A Walk in the Park

Again it has been a nice day today so, to take advantage of this, Malcolm and I had a short walk around Locko Park. The parkland is part of the 300 acre estate of Locko Hall near derby.
Soon after we left the car and started our walk we were 'inspected' for our suitability by this fine-looking sheep. As the sheep didn't take further action, I think we passed his stringent entry exam and continued our walk!Although not the most spectacular stately home, Locko Hall has a look of grandeur about it.The estate has been inhabited by local land owners since the 11th century although the main hall as we see it today was built in 1720 by Francis Smith of Warwick. The grounds were landscaped around the turn of the 19th century.The fine lake is home to many birds although the Canada Geese had abandoned it for now in favour of grazing the adjoining fields.Running from the lake is a stream which Malcolm told me was the source of the Lees Brook, in which he used to play as a child and which gives it's name to a local school, surgery and many other places in the area.At the end of the walk and our 'turning round' point, we got to the gate houses of the hall. Two beautiful stone-built houses and a large sign reminding us that the gates are closed at 7pm sharp! The houses are now private dwellings but the one on the left of this picture seems exceedingly small.Back to the car and time to warm up. The wind was bitterly cold this morning and looks like it's going to get even colder over the weekend. More information about Locko Hall to be found HERE.

Sunshine days.

A beautiful day for a walk. The sun was shining and although it was windy, Malcolm and I had a great walk around the Shipley Estate again. Winter has taken hold of the trees now and there seem to be fewer and fewer leaves clinging to them - particularly when it's as windy as it was this morning.

What few leaves remain seem to be attached to the Beech trees and in the sunshine are still shining golden and beautiful.Walking through the grounds of the old Hall (mentioned previously), you stumble upon the disused cemetery of the Miller-Mundy family.

Among the last 'inhabitants' of the graveyard was Squire Edward Miller-Mundy whose first wife had caused a scandal and sensation in Victorian England by running off with the then Earl of Shrewsbury. Edward's second wife left the estate after his death and later, had his remains removed from the grave in the family plot and moved them to North London. It is said that his ghost can still be seen around the estate but who believes these things......................................?Getting back to reality we return to the wonderful views around the estate and particularly the magnificent Beech trees which were swaying in the wind this morning.

Some of the felled and fallen trees look as if they have been on the ground for many years. Of the more rotten ones a few have some extremely beautiful fungi growing on them.The 'Bracket' type fungi are hard and woody to the touch. Even the fungi support algae and mosses which grow on the fungus as the fungus grows on the dead wood.Viewed from beneath this one looked like angel's wings in the dappled light beneath the trees.What a lovely day for walking. I was 'bounced' by an over-excited Spaniel, then I was slobbered on by a Bloodhound and finally I was licked to within an inch of my life by a mad Chocolate Labrador. While Malcolm got back looking as clean as when he left the house, I looked like I had barely survived an explosion! Something wrong there I think. Happy days!

Wildlife

Britain has a fantastic variety of wildlife and it is easy to overlook some of the more familiar birds and animals. Even the most mundane are often extraordinarily beautiful if you take the time to look. Among the easiest to identify are the Canada Geese.

Always eagre to get in amongst the bread bags and ready to give you a 'look' if you don't come up with the goods!Frequently living alongside the geese are, of course, Mute Swans. Among the heaviest flying birds in the world, it is unsurprising that they take so long to take off. Everyone loves swans.Wherever there are ducks, geese and swans you will find people feeding them and this in turn attracts the Black Headed Gulls. Noisy and sometimes aggressive they are not everyone's favourites but again they are quite beautiful birds if you take the time to notice. Not much evidence of the black head (actually chocolate brown - not black) during the winter.

Keeping with the water theme, you can often see Great Crested Grebes on ponds, lakes and rivers. Spectacular diving birds they are truly at home in the water and in breeding plumage there are few birds as colourful.Another colourful water bird but not often seen is the Red Crested Pochard. More likely to be seen on ornamental lakes than in among the mallards!Hunting along the edges of most still or slow-flowing water will be a Grey Heron. Statuesque and despite it's overall grey appearance, again rather beautiful - although not if you are a fish, frog, lizard, small mammal or bird.Far less frequently seen is the Black Redstart. This one was 'snapped' in Spain not Britain but they are around - you just have to look a bit harder!Turning away from birds for a moment, who can fail to like Grey Squirrels. They have such a bad reputation, mostly because of their almost total ousting of our native Reds. But like almost every case of introduced species decimating our natives, it is not the animal's fault - it's ours. We humans have an unsettling habit of screwing-up the natural balance and then blamimg nature for the problems caused. OK I'll get off my soap-box now.

Quick walk

The weather hasn't been brilliant over the past couple of days and although we have been out and about walking, it has been so dull I havn't taken any pictures. Today however, has been very nice so we had a quick walk this afternoon just as the sun was beginning to go down. We don't like going far at the weekends because everywhere seems so busy with other people, so we just walked down to what is called the Manner Floods - and what Malcolm refers to as the Bog-Wash! There were some good reflections in the late afternoon sun but it was beginning to get rather cold.So as the tufted ducks, coots, swans and gulls started to get ready for bed, we headed for home and a hot cup of tea. Just time for a quick snap of this Alder tree sprouting 'catkins' ready for next springs early growth - how the years fly by......we must be getting old!

High Peak Trail

It was such a lovely day today, that Malcolm and I decided to have a short trip out to walk some of the High Peak Trail. We parked the car at the Black Rocks car park and took the westerly route along the trail, up to Middleton Top and beyond. The trail follows the old Cromford and High Peak Railway which was opened in 1830. Much more information HERE.The trail is crossed numerous times by other rail lines and roads and some of the bridges which were built to carry them are rather beautiful - in an 'industrial' sort of way!There are some steep inclines along the old railway line and these are hard enough to walk up so you can only imagine how difficult it was to get some of the old steam trains up them. The incline up to Middleton Top is particularly steep - about 1 in 8 - and was scaled with the aid of steam powered beam engines hauling wagons up the gradient. The Old engine house is still there with the old beam engine inside, although it was closed to visitors today. When you look behind the engine house with its impressive chimney, you can see the 'fire boxes' where the coal was burned to produce the steam to power the machinery. You then get a better idea of the enormous amount of power that was needed to drag these wagons up the hill. The wagons would have been chained to huge cables which acted like pulley wheels. Some of these can still be seen in the 'wheel pits' along the trail. It was while we were looking around these buildings that we found that we were being watched from the other side of the wall!These magnificent highland cattle seemed to thoroughly enjoying the sunshine, even if they were distinctly unimpressed by our attention.

The views across the valleys are wonderful from Middleton top. Here you can see over towards Matlock Bath - in the middle of this picture.Just above the white buildings in the foreground and to the right of Matlock Bath you could just pick out the remains of Riber Castle as you can see from this 'zoomed-in' picture.From here too you could see back to the Black Rocks near Cromford, where the car was parked. It's funny, when you stand on the top of Black Rocks, you feel like you are on top of the world, but seen from here, it doesn't seem so high.

Holiday memories.

When we got up this morning the sun was shining, the sky was blue and we were planning a good long walk. Then our friend Kay knocked on the door to see if we were walking and if we would like to walk with her. Which we did. About a mile from home, it started raining. Then it got heavier so we returned home and dried out.

So instead of a few pictures of our walk this morning, I thought I would post a few of our recent trip to the Greek island of Zakinthos. We went there in October and were extremely lucky with the weather which was sunny and warm for the whole two weeks.We were not so fortunate with the accommodation however which was appalling. After complaining, we discovered that accommodation in Greece is almost all like that so we had to 'put up with it'. The best bit about the apartment was the bougainvillea growing around the terrace.

Looking on the bright side, we had some wonderful walks around the south of the island, through the extensive olive groves.During the holiday we had a trip to the main town on the island - Zante Town and on the way had a wonderful view from a high point above the town.Looking around the town we visited the large church of St. Dennis. The church was beautiful and the decoration, as you would expect of a Greek Orthodox church, was stunning.The Church was right on the sea-front and as the sun went down it took on a quiet and rather magical quality.

Back to our base around Laganas, we walked around the small harbour area every day looking for Loggerhead Turtles (Caretta caretta). We were lucky enough to see a few of these magnificent creatures swimming around the harbour. Please click on this link to see a short video of one. We were also lucky to see several Kingfishers chasing each other around the harbour and particularly around this rocky outcrop which seemed to be their home.Close by this rock was the small island of Agios Sostis and the wooden walkway across to it from where you could see many colourful fish and hundreds of black, spiky sea urchins.Walking 'the other way' from where we were staying, we came to Kalamaki beach. This beach is a protected environment where the turtles lay their eggs. Again we were very fortunate and actually got to see a few hatchling turtles making their way to the sea. I probably shouldn't have done it but one of the tiny, exhausted little hatchlings was finding it impossible to get past the breaking waves and into calmer water, so I picked it up and waded out beyond the breakers to give it a 'helping hand'. Well, I couldn't see the poor thing struggling could I?

The beach was wide and quiet and beautiful and towards the end there were cliffs and rocky outcrops.

The cliffs were made of several different rocks and a large amount of what looked like alabaster crystals which sparkled in the sunshine.Atop the cliffs was an old look-out post which had seen better days and looked about ready to fall on the sunbathers below. Given that frequent earthquakes rock the island it is amazing that it's still there at all!

Back up the hill!

What a difference a day makes! Yesterday was dull and grey but this morning - after last night's rain - was bright and sunny. Best make the most of it because the forecast for the weekend is dreadful. So this morning we decided to head back up Shipley Hill to take a closer look at what remains of Shipley Hall, the old residence of the Miller-Mundy family who I mentioned yesterday. We stopped briefly on the way up the hill to look at the view back down the hill towards what used to be the Woodside Colliery and where until recently, the theme park was situated - looking back towards where we were yesterday. The fine old Sweet Chestnut tree in the foreground looking dark and skeletal against the bright sky and the trees further down the hill. Then, as we turned onto the site of the gardens of the old hall, we were greeted by the most brilliant colours of a couple of Acer trees.They really looked as if they had been painted, the colours were so vivid. I was just saying yesterday how nearly all the 'reds' had gone from the leaves. How wrong I was!Reluctantly turning away from this colourful scene, we took a look at what is left of the hall itself. Sadly there isn't much to see now except the outline of the rooms which made up the ground floor of the building. Here for example we would have been standing in the entrance hall looking into the house. To right and left we would have seen a grand dining room and a billiard room. The green baize of the billiard table now replaced by grass! The ramp in the foreground of this picture is where a large, glass corridor was once to be found.Behind us as we can see the old water tower which was separated from the hall by gardens. The tower is now a private residence with a splendid roof-top terrace. Just the place to sit and sip a gin and tonic in the sunshine! It all looks a bit different from when the Miller-Mundy's were in residence, as this old photo (taken from HERE), testifies.