I forgot to record that I came to Grange a month or so ago (I’ve checked – 28 June) and walked towards Yewbarrow and Witherslack. Mostly I remember the ice cream when I was back in Grange – the memory inspired me to have another one today.
I’m here for two nights, staying in the Arts and Crafts atmosphere of the lovely Netherwood Hotel. I would not be surprised to encounter a man in doublet and hose – or even Elizabeth I – on the stairs.
I walked up through Brown Robin nature reserve and – inevitably – ended up going to Hampsfell Hospice. I compared it to my previous visit in April, when I had listened to skylarks. Today it was buzzards and grasshoppers. Harebells quivered in the breeze, and there were plump white mushrooms on the ground. I gazed over at Yorkshire beyond Ingleborough, but it isn’t the views that I recall so much as the mossy limestone, the anthills as large as footstools, and the brilliant green. Oh, and a friendly border collie as I passed through a farmyard who sat on my foot to make make me stop and caress her.
Lots of coppiced hazel en route; as I snacked on my emergency rations of hazelnuts from Italy, I noticed lots of fallen nuts on the ground, half nibbled by something or other.
Aides memoires part 3 