Sings of Spring on Scout Hill

I’m willing to bet that not a vast number of people will have climbed Scout Hill – unless they’re a HuMP bagger having a break from the madhouse on the M6 and on their way to somewhere else, or a local Luptonite, or the shepherd who has the sheep….

Its quite a nice hill and has one of those lovely radio /repeater mast thingies on the top, as well as a trig point and a standing stone.

Me and the bro and superdawg did a seven (ish) mile gentle (ish) trundle around Scout Hill and the lambing fields of Lupton. Lambing seems fairly early here, its not really in full flow back home in the Pennines. Its nice to see gangs of lambs chasing each other around the fields, though and, as well as the snowdrops, there was a single primrose in a sheltered lane and the hawthorn has the very first new green leaves just sprouting and, superdawg’s ears were sticking up as he ran about daft in the stockless pastures. 

I try to avoid taking the dog into lambing fields, and any field containing sheep, specially those with coloured bums is generally to be avoided if possible.  For the next few weeks and until the lambs are robust and charging about, its not a good idea to introduce a daft bugger like Bruno into these places. There’s a really good case here for a more reasonable approach to the use of public footpaths. It would be much better for all concerned if walkers could just legally go around – like wot they do in Scotland, in fact. English access legislation doesn’t really allow for people to act reasonably

So – signs of spring.  And there’s cold and snow forecast for the next few days. Lambing showers perhaps…?