(no subject)

My mother and I went for a walk today: from Grindleford station up through Padley Gorge (where we met an adorable black lab puppy trying to wrangle a dead branch rather longer than the path was wide), then up through the Longshaw Estate. Instead of turning left up to Fox House at that point, we turned right and went in quest of the tall wooden pole on the skyline (which has its own car park). We almost got there one day last summer, but had to turn back to catch the bus, so it was nice to succeed in our Expotition this time. There's quite a nice view of the Hope Valley from up there, from a perspective that was new to us. Along the way there were coots both adult and juvenile, ducks and moorhens, a giant wooden ant with small live ones crawling all over it, nuthatches and great tits dodging in and out of the bark on a dead tree, foxgloves, and of course sheep -- the lambs quite large by now but still sticking close to their mothers and suckling when they got the chance. From there we went on along the uphill side of the estate, then across Totley Moss, passing the chimney and barrow-like spoil heap for the Totley rail tunnel that runs under the moor, and down a rough, bike-damaged track to rejoin our usual route back to the Totley bus stop.

It was quite warm, but not mostly overcast, not too unpleasant for walking.