Tag: Yorkshire tea

Ice to see you and paws for thought – 15 dales pics

I suppose I have to talk about this week’s weather here in the Dales. As a nation we’re not very good at dealing with cold winds, snow and ice, are we? Thankfully, there are a lot of individuals who can cope – and not surprisingly they tend to live in the country’s higher, more exposed regions.
I had an early* walk in a blizzard for some emergency tea bags one day and saw that a farmer had been up early* to bring his sheep down off the hills and spread out some hay on a low-lying field for his animals.
(*The difference between my retirement early and a farmer’s early is about five hours.)

Dales hill-farmers knew what was coming and when it would arrive; they were prepared, took action when needed and just got on with dealing with the job without much fuss. On TV I heard someone complaining because he was being restricted to driving at 30mph in his 4×4, and another person moaning about her recycling bin not being emptied. Before I start on a Jonathan Pie-style rant (he’s brilliant, by the way) I’ll move on …

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Battling through a blizzard in search of Yorkshire Tea. Below, I did check to see there was no one asleep on the bench.


My son ‘kindly’ reminded me that I was a child during the bad winter of 1962/3 by asking what it was like in those days. I lived in a town in those days but there were plenty of hills, and I remember the enormous icy slides and much sledging … and scraping ice from the inside of our bedroom windows.
He and I have also being trying to identify paw prints in the snow around our houses. Stray dogs seem to be the most numerous – I say ‘stray’ because I’d hate to think pet owners were chucking out their dogs on such cold nights.

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Left to right: fox, dog, cat, badger.

Photography-wise, I’ve not felt inclined to dig out the car for a drive around the Dales looking for stunning snowy scenes – I’m not sure I can justify that heading into the wilds to take pictures is a ‘life-or-death journey’ (unlike the aforementioned tea-bag catastrophe). But I have managed some local shots …

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Frozen mill pond, Langcliffe
Snow drifts between Langcliffe and Settle
St John’s Langcliffe
Mill pond overflow, leading to the Ribble.
Snow-bound lane from Langcliffe.
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Snow-topped rubble on the Ribble.
Wintry sunset over Langcliffe.

Dales Three Peaks path plea

If you haven’t already seen this, please watch the video here, uploaded by the Dales3Peaks people, and help maintain our paths around the Dales: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcrZftnuhqw&feature=youtu.be

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Two views of Whernside seen earlier in the week. Above, looking over Gauber; below, with Ribblehead Viaduct.

And finally … ice monsters emerging from the depths to slowly climb the memorial in Langcliffe. Don’t have nightmares, folks.

We’re short of nowt in Yorkshire

Yorkshire bridgeI received a card this week wishing me a Happy Yorkshire Christmas. It got me imagining Santa wearing a festive red flat cap, shouting ‘Ey up! Narthen! Sithee!’ as he travelled across the Broad Acres on a sleigh pulled by half a dozen whippets. Then I read somewhere that some chap was complaining about not seeing any sweeping plantations in the county where Yorkshire Tea is grown. I tweeted that despite the lack of tea-growing, folk can visit the forests of Pudsey where Yorkshire Puddings are scratched from the ground by specially trained ferrets. And that you can watch traditional divers off the coast of Scarborough who risk their lives searching the Great Yorkshire Reef for Yorkshire Mixtures. Yorkshire Parkin is still quarried from prehistoric deposits in Giggleswick of course. And Yorkshire Curd Tarts are produced in darkened sheds throughout the Yorkshire Dales by Yorkshire Women in pinnies mixing Yorkshire Water and Yorkshire Milk while supping Yorkshire Best Bitter. We’re short of nowt here.

Yorkshire quarryI see that Giggleswick Quarry (that’s the limestone one, not the Parkin quarry) has been put up for sale. It will be interesting to see what happens to it – and what is allowed. I always thought that quarry owners in the Dales were supposed to restore any former workings once they’d been plundered, not just sell them off to the highest bidder for the new users to take on responsibility. So I looked on the Dales Environment Network website – it states:
‘We have an obligation to restore quarry sites once we have finished working them, and in the Dales we do so in partnership with a number of organisations such as the National Park Authority, Natural England, the Wildlife Trust and Dales Millennium Trust. Giggleswick quarry was closed in 2009, and is now undergoing the process of restoration. As with Old Ingleton quarry, we will be primarily relying on natural regeneration – however this is being supported by native tree planting and broadcasting of wildflower seed mixes across the site.’
So I’m left a little confused. Not being one of Her Majesty’s card-carrying investigative journalists any more, I won’t be following this up but wonder if anyone else has bothered to ask what’s happening? Perhaps the quarry owners have actually fulfilled their statutory obligations – I don’t know, but viewed from the path above, the quarry just looks like a big Yorkshire Hole.

Yorkshire birkdaletarnOne hole in the Dales is Birkdale Tarn – the third largest expanse of water in the Dales after Malham Tarn and Semerwater. At 1600ft it’s the highest of the three, best for solitude and hardest to photograph!

Yorkshire blackIt’s a bit black ovver t’back o’Bill’s mother’s.

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I couldn’t go a week without a photo of Winskill, could I? ….

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Fabulous sky above Ribblehead Viaduct…

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Small screens don’t do justice to panoramic views but I recommend looking at this one of the Howgills, taken a little while back, on a computer if possible.

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Penyghent made but a brief appearance from under its shroud during the week…

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Despite slipping and landing on my backside in the mud, a trip down to Stainforth Foss this week was worthwhile. The repaired packhorse bridge (top photo in blog) looked much better and the river was lively. Here are a couple more photos and video link.

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Not everything is so black and white in the Yorkshire dales

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I’ve decided that sheep get a bad press. I like to think they can be proud, strong leaders. And this character, encountered on a short walk on Monday, definitely agrees. The start of the week was grey so I continued on the black-and-white theme with a shot of the lane leading to Stainforth Scar from Langcliffe, and another of a farm in Swaledale – a different kind of Dales landscape.
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Wednesday was Budget Day and those Tories really do see everything in black-and-white don’t they? The chancellor has a misguided impression that his friends in business will solve all our economic and social problems. Yes, of course George, all businesses will now start paying their workers decent wages and abolish zero-hours contracts. Business owners and shareholders will immediately stop hiking off as much profit as they can for themselves, they’ll cough up all the tax they owe, won’t go live abroad and will stop hiring cheap immigrant labour. Not all businesses are so greedy, I know – there are shades of grey in everything. Smearsett Scar, below, is a good example.
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Thank goodness Thursday brought some colour into my life. I rose early for some fabulous shots up Ribblesdale which looked stunning.ribbview

Then it was on to one of my favourite spots of all: Thorns Gill, at the very head of the dale. Two hours I spent at the gill and the abandoned grange of Thorns – and I never saw another soul. From the top of a small rise just beyond the ancient settlement, on the path to Nether Lodge, the 360-degree views are outstanding. I took far too many pictures to show here: ruined buildings, strange rock formations, lichen encrusted signposts, moss covered walls and overgrown ancient tracks and, of course, Ribblehead viaduct and the Three Peaks (I may in future publish a blog on Thorns only). The waterfalls were tranquil compared with how I’d seen them in the past, but nevertheless hypnotising. Gayle Beck, looking like well-brewed Yorkshire tea, cackled excitedly over the rocks. The dark, still pools were inviting on this hot day – dare I strip off for a bit of wild swimming? Not with all those sheep watching.
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Friday reminded me that folk actually work in the dales and don’t just aimlessly flit around the place as I do. Near Austwick, half a dozen farm workers, in a kind of synchronised, motorised dance movement expertly cleared the meadows. hayaustwick

Exhausted by the thought of all that work I took a stripey photo of Moughton Scar (which might look better in b&w) before heading home for a brew of Yorkshire tea. By the way, has anyone ever seen the vast Yorkshire tea plantations?

moughton(Wot, no trains this week?)