Another Guided Walk – Crook West

This time three people turned up, which is two better than the first evening walk. David Butler was the steward and Elaine (who’s the boss of the rights of way department) was the Assistant and we had a trainee steward called Freddie.

So we had a small bunch.

This was the walk I did a few days ago as a reccy and so, its becoming quite familiar.

The weather was a bit murky for a short while but the air was clear with views across to the North Yorkshire Moors and, eventually we had some nice, bright sunshine.

Elaine was very proud of all the new stiles and we had a good little trundle round the circuit.

Two of the three beef herds got a bit frisky and bounced around and followed us  energetically. David (who is an historian) held them back with a lecture on the failed battle tactics of the Scots army at the battle of Neville’s Cross. Apparently they weren’t ready for the traffic lights and the complicated nature of the road junction. Its just as well that they weren’t Galloways or Highland cattle or they might have got a bit shirty.

Whatever – the cattle became quiet. Another group ran away, started to run towards us but lost their nerve and ran away again.

We finished about a quarter of an hour early.

I’m not doing this walk again for a while!

Good fun, though.

A Tune Whilst Waiting

For some reason, when I tried to post this video on a previous occasion, it wouldn't post properly - I got the code but it didn't work.

Now it works (I think)

This is just a brief intermission to allow pieblog readers to nip out to Greggs for pie supplies whilst I await a possible reply from Millets prior to telling you all about the tent they gave me for testing.

Its different for girls, mind....

Appleby Horse Fair

It was Brian’s idea to visit Appleby Fair. I’ve never been before and so, we went.

For those who don’t know about this, its primarily a horse-dealing event. Its also a major social event for gypsies and travellers with thousands of people turning up.

And its a place where there is great spectacle and excitement and a bit of danger. If you are a bit short on male hormones and you long for the whiff  horse, combined with frying bacon and fish and chips, then this is the place to go.

We parked in a field out of town for a fiver (proceeds to the Air Ambulance – they must be making a good income from this) – and, as we shuffled through the crowds into Appleby, it seemed that we were on a horse and trap racing circuit. Every few seconds, a horse pulling a small cart would hurtle through the pedestrian traffic to shouts from all concerned. There were many very close misses. Luckily, horses do make quite a noise on a hard road, and they don’t specially like knocking people down.

having disappeared into the crowds ahead, they hurtled back again for more shouting and close misses.

In the town, Brian chatted to various members of the Cumbrian constabulary whilst  several youths and a couple of girls swam their ponies in the River Eden. This drew enormous crowds. The water was quite deep at one spot and the horses swam for a few yards before clambering onto the stony beach.

Later, in another place (I was getting a bit confused by this time) there were caravans and camper vans and Dublin number plates and three or more Gypsy Petrelongos in their caravans reading palms – and burger vans, sausage and mash vans, fish and chip shops, toy stalls for the kiddies, ceramics stalls, soft furnishing and clothing stalls and stalls selling iron kettles and pans and horse equipment. And girls – some very young,  in skimpy and gaudy clothes teetering on skyscraper heels and men in vests and hats sweating testosterone, some talking in that over-fast Irish/English that nobody can understand (many of you will have seen  the Father Ted Eurovision Compere)

Its a very macho thing. You’re not supposed to smile too much, but to look a bit hard. You can smile whilst dealing, or you can smile whilst scamming people out of twenty quid notes chasing a playing card but the rest of the time you have to display a manly unconcern about the fact that a tonne of horse has just hurtled by your left ear at 35 mph, sucking all the dandruff out of your hair and removing paper cash from any unzipped pockets.

All around there were displays of extraordinary horsemanship and a particular leaning-back style of riding. Saddles were not used. There was often great speed and hooves sliding on the road. There was kicking and protesting, but I didn’t see any cruel treatment and most of the horses looked fit and groomed, with, maybe just a couple of exceptions.. There was a heavy RSPCA presence.

And there’s lots and lots of ready cash around.

The only things missing were the knurr and spell competition and the bare knuckle fighting. This caused a certain amount of disappointment. Maybe they do the fighting later on…? (I don’t want to join in by the way….)

Learning Something New

Today was the day for doing one of the walks I’ve been reccying recently – the bluebell walk from Baybridge.

There were just four of us – Doug, Walter, Alan and me.

It was warm and sunny and we trundled slowly around the route, identifying flowers – mainly bluebells and hearing the local cuckoo and being scolded by a curlew and an oyster catcher, who’s nests  must have been close by.

Alan does adopt-a-path in the area too, and we found that our patches overlapped in Deborah wood and on a few other paths. We’d both been reporting the same things, apparently.

We didn’t rush the walk and had plenty of stops for poking around and/or chatting, which is the best way, in my view, and, despite all this, we were only a quarter of an hour overdue at the end.

The sun shone. The birds sang. The sheep insisted that it was still May.

And I learned, from Walter, that two tree on one of my paths had been planted to mark the visit of John Wesley on a preaching trip to the area.. I don’t have a date for this as its possible that John Wesley visited the place more than once – but it is recorded that he preached here in 1747, which gives an idea of the timeframe at least. To an untrained eye (me), both trees appear to be in good condition with a long life ahead…hopefully.

very grand trees they are too – standing on opposite sides of the old road into Baybridge – now the footpath with the stile-on-a-hinge which occasionally dumps me over the wall (I have reported this!)

And we found British bluebells, Spanish bluebells and hybrid bluebells, including a white bluebell….  er…?whitebell…

We did five miles. I need to rethink the timing of these walks, I think….

Another Reccy – Crook West

I appreciate that I’ve probably neglected the gear monsters amongst the readership and that proper blogs detail the kit used on walks. So here is what I took today:
A pair of secateurs of unknown age or history or anything. They are green and weigh half a kilo. I used them to trim some gorse.

That’s it really. I didn’t bother with a rucksack or a dog or a map and one of those little clock things that point North.
Anyway – as this walk is on the Durham County Council walks programme and happens next week, it was time to have a reccy.

The second thing that struck me (the first was just how flowery the countryside is at the moment) – was that they’re haymaking. This may be a hazard, wot with tractors and tired haymakers and everything.
The third thing that almost struck me, in fact the third to fiftieth things that almost struck me were the frisky beef cattle. These appear to have horns and willies, so they must be bulls. A load of bulls, in fact. There were three herds or gangs of these and each one decided that I was very interesting and how about a charge around the field.

But beef orta know better than to try to chase The Pieman, specially at lunchtime. I chased off the first group, but they kept coming back.
I chased off the second group, and they kept coming back,  but I waited for these by a stile and noticed that once they’d inspected me a bit, they soon lost interest and became more intent on trying to shag each other.
Close-up, it would seem that these lads weren’t aggressive at all but maybe they were trying to have fun. They do seem to like running about, but they turn away if you stand still and face them. Just as well, really, cos they’re quite er… beefy….
So, I didn’t chase off the next group, I just stood still. And they got bored and went off for a chase around the field and a bit of trying to shag each other.

The fifty-first thing that I noticed was that many of the paths had been recently strimmed or mown and much of the potentially interfering vegetation had been chopped back, and not only that but several of the stiles had been repaired or even replaced. The assistant steward on the walk also manages the rights of way part of DCC’s countryside service, so this is perhaps no surprise. It was even less of a surprise for me cos they invited me to join the work party doing all this but I was up in Scotland getting wet both inside and out, so I knew about it already, see?


The fifty-second noticeable thing was a brick. This brick has the word “PEASE” on it. Mr Pease and his progeny were partly responsible for financing George Stephenson’s railways. They did this because they wanted coal mines in South Durham – very much like the ones in Crook, in fact, and this brick is a bit of archaeology from the Roddymoor pit.

Mr Pease, in chucking his money towards the development of steam railways may well be at least partly responsible for changing the way of life of the entire globe. And all this is represented in a brick.
I was quite chuffed about the stiles and the paths.
The walk is on Wednesday 8 June starting at 7:00 pm from Peases West running track. I will be warning any walkers that turn up about the frisky beef. Its about 4 miles with 350 feet of up, so its just an evening stroll to look at the flowers, listen to the chiff-chaffs and yellowhammers and run like buggery from the rampaging cattle. (But we’ll stand our ground – “Steady, lads….” as they say on “Zulu”.)