A Ruined Shelter, a Romantic Name, and some Random Latin

An opportunistic photograph, captured during a rare moment when the winter sun managed to pierce the unrelenting gloom of an overcast day.

Here I am on Cold Moor—or, if you are feeling fanciful, Mount Vittoria Plantation. I prefer the latter; it has that pretentious 19th-century flair. This narrow strip of heather moor overlooks the Donna Cross col. The ruin you see in the foreground was likely a shelter, perhaps for a shepherd, quarryman, or jet miner. Odd, though, that someone went to the trouble of dressing sandstone blocks for what amounts to little more than a bothy. At least they had the sense to use an earthfast boulder for the back wall.

As for Mount Vittoria, the name conjures up some melodramatic image of a son or husband lost in a far-flung battle. Perhaps a nod to Wellington’s 1813 triumph over Napoleon’s forces at the Battle of Vittoria. Maybe a local soldier took part. Maybe not. Perhaps the name simply reflects the public’s fleeting fascination with the event. All pure speculation on my part, as has been scattered passim throughout this blog, for better or worse.

And with that, I have managed to shoehorn in the Latin word ‘passim,’ which has been lurking on my to-use list for ages. I could claim that my two years of slogging through Latin at school have finally borne fruit, though the arrival of Chicken Pox spared me—mercifully, perhaps—from sitting the ‘O’ Level exam. But let us not wander too far into the land of self-indulgent fiction.