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Two walks both local, but they are as different as chalk and cheese.

The first is a sunny day and a gentle walk finds me enjoying the colour and scenes of the valley.

A second walk a few days later, the weather has changed and an idle thought takes me higher, much higher.

Loweswater's St Bartholomew's Church, seen across the field walls close to home.

The northern end of Mellbreak, seen above the pink cherry tree and red door of Low Park.

High Park has a Grade 2 listed exterior, its mullioned windows reflecting the age of the house.

The fence on Sandy Yatt beach leads the eye over the deeper waters of Crummock Water.

The bare trunks of the trees closer to the weir have an almost surreal aspect at times.

When the May weather was good it was very good.

Back across the fields to the cottage, dogs exercised today if not actually worn out !

- - - o o o - - -

However, when the weather is not so good . . . the sky becomes bland and the colours merge.

I had been reading Ian Tyler's book on local mining and he mentioned a trial lead mine on the side of Mellbreak.

However he says it is very small and only worth looking for if you've got nothing better to do on a Sunday afternoon !

Well, I was walking the dogs from the cottage towards Ling Crag on the opposite shore and spotted what thought might be a spoil heap.

The 15th of May was actually a Saturday and yes, I didn't have anything better to do, so I changed my objective

and headed up the steep slope in the direction of the red dots I've added to the picture.

Well I climbed up to what might have been the top of a spoil heap, but in fact it turned out to be just a stream-washed stone scree.

Still, the view from this far up the fell side turned out to be rather good, even though I only had my mobile phone to record the pictures.

Now I was so far up that I decided to keep going . . . upward !

I aimed for a slight gully, picking my way between the rocks and the bilberry bushes.

I'll have to call this view the "peep over the edge" rather than the "peep round the corner".

I had climbed the side of the fell close to the Mellbreak Pinnacles, an area of the fell I don't normally get to,

so I decided to walk over to view them while I was here.

	- - - o o o - - -     There was the option to descend but that would involve some serious scree running so I decided to back-track before I dropped much lower down the fell side.   The dogs led the way back up the track.     - - - o o o - - -

Feeling tired but relaxed after the interesting ascent

I thought I might keep it simple and descended the opposite side of the hause, using the transverse path down into Mosedale.

A gently descending path crosses Mellbreak's equally steep western slopes and gradually leads you down into the valley.

Not far from home now.

As I walked down the track below Harry's Pool the sounds of the cuckoo filled the air.  It was perched on the adjacent tree.

I opened the phone camera once again and took a quick picture of it . . . can you see it in the centre of the photo ?

Okay it had left the branch of the first tree and was away behind the second by the time I managed to press the shutter.

But it was, unmistakably, a rare sighting of a cuckoo . . . honest !