September

During the last week or so, there have been hints of the coming autumn, the swallows have started gathering to prepare for their long winter migration south and there have been some beautiful misty mornings.

The blackberries are ripening and the mountain ash berries are a startling red.

There were also some very delicate cobwebs along the path towards the boat house at Crummock

and one day I found that someone had been carefully building stone stacks.

It has been a busy summer with many visitors which on the one hand is lovely but the number of vehicles has been difficult for our narrow winding roads to cope with. However there have been some positive efforts to help with these problems. The Rugby Club car park in Keswick offers a deal of £4 all day parking with 15% off Keswick launches: this aims to help alleviate the pressures on parking near Hawes End to climb the ever popular Catbells. There is a shuttle bus running between Cockermouth and Buttermere to help with access to Buttermere and at Loweswater, as well as many other places, there are temporary ‘pop up’ car parks in farmers’ fields. This all helps in the short term but the whole transport and access issues needs to be seriously looked at for the long term. The problem has been with us for some time but the current influx of visitors has really brought it to the fore.

Back to more mundane local happenings…… the ponds in the field behind Foulsyke are filling up and I regularly see dragonflies and damselflies hovering over the water. There was a resident sheep in the enclosure for a week or so. We think she jumped over the fence at a point where the ground was higher on the outside and she was unable to jump back out. Unfortunately she could not be persuaded to go towards the gate at the other end of the enclosure. The gate was then left open for her for several days until eventually some friends/family from the next field came to visit and she agreed to join them.