Keynote purple

[shewhomust]

I don't know when we were last out walking for a whole day in the summer sun: not this year, I suspect. We had some very enjoyable short walks during our week on Lindisfarne - the traditional dawn circuit, the walk from Craster to Dunstanburgh Castle and back, my last evening circuit among the orchids and the lapwings, which took me out to the north shore - but these were all about three miles under changeable skies with sprinklings of rain.

This morning we decided to do the circuit from Edmundbyers and back, and it wasn't until we were setting off that we realised quite how the sun was blazing (and how open that walk is). We should probably have thought again, and headed for somewhere with a little shade, but we were stubborn, and stuck with Plan A. It was still a beautiful walk, but also a bit of an endurance test.

I've described the route before - and durham_rambler has made a map, but it doesn't seem to be working.

What stood out on this occasion was the purple: spikes of foxgloves everywhere along the dry stone walls, and once we were above that, heather coming into bloom much earlier than I had expected. There were shaggy cows with shaggy calves, sharing the fields with sheep who weren't shaggy at all. There were the usual lapwing patrols (and once or twice we saw lapwings quite close to us on the other side of a wall), and plenty of small brown birds, and as we passed the farm just before we came back into the village, a great commotion of swallows.

ETA: durham_rambler has fixed the map.

Comments

[desperance.livejournal.com]

There were shaggy cows with shaggy calves

I misread that (I think). Envisioned shaggy leggings, rather than shaggy offspring.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Yup. Cute fluffy offspring. See picture (http://www.flickr.com/photos/she_who_must/5898593738/in/photostream).

Tho' shaggy leggings are also in evidence...