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Out and about – the Fragility of Certainty

Posted in Anglezarke, countryside, lancashire, moorland, out and about, outdoors, the writing life, walking, West Pennine Moors, tagged dreams, hiking, lancashire, meditation, nature, observation, outdoors, rivington, travel, walking, West Pennine Moors, writing on March 19, 2026| 2 Comments »

The first warm spring day, I think. We choose Rivington and find it full. It’s always full. Still, I am puzzled by it, also short of a plan B. But then, by some small divine intervention, we find what must be the last parking spot and slip the little blue car into place. We are, in fact, where we would least expect to find welcome – by the Hall Barn, a venue for functions and weddings.

To prove the point, there are four coaches on the main car park, delivering old folks to some sort of shindig involving food and music. But there are many others milling about who look to be of working, even college age. Have I miscalculated the date of Easter? Is the world on holiday? No – once again I realise the world has always been like this. When I was nose to the grindstone all those years, I had simply not known the secret. I had to wait until retirement to find it out. But anyway, I am glad to be in the air, and the sunshine at last.

There are daffodils and cherry blossom this morning, mostly bare trees, still, but some of them budding, tempted out by this sudden warmth. We travelled over with the top down and, as we fasten it back up now, we contemplate the deep creases and tears in it, wondering how much longer we can put off a replacement. But we’ve been doing that for years, and it still keeps the water out. Old things that still work are worth more, in terms of character, than new things – at least that was always my mantra. But a new top will cost roughly what this old car is worth. At what point does one call a day on the Romantic? I’m not sure – just not yet.

And speaking of cars, I noticed on the drive over fuel prices have now begun to move: around five percent on petrol, but more significantly the reports are of twenty-five percent on gas, this after an apocalyptic escalation in the Middle East. On a not unrelated subject I have a poem nagging me to come through, about mad kings – about how courtiers wash them sane, and the commentariat approach it all as if it were business as usual. I may have a go, but add it to my private collection. I am not of the commentariat who feel obliged to make sense of senselessness. Rather I am increasingly of the opinion the incoherence itself, the senselessness is the story of our times.

The trail is busy, but there is no point grumbling. Had I been able to get out of bed a little earlier, I might have driven further out, somewhere quieter. Rivington has always been a honeypot. So we strike a steady pace and zigzag our way up through the terraced gardens, to the Pike. There must be a hundred people on top. The Pike bristles with them, like a porcupine. It does not tempt, so we swerve it and strike out along the muddy moorland way instead, towards Noon Hill. Here, the crowds fall away at once, and at last we have the day to ourselves.

I have had this dream about a ship – an old British coaster, like something out of a Masefield poem. I was approaching it as a potential passenger, not sure if I should board. But then a bosun called my name, as if they were waiting for me specifically, before they could depart. The suggestion is of a circumnavigation, always world-facing, or at least keeping the shore in view. But I am not a passenger – no more than any of us are in the journey of life. I am to be a chronicler of days. But the writing of such a journey must mark passage in a way I have yet to find a voice for.

A poem about the journey (like my last piece) – essentially an inner one – is never sufficient in itself, being just one more new-agey excursion into the mystical and the esoteric. It has to take account of one’s place in the world, as well as the world itself – deal with it, if not kindly, then at least with some degree of compassion and an attempt at understanding. So perhaps poems about mad kings are not the thing either.

We extend the walking pole to its limit and probe the ground ahead. The moor is wetter than I expected, but we make our way reasonably well, to the saucer grave that is the summit, where we settle for lunch. There is a beautiful clarity to the day, and far-reaching views of the West Pennines – a feeling we could walk forever: across Spitler’s and Redmond’s Edge, all the way to Great Hill, then circle back via White Coppice and the reservoirs.

Except the legs are less ambitious.

So we descend to the old coach road and make our way on firmer ground to Horden Stoops and the source of the Yarrow. From here we pick our way through the ever-widening quagmire around Hempshaws, calling briefly at the ruins to rest, and to see if the coin we secreted last year is still there. It is not particularly well hidden – the stone under which it lies being a fairly obvious one, at least to my eye. But it is still there. It’s a bit of whimsy, a touch of the Romantic again, an anchoring back to former times but, like all times, somewhat fragile in its certainty.

I notice, far out on the track to Lead Mine’s Clough, a figure standing stock still. A quick squint through the binoculars reveals a man with a camera on a tripod pointing in our direction. I am perhaps spoiling his shot. Did he see me looking under that stone? Have I given the game away? No – it does not look to be a long lens. He’s taking an age over that one shot, too. Either that or he’s waiting for me to clear off. I tend to shoot from the hip, but then half of my shots are blurred. I trust his will be pin sharp for all the trouble he’s taking, though it does not always follow. And anyway I have often stood where he is standing and saw nothing worth such trouble as he is taking.

We move on now, following the fledgling Yarrow to its junction with Green Withins, then come up to Morris’s. This should be the least boggy route, but the meadows near Wilcocks are occupied by horses, who have reduced the ground around the crossing points – the gates, the stiles – to deep mud. There are electric fences here too, and horses on the right of way. I trust horses less than cattle.

We pass without incident and press on via Dean Wood, to Rivington, picking up the crowds once more by the village green. Here we chance a brew in the tea-room, where an elderly gent slips into the queue ahead of us and proceeds to order a large meal for four while I stand quietly sweating, head to foot, from my walk. He even has the nerve to brush me aside while he admires the cakes and makes a leisurely choice. Another gent comes in behind and stands too close, while coughing. Peripheral awareness is not a strong point for many of my fellows – while for me, it is perhaps too acute.

Finally, I am seated out in the sunshine with tea and Kit-Kat, most of my fellows’ heads bent over their devices. I resist the urge to update myself. The forecourt prices on the drive home will tell us everything we need to know.

About seven miles round, a thousand feet of ascent.

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Out and about – Some Trees and a Tractor

Posted in countryside, current affairs, journal, lancashire, out and about, outdoors, photography, walking, tagged adventure, current affairs, hiking, hodder, hurst green, lancashire, nature, ribble, travel, UK, walking, writing on March 13, 2026| 5 Comments »

We’re a little further up the Ribble Valley today at Hurst Green. It’s a cloudy bright sort of day with a fresh wind, the meadows glowering darkly one moment and glowing a lush green the next. The hedgerows closer to home are already in leaf, but here, not an hour’s drive away, it’s still early in the season, trees bare and gaunt in silhouette from afar, and you have to get up close to see they’re budding. It’s the Tolkien Trail today, a loop of the rivers Hodder and Ribble amid some fine, rolling Lancashire scenery. It’s about a year since I last came this way, in tow with a whimsical Galadriel, as I recall. But she’s keeping a low profile today.

Speaking of Galadriel, I’m reminded how elves can at times be as warlike as humans, but their legends don’t depict them being anywhere near as stupid. As we walk we’re mindful the world is shaking to its foundations. The Strait of Hormuz is now closed, a predictable response to the bombing of Iran. As of this morning, UK fuel prices haven’t moved much, but they will, when strategic reserves run out. Then there’ll be panic-buying. All of that will come, but I’m conscious our inconvenience is insignificant, compared with the suffering of others who have munitions raining down upon their towns and cities. Of course, we’ve had Middle-Eastern conflicts before, but there seems a particularly unhinged madness about this one, and I have a bad feeling about it.

There’s a roaring in the trees as we come down to Over Hacking wood and approach the Hodder. Pines soar here, closely packed, and they clatter ominously above like bamboo chimes as we pass, the wind stirring them. Some are freshly fallen, bearing the bright scars of newly splintered wood, the soft earth cratered at their base.

It’s a route I’ve pretty much photographed to death. Still, find myself pausing at the same view-points, looking for something new in the details. Mostly the light isn’t promising, the sun slipping behind cloud at the wrong moments, then on we go. The triptych of trees here, seen from the track leading down from Hodder Place, I’ve not noticed before, so loiter awhile, waiting for light.

But as I wait, I find it hard to avoid the sense that it’s becoming more difficult to find beauty in the passing detail, in the small, like this, when there’s so much going on in the world now that is irredeemably, and profoundly ugly. We woke up this morning to images of burning tankers in the Persian Gulf, and here we are waiting for the light to shine on some trees. At what point does that become ridiculous? When is it less of a resistance to the Zeitgeist and more a refuge from things we cannot alter? Perhaps it’s both. Or perhaps such things become even more important, the uglier the world becomes.

It’s striking how commentators still assume there is a reason for it all, yet even the most informed appear to be struggling with this one. For myself, observing such things from afar, it seems that, once upon a time, terrible acts were undertaken for identifiable reasons, however cynical. Now it more often feels as if explanations have been dispensed with, and confusion itself has become the atmosphere, indeed the entire oeuvre of power. Thus have our leaders moved beyond explanation. They have nothing useful, nothing intelligible to say to us, inhabiting as they do their own world, as do we ours. What this means for our futures is unclear, but disturbing all the same – our certainties shrinking to a bubble no greater than might fit in the palm of your hand, or through the all too selective viewfinder of a camera.

Lunch is by the Hodder, a stretch of pebbled bank where one can get down to the waterside. We’ve had plentiful rains recently, including torrents overnight, so the river is high and deep voiced. There’s plenty of company here, with other walkers and dogs, and the usual detritus – bottles and beer cans and the almost obligatory bags of dog-dog muck. The Tolkien Trail is always well walked, even midweek. I would not think to attempt it at the weekends. The Hodder is reflecting sunlight here, an alluring sparkle to it as it slides by, and the trees on the opposite bank roar in the wind, a touch of March Madness about them.

I filled the car this morning, burned about a gallon on the way over here, another gallon by the time I get home. It used to be I’d be panicking about conserving fuel, needing it for the commute. There was no such thing as home working during previous fuel-shocks, and I recall a particularly inflexible attitude on behalf of employers, too. Unlike in past crises though we now have far more electric vehicles on the road. You can pick used ones up very cheaply, though their battery life is probably much reduced now, with uncertainty over longevity and the cost of replacement. Still, they’d be fine for knocking about locally. Were I in a bind, and still having to commute, I’d be considering an older model as a backup now, though as it is, I can probably ride out at least some of what is coming our way.

We don’t linger over lunch but press on, making our way by Cromwell’s Bridge, up the hill, cross the meadow to Winkley Hall and the Piggery. Here we pick up the broader sweep of the Ribble, the newly diverted path no longer taking us by the spectacular oak, but here it is, captured in other times. Instead, we have this old tractor by the wayside – always something Stoic about them, I think. It doesn’t look to be in working condition, but I’ve seen worse, and still running. How many seasons, I wonder, ploughing the earth? It speaks of continuity, of certainty, of return.

We have a clear path now back to Hurst Green, most of it in company with the run of the river. Up ahead there’s another walker, what looks like a tall young woman, long auburn hair and a Barbour jacket, nipped at the waist. She has a graceful, upright posture. I catch her up as we climb from the valley, to the Shireburn Arms, and exchange greetings in passing. She’s actually getting on in years, a lovely, mature face that smiles easily. We meet again in the coffee shop in Hurst Green, and we exchange a joke, then I’m carrying my coffee-to-go back to the little blue car. It’s looking a bit grey actually, ready for a wash and spruce up.

The woman was interesting – in other times a potential meet-cute of course – but for the writer, it feels more like an introduction to a character who simply has to be written about, after she’s spent some time developing in the imagination. With the world on fire these are such small things, but beautiful in themselves, and we mustn’t forget that.

Sometimes it’s the only thing we have to go on.

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Manual Focus

Posted in countryside, current affairs, existential, health, journal, lancashire, moorland, out and about, outdoors, philosophical, photography, walking, West Pennine Moors, tagged ;ancashire, countryside, hiking, meditation, nature, outdoors, photography, travel, UK, wain, walking, writing on February 7, 2026| 8 Comments »

Stepping out of the car, we’re met by a moderate rain. Mid-morning at Vaughn’s Café – again. This time, our plan is a circuit, taking in a slice of the Roddlesworth plantations, then up onto Darwen Moor. We have a new lens for the camera, which we were hoping to try out. It’s a super-wide format, the aim being to add a touch of drama to our lone trees and sky, but we’ve left the camera at home. The forecast just didn’t justify bringing it out.

The lens is an old one, and designed for use with my make of camera – though, it turns out, not my specific model. It still works as a lens, but it doesn’t automatically focus. Now, this should be no hardship since, once upon a time, all our focusing was done manually. We chose the subject, then turned the dial until it was sharp. I could have got the lens a lot cheaper from other sellers if I’d known. Anyway, that’s another story, but it has us thinking about focus and doing things automatically, in metaphorical ways, like sometimes how we roll from bed of a morning, draw back the curtains on yet another flake-white Lowry sky, before rolling automatically back in.

So, we click our imaginary lens from auto to manual, we pick our day, and just go for it. And here we are, the sky more the colour of lead than flake-white, cloud-base so low you can reach up and touch it, and then the rain. It’s never a good sign, having to pull on full waterproofs at the start of a walk, but may the rain wash us clean. I imagined I had found a way of stepping aside from the news cycle, of no longer being triggered by ‘events’, but the world has more recently caught onto me, changed tactics, and now I cannot look at it without feeling unclean.

The forest ways through Roddlesworth are heavy going, dark, and the trees dripping, the paths doubling as lively streams. The body warms quickly under several layers, though the fingers still ache from cold. I have a new waterproof outer which is performing well, the rain beading up and running off, at least for a time. But after a couple of hours, the fabric is starting to wet out and no longer breathable, so we begin to wet from the inside as condensation soaks back into the mid-layers.

We make our way over towards Darwen, through Sunnyhurst, then a brief rest and a stand-up lunch in the shelter of the lych gate, before tackling the climb onto the moor. There’s been no let-up in the rain, and a stiffening breeze now, as the landscape becomes more exposed. But the wind is to our backs, so it helps, rather than hinders. I’m still exercising the legs of a morning with a dumbbell – still not sure if it’s making a difference on the hill, but anything that gets the heart pumping is doing some good, so long as we’re not overdoing it.

There’s a forbidding bleakness to Darwen moor at the best of times, but on a day like this, it’s particularly challenging to the spirit. Interesting now, the proliferation of leaky dams and berms – the moor being engineered to hold water, of which there is plenty today. We make a somewhat bumbling return through the woods, past Sipper Lowe, back to Vaughn’s, slithering in mud as we go.

The car is a relief to see, though I’m almost too weary to pull the gear off. The waterproof trousers have leaked through the pocket slits leaving big cold patches on my thighs. And, as suspected, I’m wet down to the mid-layer from condensation. It was a longish walk, about eight miles at pace, not much by way of meditation, no messing about with photographs. I’m not sure if the day has washed me clean, but that cup of tea in Vaughn’s café was most welcome. We emerge from the steamy interior mid-afternoon to an already fading light, and the rain had stopped.

We’re feeling cold of a sudden, and in need of a hot bath. Back at the car, we set the heater on full and reach for the radio, then think better of it, and drive home in silence. It is plain now that, at a certain elevated – indeed stratospheric – level, the world has always been this dirty. Yet, I’m sure the majority of us bring our children up to believe in magic and kindness, and I still think that’s right. We imagine the damage comes only from the stranger, the predator, the one who lurks at the margins of society, yet some of them are also riding very high, indeed running and shaping the world in their own image.

Perhaps the rain did not wash us entirely clean then, but for a short time at least it has brought the world back into a cleaner focus. It’s shown us how it’s not always wise to go with what comes to us automatically, because it may not be trustworthy. And it reminds us that in order to see clearly, to choose what we look at, instead of having it chosen for us, we have to switch that imaginary lens back to manual. And if we can do that, then even splashing through the wet and the cold of a Lancashire upland in the depths of winter, carries its own form of innocent grace.

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Anglezarke, Rivington and the Lost Poem

Posted in Anglezarke, countryside, existential, journal, lancashire, moorland, out and about, outdoors, walking, West Pennine Moors, tagged countryside, hiking, lancashire, meditation, poem, poems, poetry, travel, UK, walking on January 29, 2026| 2 Comments »

You catch up with me on the causeway between the Anglezarke and the Upper Rivington Reservoirs. It’s a clear day with an unblemished blue of sky, and a bright sun with no heat in it. It’s only my second outing this year, and January is all but done, now. I suppose that’s the problem when we can pick our days – we tend to hold out for the best of the forecast and save the inclement weather for indoor things: for housework, for writing, or just staying cosy in bed.

And then of course, with its storms, interspersed by interminable grey, the year seems to have kicked off with a mixture of rage and depression. The sparkle has been sadly lacking, but today looks like one of those days sent to rescue us all from oblivion. That said, the forecast was a bit hysterical last night with warnings about a hard frost and ice, neither of which transpired. It’s definitely cold though, as we step out to embrace the air and fasten on our boots.

The Anglezarke reservoir is still low, the last of the reservoirs to fill – the rest of them, from Roddlesworth to the Lower Rivington being now brim-top after all the rains. We take the path by the spillway, a shortcut up to the Yarrow, then loop round to the Parson’s Bullough road. If there was going to be ice anywhere this morning, it would be here, but the way is clear. The moor is shedding water, a bright new spring running down the path, and pooling by the corner of Allance bridge.

Here we take the steep meadow way, up to the finger post on the skyline, and catch our first views of the day – bare trees, and bright contrasts. Indeed, the sun is so bright here the highlights are burning out in the camera, and in my watery eyes too. I’ve been trying to keep the leg muscles in shape over winter by doing squats with one of the dumbbells the kids left behind. It doesn’t seem to have worked. By the time we reach the finger post we’re ready for a long pause and a fiddle with the camera.

The oak trees up Twitch Hills have survived the storms, and beg their photographs as I pass under their spreading branches. I wouldn’t like to lose these two. Always a tragedy when a grand old tree comes down, though it’s nature’s way, I suppose. We take a breather among the ruins of Peewit Hall – views out to the coast, across the gorgeous green of the hills by Jepson’s farm. They’re replacing a long run of wire here with a traditional hedgerow – looks like hawthorn. If anything can survive up here hawthorn can. This will be a boon for birds when it’s mature. Odd how one hand can be so protective of the environment, while the other is so destructive.

Lunch is a cheese and onion roll from the filling station we called at on the way over, and rendered all the more tasty for being eaten out of doors. All around us there’s the familiarity of long years, and an air of ease. Still no warmth in the sun, but it’s good to be out. I feel a whisper of poetry coming through, just a feeling and a rhythm… no words, yet, but it’s something about the importance of the familiar. Winter’s a hard time for getting out, for exploring further afield, but what we’re looking for in nature can be found anywhere, and no more deeply engaged with than here, amid the familiar. What it triggers is a mysterious blend of comfort and a longing.

While we eat, we set the camera on our bag, along with the binoculars, breathe deep of the air. So far, I’ve seen no one since the causeway, but suddenly there’s a loose dog coming at us like a rocket, so I make a grab for my gear. I’ve nearly lost a camera like that before. It got my lunch instead on that occasion. The dog gets a call from its owner who’s passing on the track above. I don’t get a glance, let alone an apology. It’s almost as if it’s my fault for tempting the dog by sitting at my ease. I find it strange.

I’m reminded of that story by the Zen monk, Thích Nhất Hạnh, about carrying a cup of coffee. Someone runs into you and you spill the coffee. Why did you spill the coffee? You’re tempted to say it’s because someone ran into you, but the answer is because you were carrying coffee. Had you been carrying tea, you would have spilled tea. Someone bumps into you, and you tend to spill whatever you’re carrying.

The fact I didn’t feel anything in particular is perhaps telling in other ways – that I’m perhaps carrying a cup of low expectations towards my fellow man, which isn’t healthy, but there’s also a fairly robust compass in there that’s keeping me aligned in other ways, at least for now. That poem though? It’s gone. The muse must have given it to someone else. I’m sure they’ll do a good job of it.

We almost loop back on ourselves here, taking the path down to Lead Mine’s Clough, and back to Allance Bridge. Then we’re up Hodge Brow to Morris’s Barn, and across the meadows above the Yarrow to Rivington and the tearoom. The tearoom is packed out and steamy, seemingly the whole world on its pension. Including me of course. We plump for a Kit-Kat and a cup of tea, sit out with it.

That poem though? We trawl the memory, but it’s like one of those dreams that slips away in the morning, and there’s just no bringing it back. It doesn’t matter. I know what she meant, even if I can no longer articulate it. It’s a doorway, I suppose, a doorway to a feeling for what the Welsh have as hiraeth. There is no direct English translation, but the closest I can get is that it’s a longing for the world behind the world, a homesickness for a place you can never return to. The Germans have a similar word, at least one that occupies a similar emotional space: Sehnsucht, this being a longing for a home, a world you’ve yet to find. I guess my poem fell somewhere down the gap between the two.

Anyway, that’s it for now. We leave the tearooms, take the path around the old chape1l. It’s a place heavy with shadow and centuries of moss, but where the sun slices in, by the gates… there are snowdrops.

About 5 miles round, 390 feet of moderate up and down.

Thanks for listening

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Out and about – Gone to Vaughn’s

Posted in out and about, outdoors, philosophical, photography, walking, West Pennine Moors, tagged abbey village, astraea, culture, myth, orion, out and about, photography, ryal fold, scorpio, tockhiles, travel, virgo, walking, writing on January 15, 2026| 10 Comments »

A cold one this morning, and the little blue car refuses to start. Her battery’s drained after a long period of inactivity, and one I’ve largely shared. The roads are heavily salted anyway, so she’s better off in bed. I’m still precious about her, want her to last forever – just a shape in steel and plastic, but I invest her with soul. So, I put her on charge and take the Astra instead. “Astra” means “of the stars”, and is derived from Astraea, last of the immortals to walk the earth – this being at the end of the mythical Golden Age.

Collectively, of course, the year also opens in a sombre mood with news of skies falling everywhere, and it’s been hard to find a voice for that, but also because of it. Many of you will be feeling the weight of oppression, not knowing where we go from here, and neither do I. But Astraea teaches us that while there can be no return to that golden age, that is not to say all is lost. We always have a role to play in restoring, at least in part, the vision of the gods, even though we do not have their blueprint.

There’s a promise of hazy sun, temperatures not much above freezing, so we’re looking at just a short circular walk today, to get us going – a familiar route from Abbey Village, over to Ryal Fold. Last time I came this way was late-summer, and drought, the reservoirs empty. Now, they’re brim-full and shimmering silver in the mid-morning light. The Rake Brook is half frozen, and the water-board road slick with ice, though a thaw has set in along the verges, so we’re still able to make way without accidents. Always, there’s a raw wind here, coming down off the moors.

It’s good to be out again, just me and the camera. Nothing takes the eye yet, but I’m especially wanting to photograph a hawthorn tree in the meadows around Tockholes. I made its acquaintance last year, and felt there was something special about it. It’s hard to say what that is, other than a crack in the curtains of the mundane where a bit of light gets in. Afterwards, we’ll head over to Vaughn’s café for a brew, by which time we should be ready for a warm-up, before making our way back by Rocky Brook.

When we’re out in the landscape, like the West Pennine Moors, we overlay it with our imagination, which can be coloured by feelings arising from our unconscious. If we’re feeling oppressed, the landscape will take on a hard, uncompromising feel. We project onto it. Now, some say the camera never lies. We all know that isn’t true, especially in this age of AI, but a camera can also help us see with a clear eye what the oppressed mind cannot. It can see, and amplify whatever we choose to point it at.

It was the poet Hesiod, writing around the 8th century BC, who first spoke of this Golden Age, a lost mythical Arcadia, looked back upon with a profound sense of aching loss. Ovid picked up the same theme, writing in the early Roman imperial period – that we move through various epochs of declining value – from gold, to silver, to bronze, but always heading into an Age of Iron, the thing that’s going to bring everything crashing down, and rob the very soul from the world. Iron is hard, functional. And cheap.

The plantations are stripped bare just now, only the birch saplings lighting up the undergrowth like flames, where they catch the low, slanting sun. There is neither bird, nor squirrel stirring, and a sense of expectation in the silence. Then I hear a voice behind me, an unbroken string of words, gentle lyrical, deep toned, like an actor projecting. It’s a poem. A cyclist appears, head bent, but instead of being plugged into music, I realise he is listening to spoken verse. I step aside to let him pass, we exchange nods, he goes on his way. I try to catch some of the lines, but the woodland consumes them, renders them secret once more. A curious and slightly surreal moment.

While we shall never see the Golden Age again, we sometimes catch fragments of it, floating though time, coming at us in snatches: art of all kinds – these are its echoes. It’s in a muddy cyclist listening to poetry, and sometimes it’s in the way light falls on trees.

We never actually get to the Age of Iron, of course. It’s more a state of mind that myth teaches us is part of the human condition. It’s always on the horizon, moving out ahead of us. Thus, we are forever travelling from an imagined age of innate value (Gold) to one of a cheaper, soulless utility. This is not to say things do not get worse from time to time, that law does not become uncoupled from justice, that the freaks and the ghouls never assume the levers of power, for clearly they do.

Many feel this as an affront, and rush to resist it. We see it in our social media – expletive laden posts, castigating the oppressor. We see it on the streets in protest. We share our own pain, and the pain of those we know. But there comes a point when this is no longer productive, and indeed might be seen as simply surfing the tide of oppression, simply for clicks. At what point are we sincere in this, and at what point do we risk becoming complicit?

A lone tree is a thing of great charm. Uncrowded by neighbours, we see it in its natural posture, shaped by its locale, and the prevailing weather. Some have a dancer’s grace, expressive and lovely. Others looked startled, some noble, expressive of balance and stoicism. Hawthorn trees can speak of struggle, some of them taking on fantastic contortions, especially in such an exposed location. But this one maintains an air of dignity.

Astraea left us when a Rubicon was crossed, when she saw we were without hope, and he left for the heavens, where she became the constellation of Virgo. In myth, the oppressor was the hunter Orion. Once he took to the field, he killed everything in sight, and the gods had to act before the earth was laid to waste. It was Pluto, guardian of the underworld, then who sent the scorpion to deal the fatal sting. And, once struck by a scorpion, there’s no going back.

I don’t know if the scorpion has struck, but I think we feel something. There is so much bloodshed and suffering, as Orion wreaks havoc on many fronts. Our own Age of Iron, I suppose is characterised by AI and the digital revolution, fashioned, as it were, into the bow and the sling that furthers the hunter’s aim – terrifying weapons, mass surveillance, and the spread of disinformation.

But if the scorpion has struck, there will be an irresistible call for transformation, and an opening to something new.

It’s colder at Ryal Fold. Vaughn’s is pleasantly warm. The lady brings my tea and sandwich, calls me love. That’s another of those cracks in the curtain, where the light floods through: how we choose to relate, not just to loved ones but to strangers. Perhaps to strangers most of all.

The thing with poets, writers, artists – some of us at least, and especially as we age – is we feel such an affinity for Astraea’s approach, see the world as fallen, and would as soon withdraw. But we’re mortal, and therefore bound to the trials of the earth, and the slow workings of its many stories. How we best relate then is not by pointing out what is ugly, nor by beating our chests on social media. But as the times continue to fold back into darkness, we try to remember and seek out what is beautiful – those places where the light still gets in*.

With apologies and respects of course to Leonard Cohen.

About 5 miles round, 235 feet of moderate up and down.

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A Counter-cultural ramble around Rivington

Posted in countryside, lancashire, moorland, out and about, outdoors, philosophical, photography, walking, West Pennine Moors, tagged counterculture, festival, hiking, hippy, lancashire, nature, photography, resistance, rivington, travel, walking, winter on December 5, 2025| 5 Comments »

A cold but clear forecast tempts us outdoors but, arriving at Rivington, we find it overcast. Then, as we zig-zag up through the Terraced Gardens, we enter an eerie drifting murk, interspersed with cold showers. Hawthorn berries stand out, bright spots of red on bare trees, the berries themselves hanging with silver beads of dew. And birch saplings, the only boldness on days like this, copper leaves aflame against dark mossy backgrounds, light the way.

I suppose I must have shot the equivalent of a roll of Ilford HP5. And most of it wasted – expensive stuff, too. Except it was nothing of the sort, being purely digital, so nothing actually lost. There are photographers who still use film, of course – and monochrome at that. It has a counter-cultural feel to it – defiantly analogue in an era of digital. I’m sometimes tempted back there myself.

Not a lot of light today, so we click the dial up to 400 ASA, keep the aperture around F5.6. But do we really need any more pictures of the Terraced Gardens, the Pigeon Tower and Rivington Pike? Have we not done it all to death a million times over? I don’t know – there’s always something a bit different – weather, light, mood, then maybe a chance encounter sending your thoughts spinning off in fresh directions. And I just like being out with the camera.

Were it a clearer day, you’d see the Middlebrook retail park down in Horwich, from here. Further out, through binoculars, you might pick out the Trafford Centre, car parks all rammed. That’s the culture we’re living, I suppose. But there’s nothing to say you have to join in with it. The little blue car delivered me here, after all. Not there.

The summer houses, the bridges, the pergolas, all emerge from the mist like remnants of a lost citadel. There aren’t many people about but, as I’m making my way, I’m asked directions by a couple of old guys wanting to get to the Italian Lake. Their eyes are full of nostalgia. They speak about hippy festivals here in the ’70s, reminding me that, yes, Rivington had its own kind of Woodstock, towards the tail end of the counter-culture.

I was too young at the time – just leaving school – for all that free-love and psychedelia, not that I would have known what to do with it. But where did it all go, I wonder. All that energy. Oh, I remember they had the pearl-clutchers fainting, and the red-tops in a fit – but nothing new there. And then it all just disappeared.

I suppose they were rebelling against a post-war world that many of them saw as increasingly inhuman. They were looking to become free souls, rather than cogs in a machine, and they wanted an education aimed at cultural awakening rather than just more conformity. It didn’t work, but at least they had a go. The ’80s were just around the corner, the machine grew as if on steroids, and we all fell headlong into it.

Of course, the things the hippies railed against are just the same now, with some others thrown in, things we could never have dreamed of back then. But the main difference, I suppose, is one of intensity. Back then it came at us through the television in the evenings, the tea time news, the papers. The rest of the time, you were more or less left alone to be yourself. Now it comes at us constantly, so there seems hardly any time even to think about escaping it. Stick your head above the parapet, protest too loudly, and it’ll find a way to assimilate you, monetise you, market you, and generally absorb you back into homogeneity.

We’re plugged into it – not just exposed to its outputs, but feeding it our selves all the while. The old culture – the one the hippies despised – was still something you could step away from, drive into a field, attend a festival, or join a commune to at least find solidarity with others who felt the same way. This one follows us around, learns our behaviour, and adjusts itself so well, we don’t even know it’s there.

Trees are different in the mist. They emerge from it, isolated from their more distant fellows. Trees you’ve walked past a hundred times and paid no heed to suddenly seem dramatic in their expression. Why don’t we see things like that all the time? All that’s changed is a bit of light and shade, a bit of weather. But then we’re all vulnerable to the environment, the way it colours our mood. It does us good to step out of it as often as we can, see what thoughts emerge, what shy poetry.

Perhaps that’s the only way it can be now. There are no barricades to mount any more. No free love to be had among the bushes here on summer solstice nights. Resistance is barely perceptible, and much lonelier. We quit Amazon, cancel all our streaming services, buy local. But all the goods on display are shipped halfway round the world anyway, because that’s just the way it is. And the phone in our pocket still tracks our every move, having long ago persuaded us we’d feel vulnerable if we left it behind. We try to just skim the headlines, resist drowning in them, let the world run at its own pace. I write poetry, fiction, essays but publish it online, where the machine scrapes it for its own unpoetic purposes. Small acts of rebellion for sure, and seeming futile, but there’s still a dignity in them.

The terraces are slippery in the wet. The hill must have been locked in mist and cloud like this for days. And the chill is finding its way through the seams of my jacket. We’ll take a few last shots for what they’re worth, and call it a day, grab a brew down at the tea-room. So we circle round to the Italian Lake, and here we meet up with our old hippy friends again. In this light, they have the mythic bearing of grizzled warriors from another era. They give me the thumbs up – found their way all right.

Most of us do, one way or another.

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Out and About – On Eskholme Pike

Posted in countryside, journal, moorland, out and about, outdoors, philosophical, tagged barbon, dales, eskholme pike, hiking, meditation, nature, perspective, petrarch, philosophy, renaissance, travel, UK, walking on November 1, 2025| 11 Comments »

Let’s be generous and say we’ve made it as far as the shoulder of Castle Knott. The summit’s still a good quarter mile away, and another two or three hundred feet of ascent. But the day’s actual objective, Calf Top, lies a mile beyond that, its form as yet unseen, I presume, hidden by this shaggy bulk of Castle Knott. It sounds dramatic, but it’s more of a squat moorland hill, with a meandering quad track leading to the top. There’s not much to recommend it as an objective, then, and certainly not worth killing ourselves for. As for Calf Top, is it worth pressing on?

We let the walking pole dangle loose from the wrist by its strap, and the wind takes it out to a generous angle. It’s probably gusting up to forty miles an hour here. It’ll be stronger and colder, the higher we climb. We crouch low and consider the options, though a little voice tells us the decision has already been made.

A wild upland of endless moor, there’s no shelter here – not a rock or a tree – no respite from this thuggish wind. To the south and east, the hill falls away into Barbondale. Beyond that, marching across the Dales, there looks to be some weather coming in – possibly hail mixed in with it. And the wind’s driving it all in our direction. As for us, there’s nothing left in the legs, and the long climb so far, over one false summit after another has sapped the will. On a better day it would be a good place settle down, to rest, take some nourishment, let the strength and spirit catch up, then carry on. But not today. Today we bail.

We left the car down at the village hall in Barbon – the most perfect little village. Then we came up through the manicured parklands of Barbon Manor. On reaching the farm at Eskholme, and beyond the intake walls, the path rises seemingly near vertical, making for the little crown of a cairn on Eskholme Pike. That short, steep section betrayed all too soon the paltry number of hills we’ve climbed this year. It’s all right, totting up the miles in our little black books, but if we’re not climbing hills, they’ll let us know how soft we’ve become, as soon as we step out on one.

So, it’s back to the Pike, the wind roaring at our backs, helping us along while trying to snatch our hat off. Here, we catch some shelter among the crags, hunker down and rest a while, break out the flask and the energy bars. From here, we gaze out across the broad, verdant valley of the Lune, towards the hills of South Lakeland. The sky is a blue-grey slate, sliding by in great wind-blown slabs, breaking into fantastic textures overhead. Below, the trees shed the last of their leaves in showers of red and gold.

It’s not cold, now we’re out of the wind, and with the path pointing down rather than up, we can relax and better appreciate the energy in the day, knowing the hard work is done. The battle is over — neither won nor lost. It’s simply good to be out in the air, on a fell, even if it’s given us a good hiding.

And then, as we sit here, we’re reminded how most walks are about gaining a sense of perspective, as much as they’re about reaching a summit — my walks, at least. The summit is more something to christen the day, but it’s always best to bend by the path whichever way it chooses to meet us. We don’t always get the best views from the top anyway.

I suppose we could trace this idea back to Francesco Petrarca, known to history as Petrarch – in a sense the first recorded fellwalker, and to whom we pay tribute. Fair enough, he reached the summit, walking up Mount Ventoux in Provence that day – in the early spring of 1336. But rather than climbing it because “it was there”, he framed it more as a moral and spiritual exercise. In his account he reflects on the vagaries of human ambition, vanity, and the relationship between the self and God.

They thought he was mad for doing it, but not because of any physical danger – it was more that a man leaving the ordinary path to climb a hill just to see the world from above was considered an act bordering on hubris – at least to the medieval mindset. Yet Petrarch’s climb captured something of the changing spirit of the age. Indeed, his telling of it helped reshape both culture and history, ushering in the Renaissance– a great flowering of humanist art and spirit.

One of the things to come out of the Renaissance was how artists started placing people in their landscapes: no longer as outsized saints and sovereigns dominating a flat world, but as figures set more faithfully in space and light – human life in its proper proportion to the world. It marked a shift of perspective, yes, but also a shift in consciousness and perception too.

And yet, in other ways, you wonder if we haven’t begun to slip backwards – the world becoming flat again, figures inflated against backgrounds, out of all proportion, our souls traded for clicks and the search for an interior life considered next to madness. It’s a curious juxtaposition – all these techniques of vision at our disposal, yet a creeping perspective that no longer reveals the world’s depth.

And so, back to us here on Eskholme Pike…

It’s actually quite pleasant, out of the wind, the clouds rushing by. Down below, the Lune flashes silver through autumnal trees. Sure, we didn’t make the objective but we can see plenty from here. Perspective isn’t always a summit cairn; sometimes it’s just sitting on a rock, catching your breath, and the world wide open at your feet.

Thanks for listening.

“I looked back, and my gaze turned inward” – Petrarch

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Out and About – just not British, is it?

Posted in countryside, current affairs, journal, lancashire, moorland, photography, walking, West Pennine Moors, tagged abbey village, British, countryside, flags, hiking, lancashire, michael graeme, nature, outdoors, photography, roddlesworth, travel, UK, walking, West Pennine Moors on September 19, 2025| 4 Comments »

Dodging the week’s heavy rain, we head for Abbey Village where we discover Union Jacks and St George’s crosses hanging from every lamp-post. This has been a feature of many towns and villages in England over these dog days of summer. I note there has been some online discourse attempting to reclaim them from the more thuggish element, bring them back into the realm of a kind of benignly patriotic boosterism, as if it were the King’s jubilee or something. But after those violent scenes in London over the weekend, such language sounds like feeble back-tracking by those who got a bit carried away. The flag craze is about marking territory. Who’s in, who’s out.

We have another short-ish walk in mind today – still finding my legs after a week or so of feeling under the weather. But first we call at the Hare and Hounds – flying a German flag – for a pot of tea to get us going. Funny how times move on. I remember my mother telling me how, as a child, living in Abbey Village, she watched a German bomber fly along the rooftops, so low she could see the crew. It’s likely they were looking for the giant ordnance factory at Chorley, and thank Heavens they never found it.

Eighty, Ninety years later is a lot of water under the bridge. A quick doom scroll has me wishing we could send a flood and get it over with. But we’re in drought, so it might take longer this time for things to right themselves and for us to make firm friends of old enemies – the complicating factor being we’re still expanding daily that list of enemies until we’re all on it.

Leaving current affairs aside though, the heavy rains this week have made little impression on our empty reservoirs. The Roddlesworth system here is dramatically low. They appear to be pumping air into the Rake Brook reservoir, closest to the village, while pumping the Lower Roddlesworth out. I can’t find anything more about what’s going on here. No notices on site, and nothing on line.

Today we follow our usual route clockwise around the denuded reservoirs, but we make a detour to Higher Hill farm, way up on the skyline. From here we explore a beautiful terraced path we’ve not walked before, and which makes a pleasant change from the gloom of the plantations. There are some unfamiliar trees along the way and we experiment with using them to frame the view.

The way eventually loses itself in a meadow, as we approach the Tockholes Road. It clearly isn’t walked much, but we do our duty by keeping it open. The meadow is shin-high with a rich green, and dotted with clover which we try to photograph, but we’re losing our touch with the camera and everything comes out wrong.

We regain the plantation, trees still crisping up, and acorns scrunching underfoot, but no sign of that dramatic colour change yet. Then we’re on the path to Ryal Fold. It’s still only mid-afternoon, but the café there is closed – I’d been hoping for another brew, but we make do scavenging for chestnuts. I don’t know why. I was doing this last week in Rivington. A few days in your pocket and they’ve lost that magical sheen, but for a moment at least, when fresh, they are worth all the tea in China.

Plunging back into the plantations, we take the muddy path down to Rocky Brook, which seems lively enough after the rains. There are a lot of trees fallen in this year’s storms – some lovely, shapely specimens too, and which I’ve photographed over the decades – a record of transience, or impermanence which seemed permanent enough at the time. It’s quiet, even for a midweek – usually lots of dogs about, but I’ve not passed a soul since the Hare and Hounds. It’s feels like the nation is under cover and braced for something awful.

I’m sure it’s not related, but I note the POTUS is arriving in the UK around the time of writing, for the pleasure of the King. Gilded carriage ride and all that. Heavens. I noticed with some mild astonishment how the mainstream presses were lapping up the pageantry, as if all this was a perfectly normal state visit, while somehow averting their eyes from the real story. For that, you have to dig a little deeper into the alternative media, though I suppose that is also a part of the story of our times.

Hard to get used to the sight of the reservoirs looking like this. The system never really topped itself up, even after those months of torrential winter rains. And now we’re lower than ever. All this water still goes to Liverpool, I think. Go easy with it folks, but be careful not to mention Climate Change in the wrong company. Oh, Lord, four miles or so already, and the bones are creaking. Whatever this lurgy was, it managed to get in there pretty deep. Still chesty too.

Thick clouds of a sudden, and though it’s hours from sunset, the day takes on a late season feel – that flat, fading light of November or December, cars on the old turnpike roaring by and lit up. Then it all peels back and the sun comes out, and it’s summer again – dramatic contrasts as trees are lit against dark, mysterious forest backgrounds.

So, back to the car now, a little worse for wear, but a few more footpaths added to that map of memory, to say nothing of the psycho-geography of my little patch of England. I’m sure we’ll get through this, that we’ll swing back eventually to a more compassionate kind of nationhood. After all, it’s worth bearing in mind only about a quarter of us get a thrill from raising the colours this way, that the rest consider it a question of place and time.

Well, anything else just isn’t British. Is it?

About five and a quarter miles round, six hundred feet of moderate up and down.

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Out and about: A sprig of lilac – around the Yarrow Reservoir and Rivington.

Posted in countryside, journal, lancashire, Metaphysical, out and about, outdoors, philosophical, photography, West Pennine Moors, tagged autumn, countryside, hiking, lancashire, nature, photography, poetry, rivington, transcendentalism, transhumanism, travel, UK, walking, walt whitman on September 10, 2025| 5 Comments »

We’re still a bit under the weather from this cold, but we’ve driven out to the Yarrow Reservoir anyway, thinking a bit of fresh air will do us good. A recent wash and brush up reveals the little Blue Car is showing signs of tin worm again, this time around the bottom of the front wings. It raises thoughts once more of the impermanence of things. 23 years old now, but still a good runner, and worth the ongoing restoration. I just need to find someone who’s not a cowboy, and will appreciate what she means to me. We keep going as long as we can. Until we can’t.

Stepping out on the Parson’s Bullough road, we’re not sure we’re up to much, actually. It’s a beautiful day for sure and a wonderfully dynamic sky, but my head feels like it’s having an out-of-body experience – not altogether unpleasant, but we’d better go easy. My ramblings here may be a little more surreal than usual. A couple of butties, a waterproof just in case, and the camera. Temperatures, are a little on the fresh side, the many oaks along the wayside here crisping back, and the reservoir is vanishingly low. I note the contractors are still working in the valve house, so maybe they’ve run a lot of water off, that it’s a maintenance thing, and nothing to do with climate change at all.

So, we’ll take our time, treat ourselves to a brew at the Rivington tearoom, then circle back, about three miles round, all in familiar territory. It’s the walk I settle on when I’m not sure I’m up to walking much. This September light is such a joy, low and bright but, unlike its Spring counterpart, the contrasts tend to be warm and rich. The lush pastures over Jepson’s way have a glow about them, and the sky is magnificent.

After the short sharp pull up the brow by Morrises, we enter the meadows above the reservoir and, though we must have walked this way a thousand times, we discover a new tree. Well, it’s always been there – it’s just that it was shy, and today the light has picked it out. A brief detour has us weighing it up. An oak, nicely shaped. Looks good against the sky and with the hills as backdrop. We hazard a few shots. Relax then into the sun, and the scent of the earth.

We have some thistle still in flower, but most of the flora is turning to sleep now. The willowherb is fluffing up in profusion, only the occasional pockets of invasive balsam still looking blousy. There is no sense of an end in nature – just this visible cycle of setting seed for its eternal return. From a certain perspective it can seem pointless, this relentless round of flourish, then dying back, and we can carry the metaphor on to ourselves and our own short time to bear it all witness. It is both the blessing and the curse of our self-awareness. But as we age it seems more that such thoughts are the result of keeping too narrow a view.

Moving on, and pondering a not unrelated topic, I’ve been reading about the ambitions of the so-called transhumanists – also writing about it in that other place here. This is a very particular breed of tech-utopians who truly believe we can transcend our bodies and our minds, by uploading them into a computer. Thus we ensure our immortality – I presume, so long as we keep up with the payments. This seems absurd to my more poetic sensibilities, but I can understand it, when the minds conceiving it are themselves locked in a prison of their own reductionism. Sure, it must seem the only way out, but I prefer my reality the way it is.

We sit down for lunch in the meadows a little further along, by the Turner Embankment. Dramatic contrasts here between a blue-grey cloudy sky and sunlit green. The camera doesn’t appear to be working properly, but this isn’t the camera’s fault. My head is too full of cotton wool to remember the buttons. It’s only by the good graces of the camera fairy we get any pictures at all. We set it aside and take in the view. Tired and aching now, and barely more than a mile gone. But there are butterflies, and the promise of chestnuts along the avenue by Dean Wood. Do children still collect them, I wonder? I remember the conker season at school was always a thrill, brightening up the tedium of the dull place it was my misfortune to attend.

Yes, we find a few chestnuts along the way. It’s squirrels I think, these days, who are my main competitors, but they have left me a couple of fine, fresh specimens among the aromatic leaf mould. But more unexpected, I discover a fuscia bush, flowering in the hedgerow, dainty flowers suspended midair like ballet-dancers. It is another discovery along the way of what I thought familiar, a gift of nature, a friendship made, to be looked up now and then in future seasons.

We climb the steps to Church Meadows and a little way then up the moor road to the tearoom, behind the chapel. It’s busy with pensioners (like me). Always a cheerful, friendly place. I ask for a pot of tea, and the lady tempts me to the sole remaining slice of vanilla cheesecake. It was always going to be an easy seduction. Large notices also urge me to “book now” for my Christmas Lunch. Ah yes, it’s that season where we attempt to shunt the carriages of Christmas-is- a-coming through the inconveniently placed hump of All Hallows.

Outside in the sunshine, we take our time, savouring our cheesecake, only occasionally eavesdropping on our fellows. A table of ladies of a certain age are celebrating a giddy reunion, while on another a pair of armoured mountain bikers swap stories of arduous routes, each trying to outdo the other with their heroics. Meanwhile, in the chapel yard, beneath the Yew, bathed in dappled sunlight, a more contemplative Walt Whitman whispers:

“I give you my sprig of lilac”

It’s a line from his epic “Leaves of Grass”, this bit written in response to the assassination of President Lincoln. It’s an odd connection, a little corner of rural Lancashire and a momentous event in American history. I talk more about Whitman and Rivington here. Early flowering, for him the lilac was a symbol of renewal, a link between the mortal world and the promise of the eternal in nature. I think back to those earlier ruminations on the tech-utopians who would banish the inconvenience of our (or perhaps only their) mortality, and I suspect they might disagree with Walt. For them our mortality is a technical problem, one to be solved by code, while for the poet it is a sacred aspect of the cycle of the natural world.

Suitably refreshed, we retrace our steps a little, then pick up the track around the western shore of the reservoir, deep in the shadow of the Turner Embankment, now. About half way, we come to the face in the wall. Or rather, it is a replica of the original, which was vandalised and disappeared some 40 years ago – though I recently learned the broken original is in a safe place. This one is a fine replacement, and long may he last. Get the full story here. A strange effigy though, and not exactly in celebration, more mockery of an unloved foreman who supervised the construction of the reservoir. He does have a devilish look about him, and is perhaps a reminder of all the unsavoury characters we’ve laboured under ourselves from time to time. Perhaps this isn’t the best note on which to end the walk, so I hand over to Whitman again, who reminds us:

“I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself”

Or, roughly translated, forgive and forget.

Early autumn, North of England – no hurry to transcend this particular reality, and when the time comes, sure… I’ll accept my sprig of lilac, and thanks, Walt. But for now the little blue car awaits. You know, I think it’s warm enough to drop the top for the drive home. And yes, I’m feeling much better for the air.

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Out and about – Hurst Hill, Spitler’s Edge and Bernie’s Bog

Posted in Anglezarke, countryside, lancashire, out and about, outdoors, philosophical, photography, poetical sketches, walking, West Pennine Moors, tagged Anglezarke, bog, hiking, hurst hill, lancashire, moorland, mysticism, pike stones, poetry, redmonds, Round Loaf, routes, spitlers, travel, UK, walking on August 19, 2025| 1 Comment »

A gloomy day, a flat light, but blessedly cooler than of late. There’s been such a quake of heat this August and very little rain. The first thing we notice as we park on the Parson’s Bullough road is how low the Yarrow Reservoir is, and for how long – the deep tide line having greened up, over the season, and with barely a puddle of water remaining. We’ve had an early fall of leaves, too – many trees showing signs of crisping up and letting go a first sprinkling of gold by the waysides – oaks chestnut, and beech, all seem tired of the heat and the drought.

We’ve been nosing into our usual metaphysical rabbit holes, writing, and reading. Beyond Saturn’s Gate’s been up for a few weeks now. Twenty-five downloads – and thanks to all who’ve spent some time with it. I think it was Margaret Atwood who described a writer as someone who has to convince strangers to spend hours of their time inside your head. All I can add to that is we can only hope they do not find the time was wasted.

And then there’s been other stuff, some rather long essays, posted on Substack and which nobody is reading, yet which feel too long to be posting here on WordPress. Plus, I am increasingly seduced by conversations around the intersection of human and Artificial Intelligence – which I know are unpopular among so many of my fellow creatively inclined souls.

So, a busy summer then, not doing much to change the world of course, but then I spent forty years of my working life busily leaving virtually no mark upon it either. And what I do now is infinitely more engaging. But today, we’re leaving all that behind and heading up onto Anglezarke moor. It’s a good time for it after such a long dry period, as the going should be firm now, and it’s cool enough to be comfortable.

The photography’s been slipping of late – losing my grip with it, to be honest – pictures grabbed in a passing hurry, and frequently out of focus. There’s something of a metaphor there. So today we’re determined to slow down and spend a bit more time looking properly at things.

First shot is one of the oaks on the crossing of Twitch Hills Clough, an old friend in fact. There’s such a graceful lean to this tree, and a gorgeous view beyond it – green hills, out towards Jepson’s Farm, and a soft light pouring in behind it. Again, it’s showing signs of crisping up, and an early autumn.

Then we’re onto the moor, wandering up to the Pike Stones, all that remains of a neolithic burial. Here we break for lunch, accompanied by the sound of bees, busy among the foaming heather. Yeats comes bubbling up here with his Lake Isle of Innisfree, and the bee loud glade. I’ve been reading and listening to Yeats a lot recently. There’s a fine mystical thrust to him. Others were writing in a similar vein around the time of course, though I suppose the cataclysms of two world wars, along with other 20th-century upheavals largely put paid to the Romantic sensibility. The war poets were a serious sobering up from all that, and then the cold dismay and the bleak cynicism of all that followed. I suppose I’m a throwback to the Romantic, then, but it’s proving a hard job finding many others willing to follow.

Anyway, this is a dramatic place to sit, looking out over the Lancashire Plain. Try as I might over the years, though, I’ve never been able to take a picture that did it justice. The shot above is from the archives – a different time, a different season. I note someone has placed a token of pebbles upon the central chamber. Odd colours though – garish reds and greens against the weathered millstone grit. Kids probably – neo-pagans wouldn’t be so unsubtle as that (I hope).

So, lunch done, we wander round by the burned out plantation, then follow our nose up Rushy Brow, guessing our way to the little reedy tarn. It’s not marked on the maps, so GPS would be of little use here. It’s unusual to find water pooling on the moor like this, and even after such a long period of dry, it persists.

The tarn’s a good staging point for the next push, which is a trackless meander towards Hurst Hill. The heather is prolific and very beautiful just now, tracing out the contours of the land, in graceful, sweeping arcs. I’m assuming it’s particular regarding the level of moisture it will tolerate. Thus, we avoid the marshy bits by following the line of it, but the going here is a bit rough, until we finally meet the more defined way crossing Hurst Hill.

The heather is especially deep up here, and lacking only a bit of sunshine to light it up. But even under a gloomy sky like this, it manages to lift the atmosphere, and then the scent of it. There’s a subtle sweetness to it – honey, musk, earth,…

Another brief pause here by the cairn before we make the crossing to the Round Loaf, another neolithic burial. The way is well trod now, easy to follow and springy underfoot, though this can be a trial in the wetter season. Pretty much central in a bowl of hills, the heather-clad blip of the Round Loaf gives a magnificent view, as well as a sense of isolation. Many tracks converge upon it, and it can be confusing, which one we came in by and which next to take on our way. It’s clear enough today, though, and we set sail across the moor, aiming for the distant shoulder of Great Hill, near the head of Dean Brook.

This can be another interminable stretch of bog, but once more is springy underfoot, and easy to make way. We’re only briefly tempted by a bagging of Great Hill’s summit, but instead choose to conserve energy, and we pick up the paved way that takes us across Redmond’s Edge instead. This is the highest section of the walk, and exhilarating in any weather. We’re about four miles out now, though it feels like twice that. And speaking of bog, there’s an especially dangerous stretch opened up recently here, atop Redmonds, which has claimed several victims. Most bog up here will swallow you up to your knees. This one is five or six feet, as its victims will attest. And it’s sneakily positioned where the pavings have sunk, and the way isn’t clear.

The hazard is clearly marked now, but do be careful to heed the warnings and keep to the way. I note the Lancashire Walking Group have added a touch of humour by christening it Bernie’s Bog – I presume in honour of one of the unfortunates who suffered a dipping.

The plan here was to pick up the track from Redmonds down by Standing Stone’s Hill, but we were distracted by the bog, and carried on over Spitlers to Will Narr – so a longer walk than intended. Strange seeing the paths up here literally dust dry, almost chalk white in contrast to the darker heather and purple moor grass.

Something catches my eye underfoot as I’m passing, and I pick it up, scrape the mud from it with my pen-knife, to find a deeply weathered two pence coin. Not a fortune, in one sense, but still a lucky find. Mercurius sometimes heralds his tricks like that, though he usually goes for a glint of silver. He must be hard up. We carry it down to the ruins of Hempshaws, and hide it under stone for the next pilgrim to chance upon it, perpetuate the game, I suppose. Like those pebbles we saw at the Pike-Stones, it roots us in the landscape, but I find it’s better if we make a secret of it.

Just a couple of miles to go now, and not a soul encountered all day. But then I come upon a couple of seemingly confused mountain bikers down in Lead Mine’s Clough, who ask me the way. Silver haired, crusty types, neither are particularly coherent, and don’t seem to know where they want to get to, or even where they’ve come from. “Well this track goes over to Will Narr,” I tell them, “this one to Moor Road by Jepson’s Gate.” But no, they are not familiar with the local names of places, either. It makes it hard to set them on their way. I suspect they just wanted to rest and chat.

They are good-natured, jolly, and seem reassured anyway, picking almost at random the way to Jepson’s Gate. Yeats would have put it in the realm of an encounter with the faery. And Mercurius did flag it, didn’t he? But only if you live poetically.

So now it’s back to the car in that quiet lay-by, and the dwindling reservoir. Peel off the boots, stash the camera safely. I feel a poem coming on – the muse doesn’t always pick her moments. Hang on, let me get a pencil.

Small change but noted

Too soon is the season spent.
This quake of August exhausts
both man and beast.
And even the trees are tiring
leaves crisping,
into a premature autumn sleep.

Meanwhile, we seek a sharpness of vision
the time to see, and the air to breathe
the moor, abuzz with honey bee,
and aromatic sweeps of heather
as, dust dry, we pass.

And from Mercurius, a coin –
small change, but noted,
and a secret kept, passed on.
Prelude to an encounter
with the sidhe.