Searching for moonscapes, finding microworlds

Back in the days before free pixels, when I took 40 photographs in a fortnight, not an hour, when you waited weeks to see the pictures you'd taken, the first time I went to Fleswick Bay my photographs came back a month later with a picture of the moon's surface.

Being out west, I walked over St Bees south head to blow away cobwebs and look for moonscapes. I expected wind and got autumn sunshine, too hot in my fleece layers. The last time I was here, on a blustery November day with the carpenter, we huddled in the lee of the lighthouse, determinedly eating our picnic and taking our first ever selfie to prove it.

After a beachful of round pebbles, dog-walking families and sandcastle builders, a heavily eroded cliff path, a headland of miniature memorials, bright gorse and big, big views. The clifftop fairly busy with the dog-walking families, the new path inland from the collapsed one not wide enough for passing in gangs.

St Bees beach with Black Coombe	The old path
Bright gorse	Looking south beyond the Factory

To the west, the sea, Snaefell and the Isle of Man; to the north, Criffel and the Galloway hills; to the east the Western fells; to the south, Black Coombe and the Factory. This is where my parents grew up, the views they grew up with, there throughout my childhood but not ingrained on my mind - I can map the western valleys, but not the western fells. The post-industrial coastal towns are different from the eastern market towns in my mind, and I'm certainly snobbish in the way I think about them. When the Gap was open earlier this year, there was talk of the north-south divide in the county, but the east-west divide (with a dialect divide going back to the different varieties of Vikings) was more present in my childhood. As an adult I recognise the importance of the west - far more populous than the east, economically important, but harder to reach.

View south with gorse

Over the cliffhead and down to the beach, past an array of discarded plastic in which I can see little to collect, even as a frequent forager of other people's discards.

My Cumbria Coastal Way guidebook, published in 1994, says "Fleswick Bay was once the haunt of smugglers, and it is easy to imagine the small dark caves concealing kegs of brandy and bottles of whisky. The bay is a good place to look for semi-precious stones such as agates and has a wonderful sculpted sandstone shore."

Fleswick beach south	Fleswick cliff north
Fleswick cave	Barnacles

My moonscape is no longer in a cave - the cliff must have receded and the caves shrunk, leaving my moonscape outside. In what remains of the cave, 100-year-old public school boy graffiti, in elegant script, and just one moonrock.

Posh graffiti	More posh graffiti
Moonscape 1986 (approx)	Moonscape 2016

Limpets had gathered in the craters of one outside moonrock; back in the cave I arrange pebble eggs in the shallower crater cups of the younger indoor moonrock.

Limpets	Eggcups

And then out into the light for a quick look at the barnacle rocks, huge lumps of sandstone crusted grey with barnacles, barnacles on barnacles, barnacles on limpets. One rock has lots of inch-wide dark circles, looking from a distance like indentations, drip cavities, but with no cliff cover to provide the drips. But the darkness isn't shadow - each indentation is a mussel-nursery, two or three dozen tiny mussels crammed together in their cradle, protruding slightly, ready to open when the tide comes in. Some of the indentations are slightly larger, mussel-free, still with water. Something dark and spherical, like a large marble, below the water in one - thinking it might be a baby urchin, I gave it a prod and got an unexpected squidge. I'd forgotten about sea anemones. And as looked further the rocks were covered in slightly bigger pools, very round, looking manmade as though scoured in concrete. Something about the geology of the sandstone leads to very round pools and very round pebbles. The pools contain pink and green seaweeds, dark red anemones, indigo mussels, yellow-white limpets, and astonishing microworlds.



Next year, when I stop making things from other people's patterns, I'll make embroideries of Fleswick beach - barnacle rocks of linen thread on linen cloth stained with Egremont Red, and lots of dense French and bullion knots, and circular rockpools, tiny aquaria peered at through a light surface veil.

Winkles	Barnacle textures

I went over an eroded cliff to see the unexpected moonscapes that had amazed me as a child when the photos came back, and found an eroded cliff had exposed my moonrocks to the light. I walked over fallen pieces of cliff and found unexpected microworlds that amazed me as an adult. My world has changed and the coast has changed, and Fleswick Bay has new wonders to discover.

Seaglass and limpets

Fell road and factory - dunes and rockpools - pebble and seashells - what a beach should be

To Seascale to see if the beach is deserted. My grandparents lived in Seascale from the 1950s, my parents were married there, we went there in summer, for half terms and for Christmases. Driving from Cockermouth, took an impulse turn onto the fell road, the road that routinely made me car sick as a child, the road Grandad attempted to drive up in the snow one winter despite the Road Closed signs.

To the left the western fells, to the right the sea appearing, on the iPlayer Southernality singing a song about driving and freedom and escape And from the mountains to the sea... don't it feel like Heaven is close. And in front, in the dip between two hills, the Lune Gorge moment for heading west, as the Factory appears on the shoreline with the Morecambe Bay wind farm beyond. We still call it the Factory, a family folklore word from when it, and Grandad, manufactured electricity. Nowadays it's the Site.

From the mountains to the sea...	Heading West

At the beach, after a detour to visit Grandma's bench, I went to look for the dunes. When the world was smaller and my legs were shorter, they seemed to be further away along the beach than they are today. And they are much diminished - just about possible to picnic in the first one, but I'm sure there were more and deeper dunes 40 years ago, that a family group of six or more could happily picnic in.

Rockpools from the dune	Snaefell

The rockpools are largely submerged by a tide that behaves correctly here - six and a quarter hours in, six and a quarter hours out, not this head-of-the-firth two hours in, thirteen hours out thing. The beach is fairly busy with families with dogs at the start of half term. Sometime after I'd left, in the early 1990s, the people left the beach as the Sellafield scares started. My book of the Cumbrian Coastal Way, published in 1994, describes an air of neglect, and for some years that seemed a fair description to an infrequent visitor, lessened from what it had been.

I remember being back here sometime, probably with my brother, alone on the evening beach drawing alpha-beta-gamma particle was here signs in the wet sand. I remember making flippant jokes to southern student friends about glowing in the dark. I remember my ambivalent anger at the disuse of a great beach, my uncertainty about the Factory and nuclear power as a member of the Green party and a member of a family that worked there. Knowing its importance to the Cumbrian economy and - working alongside academic experts on energy policy - knowing about the long-term costs.

As I've always done, I picked up handfuls of pebbles - smooth eggs of St Bee's sandstone, tiny fragments of mussels, limpet, periwinkles, cockles, tellins, razorshells, towershells. One day I will take a handful to Julie Gibson and ask her to make me a mosaic picture of Seascale beach.

Sand dunes for picnics, wet sand for castle-building, dry sand to wiggle toes in, rockpools to investigate, smooth pebbles and seashells, marram grass and thrift, wormcasts and bladder wrack, seaglass and driftbricks. Everything a beach should be. With the optional extra of a nuclear reprocessing plant.

To the Mountains

Searching for heather, looking for firth from fell - temporary roads - awesomeness - home and away - peak-bagging - heather mattress - release the hounds

I don't think of heather as being a particularly Lake District plant. I think of it primarily as Highlands and, if pushed, Peak District. I included heather in the colours for my Dancing on the Fells blanket, but wasn't entirely convinced. I'm obviously wrong here - just look at the Skiddaw massif in August - and need to reprogamme myself. I decided it was time to walk up Skiddaw, partly in search of the heather, partly to see the view of the fell from the firth, partly to walk one of the high fells for the first time: my first Furth.

The radio news show is discussing distractions from taking a hands-free phone call – but what about distractions from seeing a buzzard take off and hover over the field beside the road? The first autumn skein of geese flying in? The mountains on a beautiful early autumn morning? Entering the National Park, the view of the back of Skiddaw causes me to pull off the road just to look at it.

Autumn morning Skiddaw

On the last stretch of the road to the car park, a Temporary Road Surface sign, which I don’t place too much store by. I had forgotten: when I was a child I thought “temporary” meant “bumpy” because in Cumbria, a temporary road surface was a lumpy one. In this case, “temporary road surface” means “not much road surface at all”. It’s obviously a post-Desmond issue – but having experienced some post-storm roads in Africa, that one really ranked up as a strong contender for the worst road surface I’ve ever encountered. And I encountered it too fast, not having interpreted the sign correctly. Swearing followed.

Temporary road surface

I assumed that before 9am was early enough to still be able to park , but the parking area was close to full already, noisy and smelling of bacon cooking. The British junior hill-running championships were due to start around 10am. Not only do you need to check the fell weather forecast when planning a trip to the high fells, but also the fell running forecast (and I don’t have a twitter link for that). The marshals have arrived now to set out the course, which is exactly the route I will be taking, as far as Skiddaw Little Man – solitude and serenity will be in short supply today.

Shepherd's memorial

500 metres of the 720 of ascent are in the 3km between the car park and Little Man summit, and getting them out of the way at the start dealt with high fell anxiety - can I do it? Yes, no problem!

Central fells with heather	Derwent water without Keswick

The walk book says: “Little Man is a great lunch spot with awesome views”. My instant response to the word 'awesome' is, eugh, horrible devalued word. And then I realise it's not being used tritely here: if that’s not awesome, what, in England, is? If we don’t now call those views awesome, is that because we’ve seen too many other higher mountains in other countries? Yes, that view is awesome.


I feel a hymn coming on.

O Lord my God! When I in awesome wonder
Consider all the works Thy hand hath made.
... When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur
And hear the beck and feel the gentle breeze:
Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee:
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee:
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!

Yes, I did stand on top of Skiddaw south summit momentarily surrounded by no one and sing part of a hymn out loud. I'm not actively religious these days, but I love the big old hymns. Methodist upbringing.

About 11am, a little later than the forecast had said, low-flying clouds arrive, moisture steaming of the mountain's flanks and forming into small eddying clouds. Along the broad sweep between the south summit at the to summit they sweep up form western flank, cutting off the view. I've encountered this in the Julian Alps but I haven't explored my own back yard to meet it here before.

Inversion over Bassenthwaite lake	Westwards

The final approach to the summit is increasingly crowded as people come up from the other faces. Some are clock-watching; one father and daughter couple have a chat while they catch their breath, ask my to take a photo of them with their hands on the trig point, and hare off in another direction. I don't understand the attraction of peak-bagging. I understand the completist aspect, of course, but not the enjoyment of doing it. I want the time to stop and wonder, not to tick off the next summit. I'm only here today for the curiosity of the high fell and the desire to see the firth from here; really I'd rather be over there in the much quieter, but lower, back o'Skiddaw fells, with the wheatears and the last swallows of summer.

Salehow beck/River Caldew	Towards Skiddaw house YH, with heather	Salehow beck/River Caldew

The clouds are still largely obscuring my village, so I hide out in one of the summit sheepfolds away from the crowds, eat my lunch and wait for it to lift.

Firth from Fell over Skiddaw flank	Firth from Fell over Skiddaw north

Firth from Fell with Blencathra

As I pass Little Man from below on the return leg, the unmistakeable sound of a helicopter. In King's Cross there are police helicopters every night – that's situation normal. And for the year and a bit before the migration the London hospital I worked in had a helipad on the roof - a helicopter is bad news but situation normal. In Cumbria – bad news, not situation normal. The air ambulance circles once then lands carefully just over the saddle behind Little Man, and it’s the best part of an hour before it takes off again.

Lonscale Fell is much more deserted than the Skiddaws, and the day is getting hotter. After soggy bog on the way, what looks like bog around the east summit turns out to be dry and cushiony - very comfortable for September sunbathing. As is the heather mattress a little further down - mostly finished flowering, but springy and comfortable. Although the 45 degree angle might make sleep tricky.

Derwent water with bog pool	Lonely fells

Glimpsing Thirlmere over heatherbed

Across the valley, there are ten parascenders hanging out. From my heather bed I'm reminded of a former colleague's story. On a countryside adventure with a partner, they decided to take advantage of the solitude (and no doubt the heather bed) to get intimate. They didn't notice the parascenders - but the parascenders noticed them. As they found out in the pub that evening. Blushes.

After a steep barefoot descent, I'm surprised to see a huge number of cars parked - they seem to have overflowed the designated parking area and parked in a field, surprisingly. The path swings back a bit to cross Whit beck, taking the cars out of view. After crossing the beck, I'm approaching the corner which will give on to the car park when I suddenly hear a galloping sound. A moment later, a pack of hounds turns the corner towards me at full tilt. As a child I read that if confronted by a stampede of elephant, the correct procedure is to stand still pretending to be a tree (I was never sure whether I should stick my arms out or not) and the short-sighted elephants would just go round you. This also works with Lakeland foxhounds.

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Note: Six hours. Baseline 5hrs for 13km plus 700m of ascent; add half an hour waiting for the cloud to lift to see the firth and half an hour sunbathing in the heather.

Of bikes and bends

ToB2016 - TdF2012 - Milk Race - Howgills - driving - that roundabout - the race - driving again - remembering to stop, remembering to go out every day, just to see and smile

Today was the Tour of Britain 2016 in Cumbria, with a route taking in many of the places affected by the winter floods. Presumably a stage was already allocated to Cumbria before the floods (given the geography, we've got to be odds-on favourites every year to have a stage), but perhaps the details were planned out later. My plan was to see it in two places, Carlisle and Ambleside, and if I got to Ambleside in good time for 13:00, to help out on the Struggle. Not helped by a tyre blowout last night, my ETA was 13:05.

Driving into Carlisle and suddenly seeing team buses outside Tullie House and Radio Cumbria suddenly makes it feel real. I've seen them in Paris and London, but not on my everyday streets. I've seen a mountain stage of the Vuelta in the Sierra Nevada, I've seen finishes in Paris, London and Ipswich, but this is the first time I've seen a stage start.

Team buses at Radio Cumbria!

I used to be an armchair cycling nerd, keeping performance spreadsheets for Tour positions. I watched through most of the drug years then switched off when the disqualifications simply became too much and the races became a farce. I missed the rise of British cycling and the fall of Lance Armstrong.

Now I don't recognise most of the riders - some of the names are familiar from the Tour de France, some of the teams have been around in one form or another for years, but I don't recognise the faces - so I can be interested in the process of signing on and shuttling between team bus and cars and the public space without knowing who they all are. Yes Cav and Wiggo did pass me at almost touching distance and no, I didn't photograph, or touch, them. Here they are in Paris 2012 instead:

Team Sky, Paris 2012	Team Sky, Paris 2012
TdF Publicity Caravan	TdF Publicity Caravan

Met my colleagues on the millennium bridge over Castle Way to watch the neutralised race pass under us in both directions. The leadout club riders from Border City Wheelers and Watchtree have already peeled off, probably at the Crescent, and there's no 20km, 160 vehicle-long caravane publicitaire sadly - so it's a lot of motorcycle outriders (many happy to wave at the crowds), a commissaires's car, the peloton and then a long, long string of race cars and one ambulance. (And in Ambleside, an ice-cream van.)

Commissaires and outriders	Peloton
Peloton	Team cars

And then off to drive down the motorway to Kendal and then Ambleside to avoid road closures. All the team buses have been directed down Warwick Road and I'm shortly in front of the Team Wiggins motorhomes. (Motorhomes. Not buses.)

I pass Penrith before the riders do, as they've gone for a slow schedule. They'll go past my old house, just like the Milk Race used to every two years when we were kids. Then it was a routine and I don't remember a sense of occasion like we have today... but I was young and it wasn't a sport that was followed in our household then (football, rugby, cricket...). A near-neighbour who was a local character is interviewed on Radio Cumbria - still is a local character, 35 years on.

The Wiggo motorhomes reappear in my rearview mirror going up Shap, and I find myself between trucks and vans, allowing them to overtake before ignoring their instructions and turning off at junction 39. I continue to 38. My mum worked in Tebay, and I used to get the National Express coaches to drop me off at the truck stop here so I could get a lift home rather than going through to Carlisle.

I've never been on the A685 before, let alone driven it. Like Stuart Maconie in August's Cumbria Life, the Howgills just here are the definitive sight of home for me. Ten years or more ago, the carpenter was doing his degree dissertation about landscape and memory, collecting data online from friends and their friends, about favourite landscapes. Mine was always this point where the Howgills and Shap Fell (now the extended National Parks) come together over the Lune gorge south of Tebay, blowing kisses over the motorway and railway, because then I knew I was home, whether I got off at Tebay, Penrith or Carlisle. The carpenter, bringing me back for good this summer, knew exactly when to welcome me home.

I made good time on the motorway, but I can't see making it to Ambleside in time for my volunteering slot - but I'm having a great day anyway, and enjoying driving an unfamiliar route. After I pass through Kendal in the opposite direction to that the riders will be taking later, I remember why I haven't driven round here before: here's the roundabout where I failed my first driving test, my only test in Cumbria. When I finally passed, I would drive up from Brighton for a few years, but barely moved the car once it was parked outside my parents' house. The last few weeks, driving roads both familiar and new to me, has been more fun than I expected. The only road numbers I knew before were M6, A6, A66 (and I've lived on two of those) - now I'm learning the full set of A59Xs and more.

I get to the university campus in Ambleside at 12:59, and park up at 13:05. I'm impressed at the accuracy of my ETA, but sorry to lose out on volunteering. Still, I can watch the big screen coverage and see the race as they enter the Struggle, so it's not all bad.

Breakaway before the Struggle	Cav leads the main group to the Struggle
Speed

Back home via the A591, familiar as far as the turning to St John's in the Vale, so although I have been on the stretch to Keswick (on a bus, I think), it's much less familiar. The cloud lifts and the light over Catbells drags my eyes away from the road. We are lucky to live here and I have never truly appreciated it before. I turned off to Applethwaite and took time out just to see the view. What I need to keep learning is to take time every day to go out - to the firth, to the fell; to the sea, to the river, to the lake - even when the weather is bad, just go out even for a few minutes. Ten minutes on the marsh last night (even though I fell into the mud and punctured the tyre) left me happier than I had been all day.

Central Fells from Applethwaite

See the mountains and smile.