Sep 23, 2020
Visit @farfieldmill near Sedbergh this week or soon!

There’s a brilliant contrast of beautiful and ‘terrible’ things to see.

But most of all, there’s this: “Through The Locking Glass” - a collection of work created during lockdown by dozens of Cumbria’s creatives.

SHORT THREAD Image
Here’s the ‘terrible’ in both senses... ImageImageImage
William ‘a young boy untroubled by any schooling’ worked at the mill. He ran away and was found by sniffer dogs. He was soon accidentally skinned by a waterwheel. Later, he survived the flu at 17 and finally retired. After 86 years of service. Image
Read 7 tweets
Sep 18, 2020
Fancy coming for a walk round ours? Tried something new...I took a photo (in any direction) every 100 metres.
You don’t need to go that far, or reach summits to escape.

Dog-friendly stile.
Two pairs of snipe? seemed as surprised as me.
Landmark trees.
Tractor ballet. ImageImageImageImage
I’ve finally mown mine. First time since Spring. Three small bales.

Himalayan Balsam. Bees might like it but no one else does.

I can see the woods from here!

The ‘Huttonwood’ Walk of Fame. They’ll be glad of that when they look back... ImageImageImageImage
Local stile.

(Glad I wore trousers).

Linescapes.

Must have rained a bit, whilst we were gone. ImageImageImageImage
Read 5 tweets
Sep 15, 2020
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 ImageImageImageImage
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 ImageImage
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. Image
Read 11 tweets
Sep 4, 2020
First walk for weeks with John.
Neither of us had been before.
And I thought he’d been everywhere.

We sploshed east of Shap summit (Wainwright somehow missed this one) to Bretherdale.

A lovely little valley. Turned out to be filled with abandoned farms. Not sure why.

A THREAD ImageImageImageImage
The farms must have been tiny. And working incredibly hard, arguably against the nature of this wild place.
Bit of a change from Missing Cat.
Think we might have found it, anyway.

And a wall gap that might explain why you missed your turn off.

‘Here be dragons’... ImageImageImageImage
More former farms. Much more recently abandoned?
Still got glass windows. Taps.
And look carefully, I think that’s a satellite dish..? ImageImageImageImage
Read 6 tweets
Aug 30, 2020
Bank Holiday THREAD - part 2

After Windermere's sunshine and swallows over Claife Heights, I was feeling short of what Alfred Wainwright called "featureless desolation, and solitude, and silence"...

Welcome to Wasdale, near Shap.

Low cloud 'CLAG' was a bonus. AW had promised: Image
Terry Abraham was over in the other Wasdale that day filming handsome folk & fells. (Bet he'd have rather been over here with the wild Angelica).

Then the clouds lifted. I'd not noticed that the Shap Summit Memorial had it's own memorial before... ImageImageImageImage
Gordon's widow & friends came up to Shap in 2013, on this, his 1955 bus. To remember Gordon and everyone up there. It's a hard place.

I followed the Roman road, away from the traffic.
It soon gets quiet.
Never really gets dry. ImageImageImageImage
Read 8 tweets

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