Day 36

It was another beautiful sunny day at lunchtime although it is still quite cold. So I set off for a quick lap with the gods in a fine mood. There aren’t many bare trees left, but this straggler is still struggling along with it.

There was a fabulously clear view from the top. The hazy hills in the background aren’t far from 40km away so that was how clear it was. The church is about 1.5 km from the point where the picture was taken.

The gorse (whin or furze if you prefer) is really in full flower right now and every now and then you get the most amazing blast of aroma from it. It really is a beautifully heady smell. I often wonder about the idea of adding it to beer as an aroma hop substitute but I guess there would be a bit of an infection risk.

I love this old tree that is deep in the forest. It is so twisted an gnarled that I reckon it has earned itself a reprieve from the forestry people due to being pretty useless for their purposes. I would think that it predates the planting of the forestry which can’t have been up on the mountain for more than 60 or 70 years.

After coming out onto the main forestry track, I had this little beauty to brighten up my day. If you keep an eye out there are loads of pretty little flowers coming out.

So I had a nice walk around the forest with a few more new things every day to keep things different. I’ll finish up with another tree texture.

Day 35

I was out for a normal quick lunchtime walk today. It was another fine day although it was patchy. It was pretty nice during the walk anyway. Every day more things are bursting into flower. This birch tree caught my eye – obviously still suffering the ravages of the winter storms,

There is great variety in willow and sally trees and their flowers. I found a couple more flowering today

The sphagnum moss also seems to be doing its thing right now – whatever its thing is.

As part of the walk, I have to come out of one part of the forest (which isn’t very well grown at the moment), cross a local road and go back into another part of it. I spotted my first Lady’s Smock of the year growing on the edge of this road.

That is areal harbinger of early summer and was nice to see. I also took another shot that isn’t strictly of the forest but as I spent some time in Japan years ago, I am a sucker for Ohanami. They are such a beautiful flower.

Day 34

I am writing this a couple of days late as I forgot to get the pictures off my camera. We had fantastic weather over the weekend and I had recovered enough by Sunday to manage a walk at a slightly reduced pace. The sky was almost completely clear but there was a bit of a haze to make taking landscapes a bit pointless.

There were lots of interesting trees in flower and while the flowers themselves are quite dull, they are a bit different. I am utterly useless at identifying trees so I’ll just post the pictures

I am so useless on trees I don’t even know if this is a flower or a bud but it made for an interesting shot anyway.

It was refreshing and a bit different to walk the forest in such pleasant conditions. It is amazing how quickly it dries up with a few days’ dry weather but a lot of the puddles have dried up and the muddier bits are becoming a lot more passable.

I took yet another shot of the road through it as it is so rare that you actually see it in bright sunshine and the light coming through the trees was amazing.

This was a good bit slower than my usual time due to some residual stiffness in my legs but it wasn’t too bad. I had a nice hour of it anyway.

Day 33

I’ve now reached the third-way point of this little adventure in trying to find something different to write about the same thing every time. It has been quite a good exercise in observation as I find myself keeping myself much more alert for things to note down or to take photographs of. Anyway, today was a glorious sunny day but there was a bit of a frost overnight. This was long gone by the time we went walking and were presented with scenes like this. It isn’t too often you see clear blue skies around here.

It was bordering on being uncomfortably hot while wearing a tee shirt and light fleece but I suspect it would have been a little too cold for shirt only. This pretty little flower had just made its first appearance at one point under fairly heavy cover.

Day 32

I haven’t managed to get out much this week but after a fairly manic week, I did manage a sunday stroll. The weather is taking a turn for the better and so although it was a bit windy, it was a fine spring day for it. On the way up the hill, we came across this which had rather spectacularly burst into flower. At bit of internet searching revealed that it is probably a Barberry which produces a fruit that can be used for making jam. So I’ll need to keep an eye out for that later in the year.

The forest is so alive at this time of year. The paths are rapidly drying out and the entire place just rings with birdsong. Today, we also saw the wood sorrel coming into flower.

Most importantly, the bilberries have flowered as well. These are a real staple of the mid-summer. There is nothing like a forest walk fuelled by the occasional foraged bilberry. Ardagh woods aren’t quite high enough for the bilberries to really flourish but they do well enough for a bit of a picking. Anyway, that is all to look forward to in a couple of months.

Anyway, we had a nice gentle walk. I’m hoping to get one or two more walks in before the next stage of my canal epic which I have planned for next Friday. It would be good to have hit the third-way point a couple of weeks early.

Day 31

The signs of spring are really about with the blackthorn coming into flower and all kinds of things springing to life. Everywhere you look there’s birds carrying bits of twigs. We had a bit of a frost this week but there is a definite sense of it being the last of it.

The wood-sorrel is also starting to spread quite nicely. This makes a really nice addition to spring salads so I should be able to start foraging a bit quite soon. The only problem is that it really doesn’t keep.

We had a fine day for it. It is still just a little cold, but my rain jacket stayed in my bag for the duration.  I didn’t really bother me. A few of the hardier trees are coming into leaves. This is one of the willows at the bottom of the garden starting to look quite lively.

It was a grand lunchtime walk and we got around  in well under an hour. I feel that winter has one last kick left in it but we’ll see.

Day 30

I’ve been meaning to get up in time for the dawn chorus for a while but as my planned walk for tomorrow has been hijacked by the guides, I decided to go out this morning while it was still peaceful. I got out of the house by 6:30 while it was still half-light and the festivities were in full swing.

I took a couple of videos mainly for the audio to get a sense of the sounds but of course it didn’t really work particularly well. It might have been better if I’d stopped for a couple of minutes so that I wasn’t breathing so heavily.

It was a lovely walk surrounded by song although the dawn chorus proper died down around 7 unfortunately. Still it was a very peaceful experience to be up on the mountain so early while everyone else was still in bed. It was getting a bit quieter in the forest but not so much that it wasn’t still impressive. It might have been even more peaceful without two mad dogs

This is one of the dogs in the weird half natural half flash light inside the forest at 7 AM. She had a nice time of it anyway;.

Day 29

Continuing on the theme from the last walk, it was seriously wet today at lunchtime when it was time to head out. I’ve given up being bothered with the weather so I put on my raincoat, got the dogs and headed off.

It was really just a question of getting the head down for a quick march for exercise with not a lot of note to experience. Still, any walk is better than no walk. We had a nice chat on the trip round.

This is the turn-off the last stretch home. If you don’t take this turn you end up coming out on a local road and adding a 2 km road walk to the loop which is none too pleasant.

The flooded track looking quite misty and drab. This section rarely dries out completely and even if it does we have established a track around it so we wouldn’t bother with even then.

Day 28

By the time I got back from my morning’s activities the day had gone a bit nasty but as it wasn’t actually pouring rain, we decided to go for a walk anyway despite the protest of children. It wasn’t really a day for photography with heavy mist and generally not much to see.

We had some of the children’s friends over for the walk. The boys had a whale of a time but the girls were a bit subdued especially after one of them fell into a ditch. We made good time on the loop round but there wasn’t really a lot of interest to report given the various crashing noises that were being made by the children.

It is nice to walk with others as a counterpoint to being alone in the forest but it is a very different experience to the solitude from doing it with just the day. Neither is better or worse, just different.