Earning Chocolate …

Easter Sunday

A most-of-the-morning venture linking up places that sold tea and cake around the lanes and tracks on the edge of the city and the National Park. I was having a nice sit down (away from the crowds) on Winnie’s Bench when a man appeared and introduced himself to me as Winnie’s son !! I then got a ten minute lesson on the farm ownership and history in the Porter, Mayfield, and Rivelin Valleys. The chap i stopped and talked to after that told me he had one Munro left to do. An Teallach is an odd one to leave ‘til last – unless, like him, you also own a house in Camusnagaul. The only other event of note was a Strava segment down Brown Hills Lane to catch up with a man on a disability trike and reunite him with the pole and flag that he’d lost. I awarded myself cake at the Blue Cow Cafe after that.

Then in the evening a wander round Rud Hill and Brown Edge Quarries. The ‘Ringing Low Slate’ was actually sandstone, and was quarried in the area (Roper Hill) until the 1960s. Pheasants, lapwing, brown hare, greylag goose, curlew. bumble bee. In the late 19th/early 20th century there was a custom that on sighting the first bumble bee in spring, work stopped and the owner sent to the Norfolk Arms for beer for the men to celebrate the arrival of Spring. So having seen a bumble bee i went to the same pub for a beer.

In the 1960s the local branch of CPRE led a campaign to stop the area becoming a landfill site.

Then the footpath past the non-native species …

and on down in to the Porter Valley – descending the slipe where the old ski tow used to be …

…. i then wandered new streets in the western suburb of the City. Enormous houses with everyone closed up indoors whilst the hedgerows rustled and the trees sang with wildlife.

As i tend to do i passed a stone wall and peered over it to find a 10ft drop in to half an acre of grass and hedgerow. Looked like badger country to me, and after about 2 mins stood in the shadows, my suspicions were proved right …

So most of a whole day spent out out ….