This morning D. announced that he fancied going out to lunch, maybe in Whitby; durham_rambler said he has important papers to read, and couldn't possibly; the message from valydiarosada was that goingt out to lunch was a fine idea but she wouldn't be leaving her bed anytime soon; and I likewise thought thar 'out' and 'lunch' were good, but a three hour round trip sisn't tempt me in the least. As a result D. headed off alone, and was last heard of at the Lion in Blakey, and the rest of us went out rather later and lunched at the Black Bull in Frosterley.

The sun was below the hills by the time we finished our lunch (around three o' clock) but instead of driving back the way we had gone, along the river valley, we carried on, further west, and then climbed out of the dale and back into the sunshine. The high moors were dusted with snow, and although I don't make new year resolutions, I thought, this year we must come here more often.

Home through the lengthening shadows and the reddening sky, and the sun just setting (again) as we arrived.

Shortly before we went on holiday, I found out that Michelle Shocked would be playing Gateshead's Caedmon Hall the Saturday after our return. I didn't take time out to research it, I just booked the tickets: I've no idea what she's been doing for the last couple of decades (or so), but I have some of her early recordings (some of them in media I can no longer play) and I love Short, Sharp Shocked dearly. With luck she'd play some old favourites in among the new stuff...

Ha! I had no idea. What Michelle Shocked has been doing lately, it seems, is waging war on the internet, because it is the means by which copyright is being destroyed and artists deprived of their livelihood (I'm not disputing this, by the way). And the present tour, which has the title Bootleg This!, is one of her weapons. Its purpose is, at least in part. to promote a book of the same title, and its strategy is the performance, end to end ("soup to nuts" of her album Short, Sharp Shocked.

What could be better? A brilliant live performance of some great songs, with some joining in, and a little gratuitous singalong stuff, and some anecdotes (about learning to drive in East Texas, for example, in a car with a manual gearshift). I (almost) forgave her for turning up late, I forgave her her conviction that she was in Newcastle (Gateshead, damnit!). Next time, I wouldn't mind hearing something new (though I wouldn't insist on it).

To add insult to injury, the reason Michelle Shocked arrived late was the she had travelled up from Manchester via Allendale, where she had stopped by to see Martin Stephenson at his soundcheck. But hang on, if she was going to drop by in Allendale, couldn't she have waited until the following day, when we would be there for the Allen Valleys Folk Festival?

Next morning, we took the scenic route up to Allendale: up Weardale, to Rookhope and across the top down to Allenheads. It's a beautiful drive, but sometimes I just look and think "Pretty!", and sometimes - and this was one of those times - it's more emotionally charged. Perhaps it's because we've hardly been out on the hills at all this summer, or perhaps because the roadsides are coming into their autumn colours, the leaves turning to yellow in the sunshine and the fireweed below all shades of brown and orange, rust and apricot.

We arrived in Allendale town with just enough time to pick up our wristbands at the village hall, and lunch on soup (sweet potato and rosemary, thick and warming and discreetly seasoned) at the café there, then up the hill for some music.

There were two strands of concerts taking place in two venues, and choices had to be made, but we atarted at Deneholm with virtuoso Northumbrian piper Chris Ormston, followed by Stewart Hardy and George Welch. I'm a fan of Stewart Hardy's fiddle playing, but hadn't heard this duo before, and the publicity which stressed their humour and spontaneity (and may have used the word 'shambolic') didn't entirely appeal; we'd try it, we thought, and if we didn't like it we'd go down the hill and see whether we preferred what was on offer there. I could, it turned out, have done with less clowning, which kept threatening to take over, but the music was excellent: George Welch is a delicate guitarist and a competent singer of well-chosen songs (I particularly liked Archie Fisher's Men of Worth) and as a duo... Well, here's George Welch's website and here's what Stewart Hardy has to say on the subject.

We thought we were walking out on them earlier than was strictly necessary, when a break between songs fell at a quarter to the hour and we left, because the length of the preamble meant that the next break would come to late. But in fact we only just had time to walk down to the church for the start of Horizontal Sunday's set - which is to say that we would have caught the start of their set had we not been delayed by a cake stall in the lych gate. As it was, they were in full swing when we came in, and seemed to be enjoying the space and the light and the acoustics of the venue: it was a bright and lively set, and went by much too fast. Next up, after a break which gave me time to go out and find coffee, was guitarist Michael Chapman - and he was a fine guitarist but something about him just didn't click for me, so we left early and came home via Waitrose in Hexham (and beautiful evening light on the hills and the Tyne valley).

Todays walk was a version of one we've done before (and more than once; here's the map that durham_rambler made when he was planning it.

Our outward route was the same as last time: we parked at White Kirkley (I love that name) above Frosterley, and followed the Bollihope Burn through the old quarries, then climbed up - and up - following shooting tracks out onto the high heather moorland. There were all the flowers of summer - harebells and tormentil and eyebright, and the heather in purple bloom - but the breeze was cool and sometimes gusty, and the skies were dramatic, grey more often than blue, though it never quite rained, and we did see some sunshine. We lunched where the track makes a hairpin bend and crosses Shaftwell Syke, a pretty stream flowing down between mossy banks, and where an ols bridge provides a wall to sit on.

Then up again and finally out onto what feels like the top of the world, flat uplands with wide views across the moorland to the dales beyond. We left the broad track and followed a narrow path; at first it was a relief to be walking on turf rather than the loose stony surface of the track, but as it grew wetter underfoot, and the need to watch my footing meant that I wasn't really looking around me, this too became tiring. At last we came to the wall that forms a boundary between the moorland and the valley sides, and Weardale opened up on our left. The Elephant trees - the clump of trees which are visible on the skyline from so much of the dale - were ahead of us, but before we reached them we turned through a gate in the wall and walked down the farm road, past the old barn and back to our starting point.

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.

We haven't walked much in Weardale this summer; we've been busy and we've been away and other good reasons, but still, we haven't, and we've missed it. A couple of days ago, durham_rambler pointed out that the weather has been dry lately, so this would be a good time to revisit a favourite walk which involves crossing several small streams (not to mention various boggy areas), and passes through the abandoned - and now I think completely vanished - farmhouse at Ayhope Shield.

( So that's what we did )

ETA: durham_rambler made a Google map - and confesses that the walk is 7 miles, as I'd thought, or 8, as he told me, but 9.12 - substantially longer than anything we've done recently. We need to get out more...

We had no particular plans for Easter, but in the last seven days, Monday to Monday, we have:

• been visited by D., and done our best to entertain him by inviting two separate guests to two separate dinners, plus one drive up Weardale, because we felt like an excursion and had no particular plans;


• seen Ryhope Pumping Engine at work - Victorian heavy engineering, driven by steam, run by volunteers, housed in red brick waterworks gothic;


• shopped at the Co-op in Houghton - all part of the quest to reduce our reliance on Sainsbury's and Tesco's (the Co-op, alas, is not the answer, but at least it isn't the problem);



• inspired by how beautiful Weardale was looking when we drove that way, returned for a walk, and explored Harehope Quarry (about which we first heard from Vane Women, who put together a book there): willow sculptures and a heron and Frosterley marble, oh, my! Here, have a picture - in fact, have several! The route of the walk needs work: the first part, Harehope to White Kirkley, was new to us, and splendid; the mid-section, along the Bollihope Burn, was familiar and beautiful, but very busy around the caravan park; then there was an awkward bit of road work as far as Hill End, before a pleasant descent through the fields back to Frosterly;


• and, just when we thought all the holidaying was over and we were back to work, had a surprise visit from samarcand and family, which was an ubexpected treat.

Signs of Easter observed: there have been hot cross buns for breakfast. There were lambs gambolling in the fields along the Bollihope Burn; also a surprising number of dead rabbits - some of which had been dead longer than others, so it's not just that someone particularly thorough had been out shooting. This must have set my mind running on macabre lines, because when I started seeing fragments of something white and smooth along the burn, my first thought was that it was something nasty. Then I started seeing shards of shell, and realised I was seeing the aftermath of a massacre of boiled eggs. Even then, it took a moment before I remembered the date - Pace Egg Day - someone had been rolling pace eggs down the sloping riverbanks (as you do, and the winner is the person whose egg rolls furthest before it breaks up). Signs of spring and approaching summer, too: I put on sunscreen for the first time this year.

At last, a fine Sunday with no other commitments, and we thought about where we would like to walk. Nowhere that involves fording streams - the summer has been so wet that that would be tricky - but the rain has filled the reservoirs for the first time in years, so maybe somewhere we could enjoy the scenery without the usual muddy margin?

There's a pleasant walk around Tunstall reservoir, which we've done in the past by parking in Wolsingham, and walking up to the reservoir. Today durham_rambler suggested parking by the A68 (there's a picnic area at High Houselop which would have been ideal, had it not been closed) and walking down to the reservoir. My spacial awareness is not good - by which I mean that my sense of where places are functions by relating them to other known places - so this was disconcerting, but seemed worth a try.

It turned out to be a splendid walk. If we were to do it again - no, make that: when we do it again - I'd try some fine tuning, because as we did it this morning most of the best parts were on the outward journey, and the return had a lot of hard work. But these are details.

The route: we followed the disused railway round the valley side, overshooting the path down through the woods that we had meant to take, choosing instead a path through fields from which we had lovely views of the reservoir as we approached it. Lunch by the reservoir, watching the anglers and the geese all enjoying the water's edge, the across the dam and up - and up and up - at one point keeping pace with a pheasant who was strutting uphill beside the dry stone wall (eventually his mate flew up, startling me, and he followed, over the wall). There was a fair stretch of heather hillside to cross to regain the railway, and that was hard work: the right of way was not a discernible track, so we followed the line of grouse butts as far as we could, a longer way round but not quite such vigorous heather-bashing, but it might be possible to improve this bit of the route.

It wasn't a long walk, but was energetic enough to make me feel I'd done something with my day. And the threatened showers never materialised, and the sun shone for much of the time, which seems to promise well for our autumn holiday (just as well, since we've stared booking ferries).

I could become tedious, I suppose, formulating phrases in threes (oh my!); but it generates a pleasing title, and I like the process of deciding which three things need to be listed. More prosaically, then, this was the "Mineral Valleys Walk" (or so it said on the waymarks); it took us up out of Ireshopeburn (near the top of Weardale) and then down to the burn by this ruin (a place called "Hole"), up past the grazing sheep and many fluffy lambs, higher still into the lapwing pastures, past a variety opf industrial remains and then along the Harthope Burn to St John's Chapel. We picnicked - first of the season! - above the burn, snuggled into the valley side and with a thin band of larch forest to shelter us from the wind (and screen the view). The grey sky and the tawny hillsides looked more like winter than spring, but the wind was fresh rather than biting, even on the tops. Still, by the time we reached St John's Chapel, either it was raining very slightly or we were walking in low cloud, and we looped back lower on the slopes. We did make the slight detour to visit Newhouse, a spectacular mansion built about 1700 for the agent of the Moor Master (who administered the lead mines on behalf of the owner). We came down from above the house, past the gazebo where the miners used to buy their candles, and found the owner of one of the three sections into which the house has been divided, standing outside smoking his last cigarette. "I'm giving up again," he daid. "I only started again because I've had a bad back, and I've been stuck in the house for three weeks." He half offered to invite us in and show us his staicase, but hesitated because the house wasn't tidy, and we didn't press him because we were fairly muddy ourselves: but we appreciated the offer.

There will be more photographs in due course.

What with the need to claim squares for the Use Your Paths challenge, and the cold grey summer, we have not been out of the hills at all this year. And suddenly it's mid-August, and the heather's in bloom, and we woke to a beautiful bright morning - which had clouded over by the time we were ready to go out, but never mind, time to cross off a few squares in Weardale.

Walking through heather sounds very romantic, and it's not too bad if it's this year's growth, still quite soft and low to the ground; tolerable if it's been burnt back, spiky and inclined to leave black smudges on your trousers (which are in any case becoming quite wet around the hems); but the full grown heather is knee high, springy and thick enough to conceal substantial boulders or ditches that I'm liable to fall over (or into), not to mention the grouse who start up from underfoot with a loud clatter. Hard work, and since it's so long since I've done any of this kind of walking, I'm out of practice: by the time we reached the shooting box where we would stop and eat our picnic, I was exhausted.

The afternoon was mostly easier walking, along tracks and grassy paths. There were some interesting moments, obviously: the path that plunged through bracken over a sheer drop, the alleged ford through the Stanhope Burn (it has been a very wet summer). But there were also more opportunities to look around, and enjoy wide views along the flanks of the hills - I've missed this, and it was good to be out.

Also: today is my brother's birthday. We arrived home to find a postcard from him and my sister-in-law: they have been staying with friends in Keighley, visited Saltaire and bought a Moomin postcard at Salt's Mill for us.

Today we did a version of a walk that used to be a favourite of ours, but which we haven't done in a long time: from Stanhope along the river to Eastgate, then up the Rookhope Burn to Rookhope, and on up the incline, along the disused railway and back down into Stanhope.
( Zoom in )