Derwent Riverside walk from Hathersage, Derbyshire

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It’s funny how certain places crop up again in your life.  It was only last year that Colin and I started and finished our Inn Way to the Peak District walk in Hathersage and, this week, Jude and I just happen to be staying in a small cottage on the outskirts of the village.

On Tuesday, I had a little time to spare and so decided to do a walk, which didn’t cover the same ground as Colin and I along all the ‘Edges’.  My route would take me south along the River Derwent as far as Calver, where I turned west to the ‘plague village’* of Eyam, before heading back across the moor to Hathersage.

Along the way I saw many birds, including 3 nuthatches (not captured on camera unfortunately).  But just to forewarn any slightly squeamish readers, I’ve included a series of 3 pictures below of a European Robin taking care, as it were, of a huge worm.

*In 1665 the plague hit the small town of Eyam and, led by the Reverend William Monpesson, the locals agreed to a self-imposed quarantine to stop it spreading.  At the top of the hill, I passed a well, where food and medicines were left in exchange for the villager’s money.  The coins were subsequently disinfected with vinegar.  Figures vary but around 270 villagers died, with anywhere between 83 and 430 surviving.

Llanymynech Limeworks Heritage Area Walk

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As previously mentioned, my wife and I are in the UK at the moment and on Monday we went to visit Judith’s parents, Angela and Lawrence.  After a delicious lunch, Angela took us on another wonderful walk, this time around the Limeworks Heritage Area at Llanymynech.   (I’ve never understood how to pronounce these Welsh names, but I understand the first y is as you might expect, like an ‘ee’ sound, but the second y is more like a u, as in bun.  It’s no wonder I’m confused!)

Anyway the village straddles the border between England and Wales and the old Limeworks does the same, such that there is an English Quarry and a Welsh Quarry.  As you might expect, the two were fiercely competitive, until a tunnel was made which connected the two and they decided to merge.  However, the Limeworks eventually became uneconomic and closed in 1914.

The Offa’s Dyke long distance path also runs alongside.

 

65 today!

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I’m not usually prone to make a big fuss about ‘key’ birthdays.  Like when I turned 50, I was on holiday in Majorca with my two daughters, Joanne and Sarah, and only they knew it was my birthday (otherwise the compere in the hotel might have had me up on stage doing something silly, which was the last thing I wanted!)  On my 60th birthday, I ran the Vienna marathon.  The idea of running a marathon when I was ‘old’ always appealed to me as a challenge, especially when I knew I would be 60 on a Sunday, so it had to be done. Again Sarah was there, but this time with my wife, Jude.

Today, I’m 65 years old and I thought it worth a mention, purely because you readers are all my friends and I think you should know.  I am writing this in advance, as I’ll be in the UK for Sarah’s wedding next week, so I’ll have no time to be blogging!  All things being equal, I will have been out for a meal last night with my brother, Steve, and his wife, Beverley, and my sister, Karen, and her partner, Paul.  Tonight I will be having a quiet meal at a local hostelry in Hathersage, near Sheffield (and a few beers no doubt) with my lovely wife, Jude. 😍

As is customary, it seems, on these occasions, I’ve dug out some old, and I mean old, photos of me as a child, plus two more ‘grown up’ pictures that I came across recently.

See if you can spot me in the group photos… (Answers at the foot of the page).

Football photo: Back row, second from right.  Rugby photo: Front right.

The day after the day before…

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The snow continued to fall until about 5pm yesterday, so it was inevitable I’d have a bit of shoveling to do this morning.  Luckily today has been quite warm and sunny, so after I’d shifted most of it to one side, our grassy driveway is green again and almost dry.  This prompted a European robin to hop down and take a look for something to eat.  (It’s the first robin we’ve seen this year).  And, with the snow about a foot deep across the rest of the valley, our bird feeder has again been quite popular.

4th Blogiversary

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They say time flies when you’re enjoying yourself, but where does time go?  Quite incredibly, it’s 4 years to the day since I entered the blogosphere.  It’s been an amazing journey so far and it’s certainly kept me busy during my retirement, which was one of my goals when I first started this site.  (My long suffering wife, Jude, will tell you it’s kept me too busy at times, but I do like to put my heart and soul into things!)

I’m not really into the stats, but I’m very grateful for 439 followers (11 of them via email) and especially to those who have been, shall we say, more ‘active’ with comments to let me know that I’ve not been talking to myself (something my mates will tell I’m very good at) and to give me even more motivation and inspiration to continue.    I don’t really want to single out any one individual, but Jet Eliot has been with me for all but one month of this journey and I’d like to thank her for sticking with me all this time.  She deserves a medal for her fortitude.  I would certainly recommend her website to anyone interested in Travel and Wildlife – or anyone who might like reading or writing murder mystery thrillers.  Despite being retired, I still really don’t have enough time or, if truth be known, the inclination to read books, but her Golden Gate Graveyard is a humdinger.

So, to today’s pictures… The first two below I took on Monday, the first with Jude’s SLR camera and a zoom lens from about a metre away.  The next ‘set’ were during a walk up the track/path at the back of our chalet.  I’d seen a small deer casually walking up the road earlier in the day and I hoped to find it, but it had disappeared, as only wild animals can.  Then, at the risk of making you all feel a little cold, or glad that you are where you are, some pictures I took this morning after about a foot (30 cm) of snow fell overnight.  Enjoy!

Of course, I shall be celebrating this momentous occasion in the usual way this evening.  Cheers!  🍺🍺 😋

Circular Walk from Millington via Huggate, East Yorkshire, England

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Last weekend I went back to the UK for a few days to see some of my old friends in York.  Waaay back in October 1977, I began working in the offices of what was then the Rowntree’s Chocolate factory until October 2005, by which time it had been taken over by Nestlé and I eventually moved over to Switzerland to finish my career.  In those 28 years I made a lot of good friends and it’s always great to go back and catch up with a few of them.  On Friday, I played a round of golf with Martin and Ian and his wife, Janice.  (Sorry, and perhaps thankfully, I have no pictures of me hacking my ball out of the undergrowth at York Golf Club, Strensall).

On Saturday, Pete organised a walk from Millington, which is about 30 minutes drive to the east of York.  Our route would take us partly along the Wold’s Way and partly along the Chalkland Way.  But, most importantly, there would be a refreshment stop at the Wolds Inn, at Huggate.  😋

During our walk we spotted quite a few spring flowers, (and many thanks to Martin’s wife, Jan, for helping me to identify them), a red kite, some white pheasants (though I only got a very bad picture of one hiding in the undergrowth – see pic 12), ‘one of the finest views in England’, according to Pete, and it’s hard to disagree (see pic 25)  and yet another use for one of those old telephone boxes.  Previously I’ve seen them turned into tiny ‘swap a book’ type libraries and a defibrillator point, but this time it was a bike service station, complete with pump and repair kit (see pic 32).  Now that is what you call ‘recycling’! 😊

The final image, courtesy of Google maps, shows the position of Millington relative to York, within my home sub-county of East Yorkshire.

Walk from La Forclaz to the Mayens de Bréona

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It was more in hope than expectation that I drove the few miles to La Forclaz yesterday.  The sun has been out for the past week and, although the snow has completely gone now from our garden (at 1,400m / 4,600ft), I wasn’t sure if even the south facing slopes at 1,700m to 2,100m (5,600ft to 6,900ft) would be clear.  As it turned out, after a short stretch of snow leaving La Forclaz, the footpaths were as good as clear up to the Mayens de Bréona.  However, the descent tracks, which were mainly through the woods, were still covered in about 30cm, or a foot, of the white stuff.

 

Sion to Sierre bike ride

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I mentioned a few weeks ago that I might have to get out my bike if I was going to get any exercise and, today, I did just that.  My road bike may need a little tlc before it’s roadworthy, so I opted for my mountain bike, even though I would be cycling on flat, smooth tarmac (at least for most of the way) alongside the river Rhone.

When I was planning the route, I noticed that there was a small lake, a monastery and a ruined chateau near Sierre, so that became my target – about 16 km (10 miles) away from where I started, after unloading my bike from the car in Sion.  Along the way I took a few short detours to capture some of the other small lakes nearby, as well as a few pictures of the Sierre golf course.   I hope you enjoy the ride… 🙂

Les Flantses Walk, Evolène, Val d’Hérens

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While I was away in Krakow it snowed, as indeed it did the day I came back, so our little valley was completely white once more.   As ever though, it seems, the sun has been out since and doing its best to clear it all away again, particularly on the south facing slopes and this has led to the emergence of the first Spring flowers…  (My little Swiss Alpine Flora book has been gathering dust for 6 months, so it was good to get it out again. 🙂)

I decided to get some fresh air yesterday and took a short (maybe 3km / 2 miles) walk behind our chalet along the still partially covered paths and tracks in the area called Les Flantses, which lead up to the small hamlet of Volovron.  As you can see below, you don’t have to walk very far to get a good view of the valley and surrounding mountains.

 

Krakow – Art Galleries

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As I mentioned yesterday, I was looking to visit some Art Galleries while in Krakow.  However, there are many ‘Museums’ in the city and it wasn’t clear which would have what I was looking for.  So I popped into the Tourist Information Centre, where a young lady swiftly put 5 crosses on one of her free maps. (The map was upside down so I was very impressed with her knowledge of the city – especially when I subsequently discovered that each one was precisely marked!)

My plan was to visit 2, maybe 3, so I set off for the furthest away, which was the Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow (or MOCAK for short).  There I discovered a particular exhibition of sculptures by Krzysztof M. Bednarski entitled Karl Marx vs Moby Dick.  (Now there’s a match you don’t see every day).  I’ve shown only a few of his items below, but what that man cannot do with heads of Marx and metal shapes representing a whale is not worth knowing about.

Note that I’ve split this post into the different galleries that I visited, so don’t forget to page further down…  🙂

Next up was the National Museum.  Here there were a number of different themes, including some Henry Moore sculptures, various arts and crafts and an extensive collection of works by the prolific Stanislaw Wyspianski.

I still had some time to spare so I wandered along to the Jozef Czapski Pavilion.  Here I was a little disappointed.  There are one or two paintings on display, but the building is a sort of annexe to the Emeryk Hutten-Czapski Museum.  It houses an important collection of Polish coins and medals, which is OK if you like that sort of thing…

Just around the corner was, perhaps my favourite of them all, the EUROPEUM or Centre for European Culture.  This was to be the last I visited.  (The 5th is above the Cloth Market or Sukiennice in the Main Square in case you ever decide to visit).  And, I think it’s perhaps fitting, given the reason I went to Krakow, that the last image is of the inside of a Tavern!  🍻 Cheers!