Day 38

I managed to get home from work a bit early so decided to do a quick evening walk as the weather was reasonable.

It was a decidedly quick walk and I took a bit of a sort-cut to avoid the more remote parts of forest due to the approaching darkness. There wasn’t a lot new to photograph but I did take a couple of shots of another of the ruins in the forest.

This one is a bit odd as it would have been a fine farmhouse for its time rather than the simple shacks that other ruins were. It had at least two rooms, fine stone windowsills and outbuildings. I guess it must have once been the house of a relatively strong farmer before he sold up to the forestry. I must try to find somebody with some knowledge of the people who used to live up there.

There is an amazing cluster of wood-sorrel just after this ruin. They look particularly pretty in flower right now. There is something quite other-worldly about this I think. I should try to capture it in mist.

This was a quick walk and I was starving by the end of it due it being nearly 9 o’clock and me not having eaten since lunchtime.

Day 37

After a good breakfast, I decided to get out for a walk early while the weather was still co-operating. After a good long dry stretch the weather is showing signs of breaking and returning back to normal. Unfortunately everybody else in the house was feeling a bit lazy so I was on my lonesome. I decided to christen a new pair of gaiters as the zip on my old ones had really had it.

Anyway, the rain more or less held off for the duration but it was quite windy. It was  at a strange level though and was kind of whispering through the trees. The bilberries are coming along nicely – there might be a good harvest this year if the birds don’t get them first.

There are quite a few signs in the forest that it hasn’t been forested for all that long. In times past there were dozens if not hundreds of people living up on the mountain. Believe or not, this is the remains of a house. It looks a lot more house-like from the other side.

There are lots of fine old stone walls in the forest. The forestry people seem to be quite find of just driving through them with machinery when they are in the way but this one is surviving quite nicely. I’d like to see a concrete block wall last so well buried in a forest for 50 years.

It is getting close to the time for bluebells. Unfortunately, they aren’t that common in the forest. When I first started walking there, there were great carpets like this that I assumed were bluebell.

So as spring approached, I was really looking forward to the explosion of blue mist from the bluebells but unfortunately it never happened. I still haven’t managed to find out what the plant actually is but this is its extremely disappointing floral effort.

There are a few stands of bluebells and they are due out in the next week or two so I’ll post a couple of pictures when I get the chance. Bluebells apparently need hundreds of years to get properly established naturally and unfortunately not a lot of the forest is deciduous so they are never going to do particularly well.

I finished up my walk just as the rain was getting serious but not so bad that I needed to get my coat out.