Out & About …

… on the North York Moors, or wherever I happen to be.

Author: Fhithich

  • Cleveland Hills

    Cleveland Hills

    Another temperature inversion in the Vale of Cleveland. Far better than yesterday. Magic. This is from Park Nab above Kildale looking towards Clay Bank. A day when I have become infected by the emotion and relief surging across the USA. But deep down there is a fear that it’s the start of a protracted battle…

  • Dorothy’s Stone

    Dorothy’s Stone

    I met an oldish chap on the climb up Turkey Nab once and he told me this was Dorothy’s Stone. I wished I’d have pressed him why now. A mixture of thoughts. After the gloom of the overnight mist, the blue is refreshing and joyous. It’s enazuring or turning azure. An old word that is particularly…

  • Who was this Guy Fawkes anyway?

    Who was this Guy Fawkes anyway?

    I posted yesterday that Bonfire Night developed in celebration of the foiling of the Gunpowder Plot. Re-reading it, this sort of implied that it was unplanned public rejoicing, but although the first bonfires may have been lit spontaneously soon after he was captured as news quickly spread throughout the city, soon afterward Parliament made it…

  • View from the top of Newgate Bank

    View from the top of Newgate Bank

    Bilsdale directly below me, Hawnby and Ryedale in the distance separated by the hump of Easterside. A lovely day for a bike ride, plenty of apricity. It’s Mischief Night. At least it was when I was a kid, growing up in the 50s and 60s. The day before Bonfire Night. None of this Halloween plastic…

  • Westworth Plantation

    Westworth Plantation

    Gone but not forgotten. Felling is ongoing but already the view is already dramatically changed. I feel a sense of sadness. Commercial coniferous plantations are not the most diverse of environments yet I’ve always had an affection for Westworth Plantation. It was on one of my training circuits when I lived in Guisborough and one…

  • Who did this then?

    Who did this then?

    I noticed this last week. It’s hard to imagine it was accidental. Someone has gone to the effort of moving the stones to the side creating a clear route through. If a stonewaller had done that, the stones would have been laid out and graded, heavier stones nearer the gap, with receding rows of smaller…

  • Needle Point, Newtondale

    Needle Point, Newtondale

    I came across an image a while ago from the British Geological Society website of a crag in Newtondale called Needle’s Eye. That must be worth a visit. Unfortunately, the link no longer seems to be working so I’ve grabbed a copy from Google’s cache. An extract from an 1836 book “Illustrations of the Scenery…

  • The Hunter’s Blue Moon

    The Hunter’s Blue Moon

    Well, I just had to post this. I won’t get another chance for two decades. The second full moon of the month, so it’s a blue moon, it’s October so it’s a Hunter’s Moon and it’s Halloween. The last time these three lunar phenomena coincided was 1944. So a rare occurrence indeed. And it’s a…

  • A bullfinch sky over Roseberry

    A bullfinch sky over Roseberry

    Perhaps not the best of sunsets but the crepuscule has always been a magical time. Throughout the millennia, man must have gazed upon the mesmerizing sky, reflecting on the day gone and the morrow to come. In Norfolk, a red-hued sunset was called a ‘bullfinch sky‘. I like that phrase but is it red enough…

  • Kalsarikännit

    Kalsarikännit

    A Finnish word for that feeling you have when you spend the evening getting drunk at home alone in your underwear, with no intention of going out. The word came to me when this afternoon when I was so attired, log fire blazing away. The beer came later. I had returned home tired and weary…