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Peak District

The Kendal Mountain Festival 2019 – Friends will be Friends

The run up to Kendal is always busy, so this year I decided to spend as much time as possible in Hospital to shield me from the chaos.  Actually, I’d been knocked off my bike by a car and was nursing some rather stiff joints.  Serious care, rest and drinking would be required over the festival weekend if I was to make it through…

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Shout…

It’s been a while since I posted a blog.  The loss of my Father has put many of life’s (so called) priorities into stark perspective.  Caring for my Mother takes up much of my time, but with family support I still get out into the hills.  I reflect more, stare more, say less and await the grieving to come.  I’m a rather stoic old Englishman, with far too much stiff upper lip and not enough heart to easily let go – for now anyway.  Real life has put the virtual world in its place, but it sometimes still intrudes…

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Blinded by the Light…

I’ve walked the path from Mam Tor to Lose Hill more times than I can count.  Over the years it has changed dramatically as thousands of pairs of boots take their toll on rock, soil and grass.  Popularity has been punishing and pounding this beautiful place into dust.  Stone paving has been laid from Hollins Cross to Mam Tor in an effort to lessen the erosion, and the old six lane motorway of tiered paths is recovering.  Around the trig point another bed of stones has been laid as this is one of the most famous viewpoints in the Peak District.  Some people like the work, whilst others detest it.  I don’t like the countryside changing, but we are damaging it at an ever-increasing rate.

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On Plastic Patrol..!

The world is filling with litter.  You only have to walk down a street, look in a lay by or attend a sporting event to see it.  The aftermath of any music festival is a disgrace, and people attending seem to think that whatever they dump doesn’t matter.  Dog owners pick up dog poo and the leave the bag on the floor.  A few miles from my house is Junction 28 on the M1, which is legendary for its waste.  I’m sure there is an invisible road sign which reads ‘Please chuck your litter out of the window before joining the Motorway’.   That’s the bad news, but there is some good…

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The Shifting of Time…

There are more quotes about time than probably any other subject.  How we use it, pass it or waste it, there’s always a sentence of reflective words to describe it.  People ask me how my time is used because of my travel, life and importantly, my work.  ‘You’re always away’ seems a common statement, and ‘how do you get out so much when you have a job..?’ is another.  During my engineering life, I’ve worked part time, normal days, 24hr stand by and more recently, shifts.  They disrupt your life, both physically and socially, but it’s not all bad news.  They do allow you to get into the outdoors, provided you’re effective with your time…

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The Right Frame of Mind…

 

vale-of-edale

Some people will tell you that you must write regular updates on your website, but what if you’ve got nothing to say..?  What, in this modern world of Blogging and Social Media, do you do when nothing really happens.  I’ll tell you what happens.  You write rubbish, post rubbish and spread rubbish.  There’s plenty of it out there, with innumerable tales of people’s eating, sleeping and weeping habits.  What if we only wrote when we had something important to say..?  Lately I’ve not been in the right frame of mind to write.  A combination of medical tests, stress, lame excuses and let downs has distracted my creativity.  I didn’t want to write rubbish, so I wrote nothing at all.   As Cyril Connolly famously wrote in 1933 – “Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self’.

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Sunshine, south westerlies and skylines…

Windmill

During the last few years, the green energy debate has become a huge subject, both in engineering and the outdoors.  Scores of wind turbines and solar panels have appeared across the countryside and coastline, and there seems no end in sight to their construction.  Some people love them, others hate them.  One things for sure though – they’re here to stay.  Besides my mountaineering exploits, I’ve spent over 25 years in electrical engineering and see what many of these sites actually produce when it comes to so-called ‘green energy’.  So, here’s the low down as I see it…

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Country roads, take me home…

Longwalls3

The British countryside is suffering a major problem – congestion.  This ‘green and pleasant land‘ as William Blake put it, is becoming more Goretex than grass, more litter than landscape and more car park than copse.  The major problem is not only the sheer number of people (UK – 609 per sq mile against Poland at 328 and Spain at 210), but also because of their desire to use the outdoors.  Though we all have a right to go out and enjoy ourselves, we have no right to cause damage. As a Leave No Trace Trainer, I do everything I can to protect the countryside I live in and enjoy.  One of the seven principles of Leave No Trace is ‘travel and camp on durable surfaces‘.

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You and Yours – Here’s Me and Mine…

Cairngorm-Plateau

The 2012/2013 Scottish winter season has caught the eyes of the press on many occasions, due to the high number of avalanche victims.  There have been 13 deaths so far, with Journalist (and ex MSP) Dorothy Grace-Elder attracting much attention with her views.  Today, she appeared on the Radio 4 programme You and Yours, with the opinion that all Mountaineers should hold rescue insurance.  Here’s what I think…

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