Bright and breezy
Jan. 28th, 2008 07:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustBroom House Farm is one of the regulars at Durham Farmers' Market; they supply us with beef, lamb, bread if we're there before they sell out, and sometimes mutton. I remarked once how glad I was to be able to buy mutton, and Mrs Gray said that if I ever needed mutton at a particular time, let them know a couple of weeks ahead and they would be sure to kill a sheep for me - which is not an offer you get every day (nor yet one I've needed to take her up on). Like many of the local farms, they are doing what they can to sell their produce without going through supermarkets: they opened first a farm shop, then a café.
And since our winter walks are built around the question "Where can we eat lunch?", that café opens up new possibilities, one of which we explored yesterday. The day was bright - we've had many pleasant walks on grey days, pleasant enough to make you forget what a zest a little sunshine can add - and windy, not the very strong winds of earlier in the week, but enough to put up a fight. We had expected it to be muddy, but at first the paths were broad and surprisingly well-drained, snaking round the edge of a field, past a family of sheep clustering under a bare tree, a silver birch catching the sun on its white branches as they tossed back and forth in the wind, a family taking a break from their walk, mother and child on a bench on one side of the path, father perched up a tree making a call on his mobile phone on the other, and the dog inquisitive about passers-by, ignoring their summonses.
Gradually, as we made our way through the woods it began to be muddy underfoot, at first in patches, then most of the time. A slog uphill into the sun brought us to a lane where the farmer had decided to place his cattle feeder in the middle of the highway, so that what should have been a broad easy track was obstructed with the feeder, with the cattle, and with the sea of mud their coming and going had stirred up. Usually I am nervous enough of cattle to find it very difficult to pass them in an enclosed space; but then normally cows are great ungainly creatures who are liable crowd around you in the hope you might feed them (or eye you hungrily as if they might at any moment start to approach). These, despite their large and pointed horns, were not large, and were even more wary of us than we were of them - and they were so fluffy, and caught the sun in their coats like a halo.
After which is was just a long climb to the top of the hill, one last look back down the lane, and on to Broom House for a late lunch. We'd planned the walk to give us a short stretch back down the hill to our starting point, though we hadn't planned the views of the cathedral, or the way the low sun lit the trees of the plantation.
ETA:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
durham_rambler made a map of our route.
And since our winter walks are built around the question "Where can we eat lunch?", that café opens up new possibilities, one of which we explored yesterday. The day was bright - we've had many pleasant walks on grey days, pleasant enough to make you forget what a zest a little sunshine can add - and windy, not the very strong winds of earlier in the week, but enough to put up a fight. We had expected it to be muddy, but at first the paths were broad and surprisingly well-drained, snaking round the edge of a field, past a family of sheep clustering under a bare tree, a silver birch catching the sun on its white branches as they tossed back and forth in the wind, a family taking a break from their walk, mother and child on a bench on one side of the path, father perched up a tree making a call on his mobile phone on the other, and the dog inquisitive about passers-by, ignoring their summonses.
Gradually, as we made our way through the woods it began to be muddy underfoot, at first in patches, then most of the time. A slog uphill into the sun brought us to a lane where the farmer had decided to place his cattle feeder in the middle of the highway, so that what should have been a broad easy track was obstructed with the feeder, with the cattle, and with the sea of mud their coming and going had stirred up. Usually I am nervous enough of cattle to find it very difficult to pass them in an enclosed space; but then normally cows are great ungainly creatures who are liable crowd around you in the hope you might feed them (or eye you hungrily as if they might at any moment start to approach). These, despite their large and pointed horns, were not large, and were even more wary of us than we were of them - and they were so fluffy, and caught the sun in their coats like a halo.After which is was just a long climb to the top of the hill, one last look back down the lane, and on to Broom House for a late lunch. We'd planned the walk to give us a short stretch back down the hill to our starting point, though we hadn't planned the views of the cathedral, or the way the low sun lit the trees of the plantation.
ETA:
durham_rambler made a map of our route.
