April showers

After some lovely walking weather in March and early April the weather lately has not been good. Rain and cold winds have been the usual weather pattern. However we have managed some long walks and some short.

We were back on the ancient track again this week, so a view looking up the hill this time as that is the direction we were walking.

Hopefully the weather will now improve so that we can keep walking.
Also we are now carrying our full weight packs on the longer walks; packed as though on a hot day on the Camino. This has its difficulties when we are needing to wear the layers we want to carry!

It's uphill all the way!

The Ancient Trackway

Across the field and down between steep banks
This ancient trackway runs. A way worn deep
Into the very bedrock of the land
By many iron shod hoofs and wheels and feet.

Who knows but what there may have passed this way,
The Celtic warrior armed with shield and spear,
Leaving behind his loved ones safe at home
Within the castle dike on hilltop near.

Who knows how many of the folk of old
Briton and Roman, Angle, Saxon, Dane:
With horse and hound, chariot, cart and sledge
Helped form this treasure of a country lane.

The ruined longhouse, roofless now, lies near
Above the river, in its valley green.
Once men and women, children, all lived here
Made tears and laughter part of this dear scene.

All, all are gone now, silence reigns within
The woodland copse and by the riverside.
Here can I stand and listen for the past
To speak to me with voices time can't hide.

The track worn down with countless wheels and feet,
The fallen walls, the ford across the stream.
The life once lived here lives again for me,
And modern life becomes the unreal dream.

©Tio Tel 2012

With thanks to ksam for the comment at Feb 7th which inspired me

March walks

We are enjoying the warm, dry weather and continue to walk 10km - 15km with at least part packs. The various sights include an old railway bridge with its makers plate and the early daffodils by the stream.
School holidays will soon be with us, so less walking while looking after grandchildren. Then it will be back to training walks again.

Spring is coming

We have managed a good number of walks over the past few weeks, with a 15km one today and full packs again. It was warm enough to walk in shirts, without fleeces and the snowdrops are out. Spring is coming, or it was until about mid afternoon when the mist rolled in and the temperature dropped. At least we were home by then as we couldn't see the hills behind our house.

Cromwell's Arch:
gateway to the old Priory

Hens enjoying the sunshine

A beautiful double rainbow

and now the snowdrops

Winter walking

We have been very busy walking, trying pack weights (again!!!!) and testing our cold weather layers. January was fairly good for walking so we had a mix of 8km and 15km walks.
The past week has been bitterly cold and with some snow so the  'great log fire' was more attractive. The one advantage of the freezing weather was that the tracks were passable as the mud was frozen.
However this morning we were back on the road again although it is still quite cold.
One of our late January walks gave us some interesting photos:-

The church on the hill top

A sunken ancient trackway

An unusual view of thatch from underneath

Thatched tithe barn

New Year 2012

A happy new year to you all.

At last we can say 'This year we will walk the Camino Primitivo again (DV).' Walking practise continues, although not today as it was raining. Packs are being checked, what to take is being considered and weighed (yet again!!). Basically we expect to use the same kit as last year but we'll list it later once we have decided. All we hope and pray for is better weather than in 2010, especially as we feel that this will be our last time on the Camino as pilgrims (although not our last visit to Spain).

Photos

There is a poem on wikipaedia about the common cormorant or shag which lays its eggs in paper bags. Once considered a rare bird there are many near where we live.

A young cormorant on a nearby lake.

One of the hills near our home with lovely autumn colours.


A Victorian letterbox with an interesting note about the posting of coins in letters.

Autumn sights

We continue to make plans for a return to the Camino Primitivo in 2012. We now have our tickets to Spain and our Credenciales, to start in Tineo, and we are planning a rough guide to each day. This helps to work out how long we will need to reach Santiago as well as where we can find accomodation, food etc along the route. We are using the CSJ (Confraternity of St James) guide, as Terry did in 2009. There are updates, more accomodation in some places, less in others.
We intend to use the ferry and the FEVE again and finally the ALSA bus to reach Tineo before setting off to walk. It is over 200km from Tineo to Santiago through the mountains. Hopefully we will reach Santiago with time to see some more of western Galicia, maybe Padron or Coruña before heading for home again.

Meanwhile we have been walking as much as possible locally, while the weather has been good, to keep ourselves in practise. Walks are varying between 7km and 15km, up and down hills, but chiefly on the road now as the paths are very wet. On the shorter walks we have been carrying full weight packs and lighter on the longer ones.

The highly poisonous Fly Agaric toadstools are a bright splash of colour.

The heron was waiting and watching for his dinner.

Walks around Clumber

Our preparations for next year continue with a variety of walks. In Clumber we found a beautiful walk; down the lime tree avenue, past the house, right around the lake, through the woods and back to the lime tree avenue. A total of 12kms. There are no steep hills but we can find them elsewhere.

The weather has been kind to us until this week - although we did manage a 12km walk, with hills, before the rain set in. We tend to carry about 3/4 of our Camino pack weight at present, partly as we are using our small packs which hold less. We'll put the weight up early in the New Year. We are also checking out our gear, for wear etc. New mid layer socks as they are the ones which wear most but otherwise we'll take the same basic kit that we took last year.

View across the lake

The lime tree avenue

Autumn Views

Some unusual sights on a couple of our latest walks. One could be tagged ' well I left my tractor here some time ago'. The other could be called 'disdain' as the alpaca was definitely not talking to us!
More normal sightings for this time of year were the spiders' webs along the hedges, with the dew still on them as the early mist was just beginning to lift.
There have been mushrooms in the fields, picked and eaten, as well as the last of the good brambles in the hedges to go with our apples.
Our latest walks have varied between 7km and 12kms with some fairly steep hills for added interest and practise.

The tractor wheel has been there for so long that the tree has grown right through it.

Alpaca are still an unusual sight in the English countryside. The other one hid behind the tree.

Spiders webs are more common. These were along the hedge sides earlier this week