The unexpectedly early arrival of our first grandchild in spring 2019 meant that the last two weeks has been a blur of driving up and down the A90, hospital visits, homecoming and helping the new parents adjust to sleep deprivation. Writing deadlines have been missed; social media skimmed at best and email ignored. Thankfully, Mum and baby are both fine and the baby, at least, is thriving.
I’ve had no time for outdoor wandering or photography, apart of course from baby photography. However, we did manage to get away for a long-planned weekend to visit friends who live near Kirby Lonsdale in Cumbria.
It wasn’t planned as a hill-walking weekend but I did manage to get out for a while to the low limestone hills - Hutton Roof and Farleton Fell - near KL. These are not dramatic hills but they have fabulous limestone pavements and a maze of tracks that you can wander around for hours. The weather was wonderful - warm with wall-to-wall sunshine.
I started from the village of Hutton Roof and crossed to the Crag. There is a maze of paths that lead to the top of the crag. I had no planned route and I simply followed paths that looked interesting and, eventually, which led back to Hutton Roof.
For a Scot, this is an alien but fascinating landscape - the limestone erosion creates other-worldly shapes that look as if they were created in a special-effects department for a science-fiction film.
