Local Beauty Spots

We’re getting worried now that we might take root! We’re still at home, keeping very busy but somehow the great outdoors is beckoning. The only trouble is the weather forecasts are horrendous and the gale force winds that we have been threatened with would certainly make the van uncomfortable. We have been listening to the ‘Barometric net’ on the radio, a gang of radio amateurs that meet every morning on the airwaves. They call in from all over Britain and when the conditions are good Germans and Dutch amateurs join in. Anyway this week they all agreed that none of them had seen the barometric pressure as low since the great storm in the eighties that took out 6 of the Oaks in Sevenoaks, Kent and so we have been waiting for the hurricane! We have both used the waiting time to our advantage, Pat has been reconstructing the Amateur Radio station and in between helping him I have been crafting. I hope to have some nice things for sale for Christmas.

Over the last few days we have managed to visit some of the beautiful places on our doorstep, to the East we have Sherwood Forest. An area of deciduous woodland that has some of the oldest Oak trees in the country. The most famous of these is the Major Oak which is 800 years old and 33 ft around it’s trunk with branches spreading out 92 feet. It has had a lot of care over the years and the last time I visited it, the branches were propped up with telegraph poles and I felt sad because it’s not going to be allowed to die gracefully and disappear back into the earth, it will be held together with chains and any rotten bits cut out and replaced with fibre glass which will be painted to match the trunk colouring, in fact it will be more plastic than wood - a sad future for any living thing.

The woodland though is especially pretty this time of year and as we drove through the Autumn colours were splendid. The Oak turns from green through yellow to a dusky brown. Sometimes showing all shades in between but eventually all the leaves end up the one colour. The trunks and branches show up stark black through the thinning leaves and the whole scene is sharp and beautiful. The woodland floor is covered with leaves of all colours, the bright yellow maple, the scarlet Sycamore and who can say that they don’t find the bronzed Beech delightful.

We have also travelled West from home to The Peak District. This is an outstanding area and was the earliest National Park in the country when it was designated in 1951. The park is divided into the Dark Peak, an area of Gritstone and the White Peak which is mostly Limestone. We parked up at Longstone Edge in the White Peak. The views from here are magnificent down over the valley.

We had a Bill Oddie experience here when a flock of Starlings appeared and landed in the field quite close to us. We estimate that there were 5000 birds, possibly more and they kept flitting around each other so that there was constant movement in the air and on the ground. A small puddle of rainwater became their very own Jacuzzi and so much water was thrown in the air that the birds bathing disappeared in a brown mist. Suddenly they all took off as one and swept around the sky in front of us. We couldn’t make out any definite shapes but I classed this as another Dragon moment. The van was surrounded by a swirling mass of wings - ever seen Hitchcock’s terrifying film ‘The Birds’? well it was nothing like that, this was a great experience and just for a second we were a part of the flock!

The gentle hills of the Peak District with it’s small villages are excellent for walkers and there are rivers with clear, sparkling water running through the valleys. Trout fishing is very private with clubs from far and wide owning the fishing rights. Footpaths are prolific and interesting because as you follow them they twist and turn and you are constantly getting new views either around the corner or as you top the crest of a hill. We love the Peak District at all times of the year but Autumn is especially colourful because there are a lot trees planted in the grounds of the great houses like Chatsworth and Haddon Hall especially for their colourful foliage.

As you stand and look upon a wooded hillside it’s possible to pick out the Larch, the only conifer to shed it’s needles, the Silver Birch with their white trunks that look as though someone has scratched the colour off the canvas and the Sycamore, yellow through to red, a photograph just does not do it justice.
We spend a lot of time in the Peak when at home so I’ll check up the history of this most beautiful area that is literally on our doorstep. We both know how lucky we are to be so close to the second most visited National Park in the world.