Looking up in the Breamish Valley never fails to reward: herons, geese, scintillating sunsets. What’s not to enjoy? And this time of the year, with the late autumn crispness, the December ‘cold moon’ is stunning. Have you taken the time to look up?
Are you still looking up over a year on from the first England lockdown? I hope so. And, if you are, then you’ll most likely have seen the recent wonderful late-Spring sunsets. There have been some vibrant pinks and oranges on display: quite breath-taking at times.
We all know, or should know, that water has the potential to cause devastation. How many times have we heard stories of cars being swept downstream, when a driver attempted to drive through a flooded ford only a few centimetres deep?
The first day of Spring! Yippee!
Well, the astronomical Spring. We’ve actually been in meteorological Spring for the past 20 days, since 1 March!
Am I being kept in? Or out?
Inevitably after the recent snow in the valley and the snow around Hedgeley Lake, there was going to be a thawing. And that began yesterday.
When out on my once-a-day-exercise (how many times can I say, ‘Déja vu’?) yesterday, I attempted to walk along the course of the Pow Burn and on to Hedgeley Lakes. However, the rapid melting of the ice and snow led to the Pow Burn overflowing its banks and blocking off the path.
I’ve enjoyed visiting and re-visiting the area around the Hedgeley Lakes in recent weeks. How things change, though! The valley floor looks so different now from the yellow Hedgeley of April 2020:
Having walked along and thought about the lanes where we live, that prompted a thinking about the fields around us.
an area, usually covered with grass, used for playing sports (Cambridge Dictionary)
I’d reflected recently on the inexorable changes that occur around us and how environmental changes are perhaps more obvious in the countryside: the falling of trees, riverbank erosion and our attempts to halt the effects of erosion.
