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" The Flass Woods Round "

Date & start time:    Wednesday 27th February, 2019 and the following few days.

Location of Start :   By the red phone box, Loweswater, Cumbria, Uk. ( NY 143 211 )

Places visited :         Flass Woods and Crummock lakeside.

Walk details :             3.2 miles, 475 feet of ascent,  1 hours 45 mins approx.

Highest point :          Flass Woods above High Park.

Walked with :             Sue and Mike, Jo, Peter, Ann and our dogs Dylan and Dougal.

Weather :                    Sunshine to snow and back to sunshine over the five days.

© Crown copyright. All rights reserved. Licence number PU 100034184.

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Two local walks and a selection

of photos from the last week here in Loweswater. 

 

We've had a variety of weather starting with the last

of the summer-like hazy days

and ending with a small blast of snow

from the back end of Storm Freya as it crossed the country.

 

Our week includes three sets of visitors

calling for a new batch of cake to be made . . . excellent !

 

First . . . a look around the garden.

 

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Our rhododendrons are in flower at the bottom of the garden.

They must be an early variety . . . let's hope the weather is kind to these short lived blooms.

The daffodils have blossomed nicely in time for March 1st

where in Wales, our old home area, they are celebrating St David's Day.

" High Five "
I remember trying to eat daffodils too !

My son sent me these couple of pictures of his young lad, Luke, our grandson, who was at a playgroup's St David's Day party.

I don't know which was more scary, Father Christmas in December or the Dragon in March !

Dougal was intrigued with something at the edge of the pond.

It turned out to be the first frog spawn of the season.

 

A Loweswatercam viewer, Grant Maton wrote: If that's frog spawn you can log the location via this site:

https://freshwaterhabitats.org.uk/.../spawnsurvey2019/

Thanks Grant, done it . . . RmH

 

In the paddock, the bulbs I planted are starting to bloom.
This one's a dwarf iris that came from the top garden bed.

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Mike and Sue from Washington, Tyne and Wear were over in the Lakes and enjoying the recent sunny weather.

They called over to see ourselves and the dogs, or should that be the dogs and ourselves, and we enjoyed a local walk.

We met up here in Loweswater in December and also in Billy Row last September when we collected Dougal from the kennels.

Our walk took us past the Kirkstile Inn, up the track to the firebreak,

under Mellbreak and on through Flass Woods.

Dylan and Dougal, Dylan claiming the high ground . . . but not for long.

Once the click of the shutter was heard it was a mad dog-run down to the lake.

Whiteside and Grasmoor across Crummock Water.

The classic view up the lake includes Rannerdale Knotts, with Haystacks in the distance.

Yesterday's haze is hanging on making long distance visibility rather poor.

"Around the Peel"

The raised ground, almost an island behind the big beach, has a natural deciduous tree edge.

Crossing the path from the smaller beach to the pump house we find more frog spawn in the marshy area behind the lakeside wall.

The Cut . . . bringing Loweswater's Park Beck down into Crummock Water . . .

. . . where it floods out into the lake, carrying a large amount of waterborne gravel.

This continues to expand the shallows at this point and and thus makes the lake water apparently change colour.

Down at the weir where a small branch has ended up stranded on the lip.

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Other waterborne detritus

has also blocked the white eel brushes

which presumably upgrades them

from useless to worse than useless

whilst at the same time

maintaining them as

an eyesore !

 

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The water level is about average today and the little island near one of the swimming pools is truly "afloat".

Dougal and Dylan down by the measuring weir at Scale Hill car park.

 

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Can I have a rant against poo bags . . .

The bags are supposed to be biodegradable but probably take hundreds of times longer to disappear than the dog poo that people put in them.

If anyone is going to clear their dog's mess off the path then hopefully they will dispose of it in the undergrowth as this Forestry Commission sign suggests.

If it is to be bagged then it should not be left on the gatepost (there were four there today) but taken away and disposed of in household or holiday accommodation waste bins.

I'm fed up of clearing up other people's dog mess !

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On Thursday Jo came over for the day as we had tickets for the Banff Film Festival World Tour.

Before we drove over to Keswick we had time for a leisurely lunch and a local walk.

The sky is more overcast today and there is a different type of  'reduced visibility' up the lake.

Chance for a photo . . .
if we can fit both dogs on one rock . . .

. . . and keep them still long enough for me to press the shutter.

Round at the small beach there are a few larger pieces of wood for the dogs to retrieve.

Dylan was the first in for this one . . .
Amber leads the way to fetching an alternative log.

Returning as proud as punch.

In the evening our two try to settle down for a rest . . .

. . . but there's not as much spare room in the bed as there used to be.

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I had a delivery of soil for the garden this week, and in addition, a JCB bucketful of rotted horse manure from my neighbour.

Fortunately our friend Peter was able to travel over on Saturday from Staveley.

He filled the wheelbarrow multiple times in order to re-distribute the old manure to where it was needed.

The empty half of the extended fruit cage has been filled with barrow-fulls of goodness.

It still smells of horses much to Dougal's delight, but after rotting down for a year or more, it was relatively clean to transport.

I've had to string a low fence across in the vain attempt to keep the dogs off.  

A big thanks to Pete for his help today.

Rain stopped play after lunch and we weren't able to extend a second raised bed . . . better luck next time.

At least it is only just into March and I won't need to plant the beans here for a while.

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After all the sunshine and "delightful Spring days" we knew it couldn't last . . .

The evening of Sunday March 3rd found Storm Freya blowing its way across the UK.

We were spared the heavy winds of southern Britain but did have a fall of snow which started mid-evening.

In the morning the warm ground conditions from the last few weeks has melted any valley whiteness,

but the high fells now have cooler temperatures and a covering of late winter snow, a double problem for any walkers up there.

All I have to do down here is to put the emergency generator away in the shed this morning

as last nights storm caused a two and a half hour power cut . . . strange as it didn't seem too bad a night of weather to us.

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Technical note: Pictures taken with either Ann's Panasonic Lumix TZ60, or my Panasonic Lumix Gx8 Camera.

Resized in Photoshop, and built up on a Dreamweaver web builder.

This site best viewed with . . . a generator and leads to power up the house in the event of an extended power cut.

Go to Top . . . © RmH . . . Email me here

Previous walk - 26th Feb - Hazy Sale Fell

A previous time up here - 31st August 2017 - Harry's Pool and Crummock

Next walk - 5th to 10th March Under Mellbreak