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Smart water
Inspired by the humble cloud. Water as pure as the first drop of rain. Northumbrian spring water Vaporised to remove impurities, Then condensed back to … water. With mineral electrolytes added Potassium, calcium and magnesium. Replicating the water cycle. In a bottle of Polyethylene Terephthalate, Light and strong, Perfect for backpacking, Made from 30% of…
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A wet and wild Wainstones
What more is there to say? Perhaps a poem, a sonnet in fact, written in flowery Victorian language but titled quite simply “The Wainstones, Broughton Bank” From early youth, to more than three-score years, I’ve loved to climb the mountain on which stand The rugged WAINSTONES; or on every hand Are scenes of beauty; Cleveland…
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The Cleveland Hills
Not a rare phenomena on the Cleveland Hills but one of my favourites. Typically in the colder months fog in the Bilsdale valley spills over the low points in the hills, Haggs Gate, Garfit Gap and the Lords’ Stone. High above the delicate cirrus clouds portend the advance of a weather front bringing rain. These…
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Nan Scaife o’ Spaunton Moor
“Get you of the skull the bone part of a gibbetted man so much as one ounce which you will dry and grind to a powder until when searced it be as fine as wheatenmeal, this you will put away securely sealed in a glass vial for seven years. You will then about the coming…
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White Hill and Haggs Gate
Or perhaps better known nowadays as Hasty Bank and Clay Bank Top. Clay Bank Top is one of several low points along the Cleveland escarpment formed water overflowed from small meltwater lakes trapped between the scarp and the glacier covering the Cleveland plain and the Vale of Mowbray. Water flowed down Bilsdale and Ryedale into…
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Roseberry through Gribdale Gap
They say the Eskimos have 50 different words for snow but this is apparently a myth. The Swedes certainly have 25 but the top prize must go to the Scots who have had 421. From “Mell-moorin”, a fall of fine, drifting snow to “skelvie“, large flakes of softly falling snow. Now I don’t know what…
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Sleddale
In the late 1940s, a series of articles appeared in the “Evening Gazette” describing rambles on the moors and in the Tees valley. These were very popular and were published in book form in 1949 under the title “Green Ways around Tees-Side“. The other day I found a coverless battered copy I had forgotten I…
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Vae diei
Roseberry Topping A familiar homely view for a day of doom and gloom. To remind us that life goes on and all is not lost.
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Dawn over Guisborough
High on my bucket list of the places to visit is Iceland but since it’s become the de rigueur tourist destination it’s probably dropped down a bit. But I am still very interested in all things Icelandic. “Þetta reddast” is an Icelandic phrase which google translates as “it will all work out”. Living in a…
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War Memorial, Skelderskew Moor
On the eve of a General Election, it is perhaps time for a moment’s reflection on how our 21st-century society has benefitted from the bravery of the young men who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country over a hundred years ago. Robbie Leggett and Alf Cockerill, the two names on the memorial, were boyhood…
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