Out & About …

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

Tag: snow

  • Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig ort

    Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig ort

    St Patrick’s Day and a reminder needed that spring is on its way. The average date for the first swallow being spotted off the southern coast is 29th March. In the North-East, it will probably be a couple of weeks later. So in 3 weeks time, we could be seeing our first swallows arriving after…

  • Snow, bracken and bluebells

    Snow, bracken and bluebells

    Beneath the wet, dirty snow, beneath last year’s carpet of dead bracken, the bluebells remind us that spring is on its way. Open Space Web-Map builder Code

  • Roseberry Topping

    Roseberry Topping

    Woke up this morning to a hard frost, overcast but bright skies in the distant out over the North Sea. By nine o’clock, a whiteout. Utter chaos, all roads south at a standstill. By tea time, blue skies, roads clear, and, with Roseberry as a backdrop, warm enough for a moment’s reflection. Open Space Web-Map…

  • Ruin, Mount Vittoria

    Ruin, Mount Vittoria

    A well-visited ruin on Mount Vittoria, or Cold Moor to use its modern name. I prefer the more romantic 19th-century name. A name which conjures up a vision of a son or husband lost in a faraway land when Wellington’s forces routed the French under Bonaparte in the Battle of Vittoria. Pure speculation of course…

  • Odin’s Little Brother

    Odin’s Little Brother

    Just 20m shorter than its big brother, the climb up Little Roseberry is just as draining on tired legs. Walkers on the Cleveland Way have to descend it and then climb back up as part of the extension up Odin’s Hill, Roseberry Topping. Open Space Web-Map builder Code

  • Ayton Banks Alum Works

    Ayton Banks Alum Works

    A cold, overcast day. The fresh snow of the last few days has aged into a dirty wet surface. I found myself above Gribdale looking down on the heavily worked hillside of Cockshaw where the snow accentuated the contours of the Ayton Banks Alum Works that operated for a mere nine years in the latter…

  • Spring has sprung

    Spring has sprung

    The first day of Spring. Meteorologically speaking. The 1st of March. An arbitrary date that the Met Office has declared for their statistics. More snow overnight with strong winds. Yet in a sheltered hollow of Newton Wood, a snow-encrusted oak sapling with a stubborn leaf still clinging on. An appropriate poem for this day by…

  • On Ayton Bank

    On Ayton Bank

    The last day of February and I had had tentative thoughts of cycling into Middlesbrough to photograph the Newport Bridge for it was on this day in 1934 that the bridge was opened by the future King George VI. But more snow overnight put paid to that idea, so Plan B: head up on to…

  • Brim Fell Ridge

    Brim Fell Ridge

    View north from the Old Man of Coniston. Brim Fell and Swirl How. Open Space Web-Map builder Code

  • Percy Cross

    Percy Cross

    I’ve had my eye on this medieval wayside cross for some time but its position at the edge of a road verge is not very photogenic. Last night’s snowfall, however, has had the double effect of transforming the scene and highlighting the base of the cross known as Percy Cross. Although the shaft is missing…