June morning
Just a quick post to add a photo! The weather this week is glorious so yesterday I took Wattie down to Crummock for his early morning walk: fortunately I had put my camera in my pocket.
There was evidence of other people also out to enjoy the early morning quiet as there were two bikes propped against a tree and when I looked out down the lake there were two figures swimming towards the inflow from Loweswater.
May
It is now ten years since I took over Crummockwater Cottages: I can’t believe it is so long! I have made a lot of friends and several of the guests who came that first year are still regular visitors: I thank them for their support! I enjoy looking after the Cottages; it is very satisfying to give guests good quality accommodation: I believe a comfortable, clean and friendly place to stay is an important factor in the success of a holiday. I do, of course, have the added ‘wow’ factor of ‘the View’: I do not think anyone can fail to be amazed by it (whatever the time of day or weather). I never forget how lucky I am to be living in such a beautiful place.
Everything is now very green and growing fast and the local lane is becoming visibly narrower as the Jack in the hedge and cow parsley start to lean in. I went along to Rannerdale yesterday afternoon: the bluebells are fantastic this year.
There is also a lovely display on a bank on the narrow stretch of road at Lanthwaite: I haven’t been particularly aware of those in previous years but they are stunning.
Last weekend my daughter, Clare and her family came for the weekend. We had a lovely family day out on the Friday. We drove to Eskdale Green and took L’al Ratty to Ravenglass where we picnicked by the sea and then walked back through Muncaster Castle grounds where the rhododendrons were spectacular and then up and over Muncaster Fell! Someone had placed a sheep’s skull on the trig point at the top of the fell which Adam took a photograph of – it looked very impressive with the fells as backdrop.
Have you ever found there is sometimes something you are not aware of and then you have two unrelated references in close succession which draw your attention to it? Did you know gorse smells of coconut? I did not, but I do now having walked through and tested shoulder high gorse on the way back to Eskdale Green!
It was a great day – one to remember and there was something for everyone!
The big news at Foulsyke or should it be Fowl-syke is that I have at last got some chickens – meet from left to right, Doris, Gladys, Marigold and Mabel.
Just for the record I heard the first cuckoo on 22nd April – bit earlier than last year.
MARCH
The forecast for today was sunny and WARM! It was also the Sunday the clocks went forward which is an ideal opportunity to go for an extra early walk. It was a bit hazy, one of those days when outline and shape are stronger than colour.
Wattie and I went down to Crummock and walked around the shoreline.
The log that looks like some prehistoric animal changes with each winter but it certainly looked as if it was heading for a drink at the lake today.
We had a lovely walk, met no-one apart from the obligatory fell runner and on the way back saw the first primroses out down the lane.
I spent the rest of the day gardening in the sun. The ewes in the field in front of the house must be a week or so off lambing and are very hungry. When they hear the farmer coming with their hay, they charge to the gate bleating fiercely. He must have been two or three times today.
My neighbour, Naomi , and I were very concerned over the past couple of weeks as there had been a grey squirrel visiting one of our feeders. We contacted the local red squirrel group who were very helpful and supplied us with traps and after a few days we managed to catch the offending grey. We also caught two reds who were extremely cross!
February
After all the rain and winds we have all been experiencing over the past weeks, Sunday dawned clear and sunny: it made such a difference! It was lovely for families just starting their half term holidays. I spend some time in the morning doing some much needed work in the garden and then Wattie and I went for a walk up Mosedale. The snowdrops were out in the churchyard and the crocus are almost ready to take over. I enjoy walking up Mosedale, it so very quickly feels very remote and although most of it is a there and back walk the views are different each way!
There have been several branches and trees down during the storms although in general I think we have got off very lightly. A tree came down just further along the lane and blocked the road. It was soon cleared but initially just to about a car’s width.
I was talking to a friend recently who has a long wooded drive to her house. A tree came down and blocked the drive. She was therefore surprised to see the postman arriving in his van: apparently he carries a chain saw in the back of his van to deal with such emergencies! What lengths the postal service will go to to deliver mail!
The weather has not been conducive to much higher level walking of late but there are bonuses; I have discovered some lovely low level, more sheltered walks. The Words in the Woods trail in Whinlatter Forest is a varied and delightful walk with quotations about trees along the route. I also came across the Comb Beck trail which winds through trees and glades beside a beck: there are a couple of ponds I never knew existed and the ruins of an old dam which was once used for mining deep in the mountain. www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/INFD-8Z4EC2
A couple of weeks ago road diversion signs appeared at the Buttermere turn, Lorton and Whinlatter. It was a bit of a puzzle to work out initially what it was all about and where the closure was: the road up Borrowdale was closed is repair by the Watendlath turn as it had collapsed and the diversion is over Honister Pass!! This is for six weeks!
December 2013
Remembrance Sunday, 10 November, was an absolutely glorious day, crisp with clear blue skies, lakes and tarns like glass and snow on the higher fells. Margaret and Len were with me and we decided to walk to Dock Tarn and Watendlath from Rosthwaite. The ascent via Stonethwaite is a good track but steep: however the views and the amazing autumn colours by Dock Tarn were well worth it and there was even ice on the tarn! The descent from the tarn was icy and very slippery in places and where it wasn’t icy it was boggy! However we were rewarded by the reflections in Watendlath Tarn which were stunning; even the moon was reflected.
It was a beautiful day for photographs and I think many people must have some incredible pictures. One of my neighbours, John Macfarlane, sent me a picture of the Loweswater pheasant; it is said that part of Holme Wood was planted to look like a pheasant and it is much more prominent in Autumn when the colours on the trees change.
We have now got some snow on the high fells again and nearly all the leaves are off the trees although there still seems to be tree loads blowing through the courtyard! We have also had some very stormy days, last night being one of them! It was the evening for the carol singers to go round the valley and we didn’t cancel, despite driving, soaking rain, debris strewn roads and winds that blew our carol sheets out of our hands.
A happy Christmas and best wishes for 2014 to you all
Joan
November
It’s Sunday afternoon, November 3rd and I have just returned from a very pleasant walk up the Rannerdale valley and back via Buttermere. As I came over Rannerdale col, I saw the first snow of the season on the tops of Gable and Kirkfell. In the other direction it was clear, bright sunshine and I could see both Crummock and Loweswater and of course Foulsyke!
I am now generally relaxing a little as I had my annual Tourist Board inspection last week. I had a new inspector, (always a bit worrying), but he was very impressed by the Cottages and thought they were excellent and I maintain my Five Star status with Gold Accolade in all the cottages.
My son, Paul, and I spent some time updating the website when I was visiting him last month. We have added an ‘Out and About’ tab which includes a cycling page by Paul which looks at both on and off road cycling, ranging from family friendly to very challenging! I eventually managed to put together a walks page of mainly local walks, but it was very difficult to know what to include as there is such a choice of walking!
While I was out and about the other week by St Johns in the Vale, I saw a house name that made me smile – KU HUS – you need to say it out loud to get it! On the same walk, I saw my first flock of fieldfares, there’s something really quite special about seeing them arrive in the Autumn.
Judy and I had an excellent walk a couple of weeks ago, the weather was bright and sunny so we decided to do Tarn Crag via Easedale and Codale tarns. On a couple of previous occasions we had hit bad weather there and promised ourselves to walk it on a clear day! After picnicking in the sunshine on the top of Tarn Crag we came down to Far Easedale (not necessarily our intention) and had a beautiful valley walk back to Grasmere.
October 2013
After some lovely late summer sunshine, autumn seems to have arrived quite suddenly. Leaves are changing colour and falling and the bracken is starting to colour the fells with a rusty bronze hue. The swallows and house martins have gone and we are beginning to see, and hear, Vs of geese high in the skies. There was great excitement last week when an osprey decided to rest up for a few days on his journey south on top of a tree in the wood behind Foulsyke! The local birds were not impressed! The osprey was thought to have travelled either from Scotland or Scandinavia: I expect it’s now half way down Europe!
There have been other unusual sightings in the valley as well. A few weeks ago, a City Link delivery van ground to a halt on the Mosser Road. The track is declared at both ends to be unfit for cars but there are some satnavs that insist on taking motorists up/down it and most come to grief. The City Link van remained for about four weeks: I’m still not sure how it was eventually rescued!
The big event in September was the Lake District leg of the Tour of Britain Cycle Race. My family arrived in force plus bikes! We were going to take part in the Jennings Rivers Ride on the Sunday but sadly it was postponed because the weather forecast was so appalling! It did eventually stop raining sufficiently in the afternoon to walk down to the bothy at Loweswater.
The weather was a bit better the following day for the Tour but still pretty wet and cold. Nevertheless, Ian, Ann and Paul with little Ella in a trailer, cycled (yes, cycled!) to the top of Honister to see the race! The rest of us walked through Lanthwaite Woods to the road by Crummock where we had a good view of the whole procession as it snaked along the lakeside. We kept ourselves amused, and warm, by jumping up and down to see how many motorbike riders we could get to wave at us – most obliged!
In between all the excitement of the weekend, Paul put the final links together for the Cottages wifi! It had been quite a challenge but it is now up and running and all three Cottages have good broadband access. Thank you Paul, for all the mind bending thought and hard work you put into it!
I think many of you may visit my neighbours, Roger and Ann Hiley’s Loweswatercam website. They produce a beautiful photographic calendar each year with both local pictures and also some from their walks on the fells. They are very nice to have or to give as presents and you can see samples of the calendar on their website. A £1 from each sale goes to Mountain Rescue.
(The photographs of the butterfly on the buddleia in my garden and the rowan were taken by Russell Nye.)
July
It is not very often that it is too hot to go walking in the Lake District but there have been days in the past few weeks when this has been so! The lakes however have looked very inviting and many people have been swimming. Some guests last week swam everyday and even I went for a dip on Sunday: it was lovely and the water was quite warm.
Most of the sheep have now been shorn and no doubt they are very grateful to lose their thick fleeces. The long warm dry spell has been very good for the farmers hay making and there has been a constant hum of tractors well into the evenings. My sister, Margaret, and her husband were staying with me and Len took this lovely picture of a hayfield as we walked down to the Kirkstile one evening for a meal.
Judy and I went over to Haweswater last week. It’s a long drive but it was worth it! It is interesting that of all the reservoirs it is Haweswater and the drowned village of Mardale that captures the imagination.
We went for a long walk on the fells on the far side of the lake: it is an interesting landscape, wild, open and remote but with a great sense of history, from its old Corpse Road and pony track to the remains of the towers and survey posts left from the development of the reservoir and aqueduct in the 1930s. It can also be very boggy but as it hadn’t rained for sometime our feet luckily remained dry. The cotton grass was magnificent, swathes of white stretching across the fell top and some of the individual heads were larger than I have ever seen!
One of the pleasures of the warm spell has been to have breakfast outside in the garden, enjoying the sunshine, the birds and the view. It has also been lovely to take Wattie out in the peace and quiet of the early morning. I took this picture of Foulsyke from the boat house at Crummock earlier this week.
I was going to finish there but in between writing and posting I went out to do some gardening and found 16 pheasant eggs tucked into the base of my cirsium! I had noticed a pair of pheasants lurking there a while ago…… wonder if Peggy had anything to do with the abandonment?
June
The bluebells were very late this year but were spectacular. It was particularly nice for guests at the end of May who usually miss out on the bluebells, to see, and smell, them at their best. This year you could even pick out the dense blue on the side of Rannerdale from the house. The photos of Holme Wood and Rannerdale bluebells were taken by John MacFarlane.
Now it is the turn of the cow parsley and pink campion which have suddenly shot up and taken over the hedgerows making the roads even more narrow. There are also lots of buttercups in the fields (and sadly on my lawns as well!) I was up on the fells the other day and noted that the cotton grass was out: I smiled as I was reminded of a poem by Richard Frost from his book, Over the Hills: I met him creating his own ‘Fringe’ event at ‘Words by the Water’ in March.
Wordsworth’s Daffodils – Not
Much more like stars, this cotton grass
shining silver in the sun,
dancing in the breeze amid the dark dead heather
and well distributed in constellations.
not clumped and lumped beside a lake,
beneath the trees
and not golden either.
Theatre by the Lake’s Summer season is now well under way. I have been to see ‘An Inspector Calls’ which was an excellent production with a very effective set and I also thoroughly enjoyed ‘Vincent in Brixton’ in the Studio.
In my last blog I mentioned that I have now got a little cat, Peggy. Several people have asked how she is getting on: she has settled in beautifully and gets around very agilely on three legs. She is good friends with Wattie whom she follows around and even tried to come on a morning walk across the fields with us!
A few months ago, my son Paul announced that he was coming to visit me in September. Not usually one to plan so far ahead, there was of course a reason behind this: the route of The Tour of Britain cycle race had been unveiled, and it is coming past the end of our lane and through Loweswater on the way to climb Honister Pass! Interest and enthusiasm in cycling continues to grow, and with more guests bringing bikes to the cottages, I am hoping to provide further facilities for them in addition to the lock up bike store I already provide.
I enjoy going out on my bike although I go at a more leisurely pace than many and my challenge is Scale Hill rather than Honister. I went out for a ride this morning down the valley and saw three squabbling oystercatchers at Southwaite Bridge and heard a curlew on the Hopebeck Road.
April 2013
Last Sunday I heard the first cuckoo in Borrowdale and the following day I heard a very insistent cuckoo in Foulsyke Wood! I checked with last year’s dates and I heard the first cuckoo on May 3rd. It’s always a surprise that they arrive at almost exactly the same time each year! The swallows and house martins are arriving and also the ospreys are back at Bassenthwaite www.ospreywatch.co.uk
From birds I will move to cats as I have now acquired a little cat who I found nearby a few weeks ago with a very badly injured leg. I took her to the vets where sadly she had to have her leg amputated. She seemed to have been a stray for some time and so I have taken her in. As you can she she is making herself at home and fortunately is getting on well with Wattie.
There are still small patches of snow on the fells and the snow that fell earlier in the year remained on the higher fells for a long time as the temperatures remained below freezing. The snow in the middle of March created a lot of drifting in surprising places and the road between Loweswater and Lorton was blocked for a little while until one of the farmers came along with a digger! The picture below is of the road towards Castlerigg Stone Circle a week after the snowfall!
It has been very beautiful with snow on the fells for so long and when there were blue skies as well, it was glorious to be out. Below is a picture of my friend Lynn on Rannerdale Knotts on a ‘good to be alive’ day!
