early blackberries

Walked: 25/7/10
Distance 5m

Yes it's true, on 25 July, I found ripe blackberries.



With just a couple of hours to spare, I needed a short walk with a start close to home. This walk starts and finishes at the Beeches pub in Ashby, passes the Tap House (used to be Anwell Inn), crosses the A511, past the Bluebell Arboretum, through Smisby and past the Smisby Arms, takes in some beautiful views just north of Ashby and returning via the Ivanhoe Way.



And yes, they were delicious!

More photos from this walk on Flickr

Click the map below to view it at OS Explore

Spring in full bloom

Walked: 23 May 2010
Distance: 11m






More photos from this walk are here on Flickr

The route is below. For the most detailed 1:25,000 map, buy Explorer 245, The National Forest

My new heroine

From now on, the Gore-Tex stays at home. Like Mary Henrietta Kingsley I'm going to adopt Victorian formal-wear for walking including corset, good thick skirt and sensible shoes.

Animal-traps, crocodiles and cannibals held no fear for this English lady as she explored Africa clad head to foot and straight-backed.



Read more about this Great British Nutter here:
http://greatbritishnutters.blogspot.com/2008/04/mary-kingsley-friend-of-cannibals.html

Trent and Mersey, Wilson to Willington Circular

Walked: 8/7/10
Distance: 17m
Route: http://explore.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/os_routes/show/17744




As my photos have become more important in my posts, I've decided to make more use of Flickr. (Sorry, Blogger)

All photos from this walk are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shieladixon/sets/72157624453181190/

Dawn Chorus Walk

I'm really not a morning person, so it takes something special to get me up at 4am. I've never really been a bird person either, other than enjoying birdsong as background noise.

The Dawn Chorus Walk run by the Environmental Education Project at Rosliston Forestry Centre was a real eye-opener (ear-opener?). Here's a taster of what we were listening to at about 5:30


Dawn Chorus 1 May 2010 | Music Codes

A chap called Dave led us around the site telling us about the songs that we were listening to. It's amazing that once a particular song has been explained to you, you can pick it out from the general cacophany. Also amazing that once you can recognise a particular bird's song, you can then 'spot' that bird from its call alone, tell roughly where it is, and then maybe even see it.

The dawn chorus itself is something special. Each bird has its own special song, but when put together they make a fascinating piece of music with random elements.

I'm very pleased to have experienced it, and to have seen such a wonderful sunrise.

Packington / Normanton

• Walked: 23 April 2010
  
• Distance: 5.5m
• Terrain: flattish
• Summary: Park in packington, cross fields to Sprng Lane and continue straight along track. Take the muddy bridleway to Normanton le Heath, and take paths which run parallel to the road back to Packington.
• Time: 2 hrs

The weather's been so nice recently, so the muddy bridleway wasn't. A beautiful afternoon, with lots of signs of spring around; various shades of green in the trees and hedges, blackthorn flowers, dandelions in full flower, elder starting to come into leaf, lambs in the fields.








The route above was generated using Meander.

Image produced from the Ordnance Survey Get-a-map service. Map image reproduced with kind permission of Ordnance Survey and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland.

Eerie silence

the reason that this little chap has a puzzled look on his face is that it's unusually quiet. Eerily quiet.
We're beside East Midlands airport, and the reason for this silence is that somewhere up there is a cloud of volcanic dust from a volcano far away with an unpronounceable name. It stopped the aeroplanes from flying yesterday and again today. It looks like continuing into the weekend. The walk around the perimeter of the airport is pleasant enough, but I wouldn't normally do it because of the constant stream of aircraft going to and fro. But today they're all sat on the ground going nowhere. :-)On the way round, I went out of my way to visit the memorial plaque to the people who died, were injured or helped in January 1989 when a plane crashed on the M1 motorway below.

It has turned into an extraordinarily nice day today.
Some kind of fungus? Or something alien? Not sure what this is.
I do know that this is hawthorn - the leaves are unfurling now turning the hedges a beautiful bright green.
And these are the flowers of its sister, blackthorn, the flowers generally come out earlier than the leaves. And eventually turn into sloes, which make gin into a gorgeous liqueur.

Albert Village circular walk

Distance: 5m
Walked: 28 March 2010

My first tentative steps into the sunshine after a long hibernation were to explore some paths around Albert Village on the South Derbyshire / North-West Leicestershire border. A short 5m walk was just enough to get the legs working again.

After a very long cold winter and a long wait for the daffs to come out, I managed to spot several very early signs of spring. some trees as well as the hawthorne were coming into bud, and a few of those buds were starting to unfurl. Fluffy catkins were showing on willow trees.

Extra year-round colour on this walk is provided by gorse.

The National Forest is a Forest in the Making. This walk takes in some well-established as well as some newly-planted woods, and has some beautiful views over the lake at Albert Village.

On the second loop of this walk, to the east of the lake, a viewpoint gives you a great view over the lake and surrounding woods.

Stretching the legs around Ticknall

Walked: 18 Jan 2010
Distance: 6m

Words but no picutres today on account of no memory stick in the camera. This is the start of me picking up my walking again after a bit of a lull and starting to work my distance up ready for this summer's Ivanhoe Way walk.

Would there be much to see in the middle of January? What distinguishes January seems to be more about what's not there than what is there. The recent snow flurry has now melted and it's reasonably sunny and warm, meaning that there's little to distinguish this season from others now, other than the absence of leaves and flowers.

There's a surprising amount of green. Holly and ivy kleep things looking green where they grow, and the fields have just turned from white (snow) to green as this year's winter crops are starting to show through. It's fascinating to see what's been planted where. In one field I could see rape springing up where wheat had been last year and maize the year before.

I deliberately left the walk until mid-afternoon because I'd predicted a beautiful sunset. Sadly not correctly, but there was a beautiful thin sliver of a new moon in the clear sky.

My route is on OS Explore here

South Derbyshire Saunter

This picture best sums up today. The trees are now in a partial or total state of undress but after a horribly wet and windy few days, it's now unseasonably warm and sunny.



Distance: 9m
Walked: 15/11/09

For reasons of time I cut out some of the less nice paths and ended up with a cut-down 'lite' version of my '3 viewpoints' walk. (Missing out two of the original viewpoints!).

The first alteration was to cut off Bardon church and use a beautiful path from Burney Lane (just past Scotland Farm) to Melbourne.









The next alteration was to turn left at Robin Wood and head directly to Ticknall, using another very pleasant countryside path.





Holly berries are out! Jollymerry.





Click the map to view on OS Explore.

What's to see in November?

This new (to me) camera has been a life-changer. On this breezy but bright November day, rather than tread many miles at a purposeful pace, I spent a couple of hours covering half a mile through some woods and back. Rather than face forward and concentrate on the route, I looked around and found many interesting things.

I did visit this particular woods because I went astray here while walking the Ivanhoe Way last time, and wanted to make sure I knew the correct route ready for next time.

The most noticeable things about November are the green turning brown, trees turning bare and the ground becoming covered with a carpet of bronze leaves.


The dry pods of this broom are beautiful in macro.


The bracken is turning brown.


More bracken? No, this is moss in extreme close-up. Frondy.


These guys were tiny:


There are more new photos in my Autumn Colour set over at Flickr.