Broad View from a Small Farm: An anti-clockwise survey of the Shires

i've not done any trip writing for such a long time , and its one of my favourite things ever that can be done sitting down - in moments of peace - i don't know what's with all this self denial of innocent pleasures nonsense ??
How about some 'doing it just because you feel like it, if you please'?

So all that sage talk of 'not mixing business with pleasure', is fine for those with generous acreages of time to spare.

For some of us its getting our kicks where we can.

Two weeks booked off - well almost off - the fun outdoorsy times being bookended by radical farmer business - excursion details yet to be devilled .

If you think all that presents a packing nightmare for a sub 45 litre backpack - you've be very correct.

So chuck in the survival essentials, and hope for the best.

Tent, mat, sleeping bag, stove - clothes for hot, clothes for wet, clothes for dry, rudimentary wash kit.
Emergency rations..

Off first to support a hastily arranged "Good Food March" for October in London.

Came off rather well, all things considered.

Food and farming done properly are really rather important for so many things.

Thankfully our population, and even some politicians too ?? Are at last waking up to the urgency of the situation - we cant keep doing things as we are - we need to make some radical changes to our food system.

European cities have much larger versions of these same events - but you've got to start somewhere right??

More farmers - better food. Better farming better food, as a consequence...

I'm the one in the red coat with a saucepan - only one of two times on the whole trip that i had to get the Paramo (tm) out.

It was fun stopping the traffic on Westminster bridge with a John Deere - in truth rather newer and shinier than the kind of kit most of us run... Slight tractor envy going on perhaps .

A really good turn out given the short notice - we even had a spontaneous join up from a local samba band.

The Berlin equivalent of this gathering has tens of thousand turn up to support for good farming and food - hopefully this is the start of something bigger.

At the Oxo tower Thameside we held a two day mini farmers market too, with much meeting and greeting to promote the cause.

And a spectacular small farmers exhibition, over several floors created by The Gaia Foundation.

Lots of smaller scaled farmers do Feed the World ..

Hospitable welcomes in town from compadres of all backgrounds - no shortage of bonhomie.

And a bouldering attempt in the local climbing wall - just because.

More practice, and time investment required for sure - as with most skills - but the length, strength and flexibility bestowed by years of yoga practice were handy to have as a starting place.

Not entirely certain where next though - apart from 'North'

A train booked some time back - perhaps as far as Darlington - but nothing nailed down.

With a life so prescriptively full with farming, and teaching - a little wiggle room as to scheduling is often craved.

After map perusals a reasonable route was decided.

Jump off the train at Northallerton, then a series of ever diminishing buses (size wise) to Hawes in Wensleydale.

Stopping off for a late lunch between buses - i had cycled through here a couple of years back on a bike tour - there is something about northern hospitality - even in the honeyed pots - that feels qualitatively different to down south - maybe biased by my Yorkshire roots perhaps ? Anyone of a certain age immediately puts me in mind of my grandparents.

As the buses get smaller, they get friendlier - by the end of it i could have been taken home for tea by any one of my fellow passengers.

But resolve was sturdier - and then even more so for being much fortified by local buns -

So i headed South on the Pennine way .

Looking back towards Hawes after circumnavigating some teensy fieldlets - its all too Cutieful .

As is often the case - getting out of town is more complicated than navigating once in open country -

All sorts of initial convolutions via farm yards, or rerouting through housing estates.

But less than a couple of hours saw me well up onto the tops , and soon looking for a pitching space among the sink holes.

High wide views available, all round, with the walls threading down to solid farmsteads below.

The local stone is perfect for this kind of building, but still it would all have to be shifted by hand -
so there is an economy of placement, and a fit for purpose look to all of it.

Yeah yeah, i know - inadvisable frost pocket - this is what happens when you let wimmin out by themselves - so impetuous just looking for pretty views.

I haven't had so many nights out in the newish The Moment, as i'd like yet maybe fifteen nights in total - but so far so good.

Pretty quick and easy to pitch - cannot abide much shelter fafingf - tented tautology trials aren't a great field of interest to me - I prefer it all be over as quickly as possible

Being a creature of that very moment i had pitched in the warmth, and view of the setting sun, hunkered in a slight hollow, out of the wind.

Of course, come the morning this was precisely the correct location for a frost pocket that wasn't going to thaw in a hurry .

So shake the worst of the ice off the shelter, pack up and onwards south into the warming sun.

Staying nicely high , with clearly defined features such as this, its easy to pinpoint ones location by wall shape, and contour .

Plenty of little streamlets along the way for water refills too.

Point taken - but there's only so much beer a girl can port

I drink the water, straight out of the streams up here - 'no filter' as they say..
Despite the presence of grazing sheep.

Never had a problem with it - just luck ??

Or a well developed biome from years of filthy grubbing about in the earth?

This is wonderful striding country - the way is fairly obvious and the views are long .

I'm almost starting to believe my own 'personal weather system' conceit - annoyingly lucky as a rule.

Astonishing amounts of work to build and maintain - but looks so right in the landscape.

Tiny pockets of woodland, where grazing animals have been excluded - such as here in this rocky goyle.

The fairweather luck some recompense for spending much of my working life being drizzled on??
Or just the warmth of my personality - driving away the drear??

The Three Peaks hereabouts all visible - but i'm only planning on one thank you very much - not greedy you see?

Eventually dropping down into Horton in Ribblesdale with hope of finding mid afternoon refreshment - before continuing to find that nights stopping place.

looking back north, some comfy close cropped turf. would make a lovely pitch

Sadly the township was a tad disappointing - The 'nicer' pub ( according to some local walkers) was closed - The 'legendary' cafe same ..

So trail back to first passed establishment - Not the most welcoming in truth - lots of signs of the dire consequences should anyone be caught 'interfering' with the fire, or indulging in frolicksome activities in the garden , or any other number of bacchanalian sins, that thirsty miscreants might dream up ..

Never mind - woman might not live by crisps, nuts, and orange juice for ever - but she can at least survive the afternoon on them,

So back up and out of the village - gorgeous stoney paths through sculptural walls to approach the westerly flanks of Pen y Ghent.

balmy evening light.

And yet another lovely evening.- including tentative explorations of sink holes - not so much water just here - but 100 yds up the hill there is plenty.

Earlyish start ( for me) and on up into the clag on the top of Pen y ghent - She sounds like she's been displaced from Wales..

Oooo er

Somewhat eerie coming across such severely dressed stone near the top - as if mounting to a Cathedral that is yet to be built

Don't lean back.. too far

Then a stop on the top, for a brew in the serpentine bench, almost out of the wind.
Its an eaves droppers paradise - in the equivalent niche on the far side of the wall - a party arrive after me, and stop for same - no clandestine secrets really - but still amusing.

Peeling down off the other side now - more stony going here - good fun.

Pennine way Heading south.

Looking back - its a very regular shaped hill..

Properly sunken looking sink hole

Again more long-paced country - so very few folks about - mid week i suppose - lucky for me - up and over another tussock of moorland -

Oh ok - will do

One especially for my bovine fans

I espie the glinting strip of Malham Tarn far far over there

The farming country here looks rich, and prosperous - which has meant the disposal of many a handsome wall over time - but for cheaper food and economies of scale then thats sometimes a circle which will be squared off.

much rich and visible geology , hereabouts.

I'd approached the tarn on a bike trip a few years back - from the other side - in a much less tranquil state of mind - such is the inner landscape - not always related, or reflective of the outer .

Circumnavigating the lake - with its Autumn colours and scudding clouds brought on a touch of melancholy - why?? - Just because - rememberings of endings perhaps ??

Who knows though - I've given up worrying about it all so much now -

No longer such inquisitions of "What is the matter with me? What is the cause of all this sadness, or good cheer ? It is what it is - and all of it shall pass.

From Malham the Tarn, to Malham the Cove - that tricksy and justly famous feature.

Via a spindly, and almost secretive back door cleaving, almost as if one is sneaking up upon such a dramatic feature.

Clints and grykes - classic - with nestling ferns in the microclimate.

Its not getting dark yet - but its thinking about it - and i had arranged a rendezvous here with a family friend - who was offering bed and board for the night ..

Climbing skills might need a touch of honing before attempting anything such as this ..

Malham The Cove. - Very impressive

Yes please thank you very much -.

This time though, we ate very well in the Village of Malham itself, and were joined by extra good company.

Mine host is involved (among many other good works) in conserving, or preserving many of the very lovely barns hereabouts.

Undoubtdly built to last - but without a purpose , beyond beauty and homes for barn owls - who will maintain them??

At the present moment very few of them have function, in the farming system , but they are things of great beauty, and it would be a shame to see them all go - or for them to be turned into dwellings - there are owls that need homes too (wit too woo) you know.

Next morning a hasty trip to the station to head out west - I do love trains - its good use them because of lesser carbon load than cars or planes - but also theres a fondness - it is the way to travel - if not self- locomoted .

Now proper West again - and across the Mersey on that iconic ferry.

Two nights and a social day again with my erstwhile trawler mate.

Early seafaring days ^^

So where next then sis??

Well maybe Wales?

Which bit?

Ok, I'll have a look at some maps, and bus time tables - nothing too gnarly thanks - no need to exhaust myself - this is the holiday bit!

oh hello ...

Aha, Another train, two buses and here i am intercepting Offa and his Dyke - Southwards once more.

Hopped off the bus at Bodfari

The mornings walking was spent in the convivial company of a locally retired school teacher and her orthopedic surgeon husband, i had intercepted them unawares on the ascent.

Local history, and geography absorbed from them - and they were interested in taking up some form of helpful bodywork - to keep them limber ongoing, into retirement .

A message recieved later revealed they'd got right on to it, and had already signed up for classes of the Iyengar persuasion .

Never missing an opportunity to spread The Good News, about Yoga, well done .

Leaving them at lunchtime as they doubled back to their start point.

The sky was blue the hills were kindly rounded, again very quiet - easy to get lost in the rhythm of ones paces and thoughts - the path itself is generally well marked.

Exactly the kind of mind expanding, cobweb blowing therapy one needs, on a trip such as this.

Looking back north towards the Wirral - waves ..

As the sun starts to wane i think about pitches - yes this will do - a couple of hundred yards off the path.

Good Night Wales, and Thank you, for a lovely day .

Another fair morning - I know sorry - it does get a bit repetitive doesn't it?

Gentle Celtic zephyrs at my back, interesting landscape here the peaks, if we can call them that are often conical - not high - but steepish.

Then down, down, down into the cultivated valley...

Here is to be found the most glorious tea shoppe cum cafe -

That thing they say, about how you shouldn't go shopping if you're hungry?

Well the reverse is true too.

After an all day breakfast - Ok so its 3pm - whaddya gonna do about it??

A large slab of cake , a cafetiere of coffee and a pot of tea, i was a tad full.

But needed to provision something for that night, and following morning.

The problem being i was sooo full, i couldn't conceive i would ever want to eat ever again.

So found it very hard to do food shopping.

But shop i did - the lovely ladies provisioned me with a grand pie, and a nice bun for breakfast.

So off up the wooded hillside and across the boardwalk over the moor.

At last some greyish weather you will be pleased to see.

Everso kind bro' ( for it was he) had printed out the map of my proposed route -thank you very kind and helpful..

With one proviso - in future please don't print a coloured line over the route - sometimes its useful to see the surface one is supposed to be walking upon.

The wind tried to convince me i should be heading one way - did have to stop and take proper stock

Compass readjusted - I headed off towards the ominously named Worlds End - and before dropping off the edge altogether found a very pleasant pitching spot, hidden from the track in a tiny raised up quarry - flattish ground with a good view of tomorrows goal.

Looking south towards Llangollen

You see - its not always sunny - just enough murk to justify owning a waterproof.

Like I'd leave the valley without the kite ...

Fairweather the morn , once more . Offa doing his finest , to keep a walker happy

Down and around again and hugging the escarpment - and pootling about some hillforts , before dropping down into Llangollen.

Sadly no proper trains from here any longer - but i did catch the retreating backside of an old timer.

Thence bus to Wrexham and train to... Coventry .

On the way to Coventry i shared table space, and temporary station confusion with two most delightful gentlemen trainspotters - one was fixing to travel all of the UK's tracks - yes folks including tramways !! Whilst the other had, I believe a special interest in coach numbers.

Any hows it didn't matter - its fun to meet folks who have such enthusiasms - are willing to share them unabashed - and most definitely help make ones self feel pretty minor - league in the oddball scheme of things.

Further farmer business of a European nature here

I won't go into detail, as we could be some time and brexit has become somewhat of a tricksy subject.

Suffice to say its all about cooperation, and linking, and communality between farmers, and farmers organisations.

And we also got to play Lego - i felt intellectually qualified enough in that department at least ..

Expressing our thoughts and feelings around cooperation and linking between European farming organisations - I promise you it got a little more serious than this later on .

This City isn't a classic on the tourist route . But it has an energy and open optimism, that i rather like.
The architecture isn't much to shout about in general - but there are constant reminders of what can happen if we don't seek cooperation, collaboration and cordial relations with all our fellow humans... Hence there being a permanent peace exhibition in the central art gallery