A Walk in the Goyt Valley – Peak District Holiday

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Bakewell, bridge, Butterbur, Canada Goose, Coot, donkey, ducks, eyebright, Fernilee Reservoir Dam, Field Scabious, Goosander, Goyt Vallry, Great Burnet, Greater Bird's-foot-trefoil, gulls, harebell, marble galls, Peak District, River Goyt, River Wye, sheep, St James' church Taxal, Taxal, Water Mint, watercress, Whaley Bridge, White Beak-sedge

The day after our walk on Ramshaw Rocks we met Alice and Elinor in Bakewell so that we could see how they were and have a meal with them.  They travelled to Bakewell on the bus after Alice had finished work for the day in Sheffield.  We went for a coffee together and told them the sad news of Richard’s mum’s death.  They were both upset but were grateful that we had waited so that we could tell them face-to-face.  We then went for a walk through the town and ended up by the river – our favourite spot.

The attractive old bridge over the river Wye.

There is always plenty to see on the river. This duck sitting on her nest, for example.

A female Goosander (Mergus merganser)

A Coot (Fulica atra)

Canada Geese (Branta canadensis) and Gulls

A duck – partly Mallard I think!

After a pleasant meal together Richard and I saw the girls onto their bus and then we returned to our caravan.

The following day we went for a walk along the valley of the River Goyt.  We left the car in a lay-by just south of Whaley Bridge and followed a track, steep at first, from the lay-by down through woodland towards the River Goyt.

Richard on the track through the wood.

The day was very cloudy and there were frequent showers of rain but they weren’t heavy and didn’t diminish the pleasure of our walk.  Richard had walked here very often when he was younger, either with the Scouts or with friends but the area was new to me.

A Field Scabious flower (Knautia arvensis)

A meadow between the track and the river (which is under the trees).

The River Goyt

Cattle

R. Goyt

R. Goyt

The meadows next to the river were pleasant to walk across.  You can see from this photo how gloomy the day was.

Eyebright (Euphrasia officinalis agg)

Harebells (Campanula rotundifolia)

Greater Bird’s-foot-trefoil (Lotus pedunculatus)

A little cascade

The River Goyt with a wooden bridge just visible under the trees.

River Goyt

Richard walking along the track next to Wild Rhubarb/Butterbur (Petasites hybridus). It was about as tall as me (5′ 4″)

We were making our way towards some water-works buildings.  I took some photographs of them and some plants I saw but (fortunately for you!) they didn’t come out.  The light wasn’t good enough I think.

We walked up the very steep drive belonging to the waterworks and then, at the top, turned towards the road that crosses Fernilee Reservoir Dam.

The reservoir

I liked the look of this old bridge from the road to a maintenance building.

Richard told me that this bridge is probably an original one for the dam and therefore quite old.  Bridges aren’t built this way any more.

We then walked back along the other side of the river which is down in the trees below.  There were some lovely views from the path.

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A variety of plants and textures

We saw some beautiful Great Burnet flowers (Sanguisorba officinalis) in the field next to the path.

Great Burnet – these plants are becoming increasingly rare as water-meadows are drained.

This could be Water-cress (Rorippa nasturtium-aquaticum)

Water Mint (Mentha aquatica)

White Beak-sedge (Rhynchospora alba)

Marble Galls on Oak.

Sheep

Sheep

We eventually got to the hamlet of Taxal where we had a look at the church dedicated to St James.

We found a very friendly donkey in the churchyard wearing a rather fetching veil.

This donkey had a job to do – eating its way through all the overgrown grass and plants in the yard.  The veil kept the flies out of its eyes.

I like donkeys!

St James’ church

River Goyt

River Goyt

We crossed the river by a wooden bridge, walked up the steep path to the lay-by and found our car again.

Thanks for visiting!

A Few Things I’ve Seen in my Garden.

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bird's nest, birds, Common Frog, cowslip, daffodils, ducks, fish, flowers, frogspawn, garden, Great Tit, ground-ivy, hazel, Hazel bud-gall, horse chestnut, lichen, Mallard, marsh marigold, moss, pond, primrose, primula, spring, Suffolk, sweet violet, tadpoles, trees, Water Mint

Two very handsome Mallard drakes (Anas platyrhynchos).

Ground-ivy (Glechoma hederacea). Many of the newer leaves are purple and the plant has a slightly unpleasant minty scent.

As I have mentioned before, when we moved to this house there were no Primroses (Primula vulgaris) in the garden at all. We now have a few plants here and there on the banks of our ditches.

The Cowslips (Primula veris) are beginning to bloom. We have always had plenty of these!

A primula hybrid that arrived unbidden about three years ago. I rather like it.

The house next door to us is the former village school.  I am not sure when it closed but a friend of ours from church used to attend it during the 1940’s.  Where our house and garden is now, there was a meadow full of wild flowers and our friend walked across it every day to collect the milk for the school from the farm next door.  These wild flowers we have in our garden are all that’s left of the hundreds that used to be here up to about 50 or 60 years ago.  I hope that we can hang on to these few and perhaps, by not using chemicals, encourage them to spread.

Sweet Violet (Viola odorata)

This is our parcels and newspaper box at the end of our drive. We noticed during the winter that it was starting to rot and needed replacing. It appears that we weren’t the only ones to notice the state the box was in. I opened it the other day to find something had made a hole in the back of it ( you can see where the light is shining through just below my thumb as I lift the lid). The next day I found this straw and moss had been put in there. Richard saw a Great Tit (Parus major) flying away from the box so I suspect this is a Great Tit’s nest. I carefully peeped into it a day or so later and found the whole box stuffed full of moss and we can also see lots of straw sticking out from where the box sides are coming away from the base. We have tied up the box and put a ‘not in use’ sign on it and we now await the happy arrival of baby Great Tits.

I knew that Tits nested in holes and I also was aware that Willow Tits excavated their own holes but I hadn’t realised that Great Tits also excavated holes to nest in.

The top of the brick gate-post at the end of our drive is covered in moss and lichen but because we haven’t had much rain recently, it isn’t looking as good as usual. Birds have been collecting the moss for their nests too.

This is a close-up of one of the lichens.

The Marsh-marigold or King Cup (Caltha palustris) is flowering in the pond.

I love its shiny yellow petals.

I took this photo of the daffodils round the pond over a week ago and I am glad I did. On Tuesday and Wednesday of last week we had very warm weather (24 degrees C on Wednesday!) and the daffodils that had come out earliest began to wilt.

Earlier this year I posted pictures of these Hazel (Corylus avellana) bud galls. I went to look at them again last week and noticed tiny flies sitting on all of the galls. I wonder if these flies had hatched out of the galls.

New Hazel leaves

Water Mint (Mentha aquatica). The new shoots are growing round and in the big pond.

Horse-chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum). This photo was taken about a week ago.

This photo of our Horse-chestnut tree was taken on the same day. These leaves are higher and get more sunlight. I was pleased to see that the flower panicles (candles) were growing nicely.

I saw the frogs spawning but unfortunately didn’t have my camera with me. I took this photo of the spawn later in the day. This is the first time I have found frogspawn in our pond and was surprised at how late in the year it was. We have a windswept, exposed garden which may account for it.

There were lots of eggs and I was glad that the fish that live in the pond hadn’t come out of hibernation yet.

I took this picture a week later as the tadpoles were hatching out. The fish still hadn’t woken up!

Two days after this the tadpoles had dispersed but I had also seen the fish swimming in the pond and leaping to catch flies.  They were probably feasting on tadpoles too.

I found a dead fish on the path round the pond again – I found one last year that had been caught by the Heron who had been disturbed by one of us.  I don’t know what had caught this year’s fish as there was no stab mark on it.  It is interesting to see the workings of the food-chain.  We are part of it as we get bitten by the flies that the fish eat!

Thank-you for visiting!

Before the Eclipse

Tags

daffodils, dotted border moth, ducks, early dog-violet, gardening, geese, greylags, hellebores, house sparrow, mallards, Mothering Sunday, Rip van Winkle daffodils, silver-lace primula, simnel cake, solar eclipse, Suffolk, viburnum bodnantense

Such a busy week I have had!

Some pretty, delicate daffodils growing at the top of the ditch-bank at the front of the house.

 

After a couple of problems were sorted out, Elinor’s week last week ended well.  She spent Friday in London with her Art class visiting The Victoria and Albert Museum, The Natural History Museum and the Saatchi Gallery and had a wonderful time.  She was able to rest as often as she needed to (she has scoliosis) and so therefore had hardly any back pain.  She travelled by coach and, as many of her colleagues had never been to London before, the driver took them on a route that passed by many of the sights – they drove along the Embankment so they saw the Thames, Cleopatra’s Needle with the two Sphinx, then the Tower of London and the 2012 Olympic Stadium among others.  I left her at the college at about 8.15 am and Richard collected her at 8.00 pm – so about twelve hours away from family – the longest time ever.  I spent the day ironing.

Silver-lace Primula

 

Some more of my new Hellebores have begun flowering.

I was able to do a little gardening on Saturday.  It was quite chilly but dry and I progressed quite well with the weeding I had started earlier in the week.  Richard gave the lawn another mow and over the weekend he was able to finish cutting the leylandii hedge.

The Viburnum Bodnantense is just coming into leaf.

I love these little Rip-van-Winkle daffodils.

It looks more like a miniature Chrysanthemum from this angle.

 

 

 

Sunday was Mothering Sunday and I had told Mum I would be taking her to church.  I collected her and helped her put the Simnel Cake she had made carefully into the car.  She had received a phone call from one of the ladies at church asking if she would be bringing a cake as usual and fortunately she had the ingredients ready in case they asked her.  I took an elderly retired priest back home after the service then took Mum home too.  I arranged with her that Richard would collect her at 6.00 pm as she was coming for a meal at our house.  It had to be an evening meal as I hadn’t time to cook lunch and drive to church.  I spent most of the afternoon preparing the food.  Mum provided an apple pie and another Simnel Cake for us.

This is the Simnel Cake Mum made for us last year. This year’s one looked the same so I’m reposting the photo

 

The temperature at the weekend was about 10 degrees C lower than the weekend before.  The easterly wind dragged such a lot of cloud and mist in off the North Sea but not very much rain.  I have had to water the pots and tubs as they are all drying out very quickly.  Today the wind was veering round to the North, so a change – but not necessarily for the better!

This is an Early Dog-violet (Viola reichenbachiana).   We have them growing on the grass path round the big pond. They are very small and the flower here was only just over an inch tall.

Here’s another one.

 

 

Richard travelled to Lancaster in Lancashire on Monday for work and continued there until Wednesday.  He is now staying with his brother in Manchester as he wanted to see him and his mother.  She has been assessed at last and to our complete surprise she has been told that she is fit to leave the respite home she has been in for three months and go home.  We know that she is not at all able to look after herself – she cannot stand up on her own anymore, let alone walk.  She would need 24 hour care and she would need her home adapting even more than it is at the moment.  Richard and his brother needed to discuss this new challenge together and with Mum-in-law.  They are also going to visit a couple of nursing homes to see if they are suitable for their mother to live in. They have spent the day at York, visiting the National Railway Museum.

This is the goose on a visit to her nest on the very brambly island on our pond. She has been laying eggs but hasn’t started sitting yet.

Here is the goose and gander up close to the house. They come to have a look to see what food they can find under the bird-tables. I am sure the goose, if not the gander, is one of the goslings from two years ago. She follows me round the garden as I fill the feeders so of course I give her and the gander some special duck and goose mixture I have .

The Mallards also come up close to the house looking for food.

They are enthusiastic eaters and rip up a lot of grass too.

 

 

 

 

I had an appointment at the opticians on Tuesday and yet again failed to do well enough in one of the tests and have to go back again next week.  Mum had another appointment at the eye clinic at Norwich hospital on Wednesday afternoon so I took her.  Her appointment went well and we go back again in six weeks.  I have done Mum’s shopping for her but it took three different trips.

A male House Sparrow in the crabapple tree.

 

Tomorrow morning we have a solar eclipse.  We will be lucky to see anything of it because of the cloud cover.  It may be possible to see it if the cloud thins early enough.  I remember the last total solar eclipse 16 years ago.  It was a bright, warm, sunny day and we all went out into the garden to witness it.  What I remember most about it were the strange shadows – each leaf had two shadows and as it got darker it was such a strange twilight with the dimming sun above us and not on the horizon.  As it got dark the birds stopped singing and the silence was eerie.  I wonder what I will see tomorrow at 9.30 am?  I will be just arriving home from taking Elinor to college.

This is a Dotted Border Moth (Agriopis marginaria) that I saw on the outside of my kitchen window. The strange white light is a reflection of my flash in the double-glazing.

 

Elinor has been invited to a party.  One of her old school friends is holding an 18th birthday party tomorrow and Elinor thinks she would like to go.  She may need collecting early but it will be so good for her even to go for a short time.

Thank-you for visiting!