Tag: snow
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Dry Stone Wall, Pinchinthorpe Moor
I just love the two tone look of a dry stone wall splattered with snow. This is on the edge of Pinchinthorpe Moor. In the background is of course Roseberry Topping. Roseberry Topping was at one time mooted for a monument to Captain James Cook. A monument had been discussed for forty years but, in…
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But what if Candlemas day is snowy, windy and foul …
It’s Candlemas, although it feels like just another Groundhog Day. Candlemas is a Christian feast day that sort of coincided with the pagan festival Imbolc, the mid-point between the winter solstice and Spring equinox. Feast days generally have some weather lore associated with them. Candlemas is no exception and there is a wealth of rhymes…
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Do you want the good news or the bad news?
I’ll start with the good. Yesterday the Government announced that “Legislation will be brought forward to prevent the burning of heather and other vegetation on protected blanket bog habitats“. This is great news. A recognition at long last that the burning of heather moorlands is detrimental to their peat structure and their natural habitats. Burning…
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There’s some good snow drifts on Carr Ridge …
… on the way up to Urra Moor. Solid enough to bare my weight … almost. It was fun until the crust gives way and I end up with a face plant. The ruined dry-stone wall marks the boundary between the parishes of Bilsdale Midcable and Ingleby Greenhow and a dressed stone declares the land…
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St. Agnes’s Day
Storm Christoph slashed its tail last night as it passed over to the North Sea. I think we got off lightly although the village flood defences kicked in. The rain last evening had turned to snow sometime during the night. Today is the feast day of St. Agnes. She is the patron saint of chastity,…
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Battersby Bank
Damn, I wish I had dug my skis out of the loft. The only trouble with ‘skiløping‘ in this country is the extreme variation we get in the snow conditions. Down in the valley, there is just a ‘flindrikin‘ or smattering of snow that fell yesterday and froze overnight, but high on the moors, a crust had…
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Did I just see a faun carrying an umbrella and parcels?
A few hundred metres climb up from the slushy fields of Great Ayton we were truly in a Narnian world. Do you hear the snow against the window-panes, Kitty? How nice and soft it sounds! Just as if some one was kissing the window all over outside. I wonder if the snow LOVES the trees…
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Roseberry Ironstone Mine
A few concrete bases and plinths are the most obvious remains of the Roseberry Ironstone Mine. One hundred and ten years ago today, the mine was in full production with a workforce of 283 men of which 229 worked underground. One of these underground workers was Dalton Taylor who lived on the High Street in…
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Aireyholme Lane
The snow is melting fast but there is still just enough to transform what would be an otherwise lacklustre scene. In the absence of snow, the plastic covered silage bales would dominate, and Aireyholme Lane would be just a non-descript track of broken bricks. Today, it’s a river of meltwater. Perhaps not a river to…
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Howden Gill on Ayton Bank with the Cleveland Hills in the distance
Not many bees and insects around at the moment. In the midst of winter, they are either dormant or are still eggs, buried deep in the leaf litter. Honey bees will be cozy in their hives surviving on a sufficient supply of honey left for them by the beekeeper. But nationwide, bees and other pollinators…