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Borrowdale
January 2011 and a smidgeon of snow persists in the gullies of the Central Fells. I’m at about the 670m contour on the north-east slope of Ullscarfe. Just below a knoll that’s named High Saddle. Below is Borrowdale, and the settlement of Stonethwaite which was, in the 13th-century, a medieval vaccary for Fountains Abbey, over…
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How Long Is the Coast of Britain?
We took part in a Skype quiz yesterday and one of the questions asked was how long is the coastline of Britain. My first reaction was that this is variable. It surely depends on how small the measurement interval is. Thus, a measurement in a straight line directly to the headland on the far side…
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Bolton Castle
A 14th-century castle in Wensleydale and built by Richard le Scrope, the 1st Baron Scrope of Bolton. Perhaps its most famous resident was Mary, Queen of Scots who was imprisoned there for six months in 1568. Mary has had such a bad press. She certainly upset Elizabeth I who, of course, had her beheaded but during…
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Sgùrr nan Carnach and Sgùrr Fhuaran from Sgùrr na Ciste Duibhe
The Five Sisters of Kintail, on the north side of Glen Shiel, is one of the classic ridge walks in Scotland. As you might have guessed, the Five Sisters refer to five peaks of which two are Munros: Sgùrr na Ciste Duibhe (The peak of the dark chest) 1027m Sgùrr na Càrnach (The rocky peak)…
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Gruinard Bay
Fuelled by President Trump in a blatant attempt to shift blame for the handling of the coronavirus epidemic from himself, the suggestion that the virus was manufactured in a Chinese laboratory has now hit the mainstream media rather than being confined to conspiracy theorists in the darker reaches of social media. But it would do…
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The Mourne Mountains
In September 2009, I paid a flying visit to the Mourne Mountains in County Down. I was taking a group of junior orienteers to the Junior Inter-Regional Championships at the Silent Valley Mountain Park. So I didn’t have the chance to explore the area as much as I would have liked. In fact, now it…
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Cùl Mòr
At 849m, Cùl Mòr is the highest of the Assynt Corbetts, a towering and majestic beast of a mountain. This view is from Stac Pollaidh. Cùl means ‘the back of’ so cùlag, for instance, is your back tooth. And mòr is the adjective ‘big’. So the name translates as ‘big back’. Which raises the question…
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Beadnell
I suppose I am drawn to the sea, perhaps I am a thalassophile at heart, but not quite ‘sjøvant‘ as the Scandawegians would say, not being entirely at ease. I remember a works outing in 2003, a sailing trip from Hartlepool to the Farne Islands for the weekend. I was so bad, even though the…
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Pike o’ Blisco
O the month of May, the merry month of May, So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green! O, and then did I unto my true love say: “Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my summer’s queen! A poem by Thomas Dekker (c. 1572–1632) Descending out of the mist and heading for Pike…
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Finnhamn
It occurred to me that I haven’t posted any international photos. I’ve just stuck to the British Isles which of course includes Ireland. So to rectify that little oversight, here’s one from our visit in 2006 to the Stockholm archipelago, a myriad islands hugging the western edge of the Baltic Sea. In fact, there are…
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