Plumbley Pootling

Hmm. I seem to be getting slower and slower in my walks. Today I set off without planned a route other than 'I fancy going in that direction over there', there being near Eckington Woods, a parcel of ancient Beech Woods and odd bits of funny shaped plantations, in the middle of rolling arable land where the gamekeepers coax Pheasants to stay a while, breed, eat corn and be shot.

Shooting was actually a bit of a feature-ette too today.

Anyway after the cold weather the fields are streaming with water but despite this the first broad bean shoots are already 4-6 leaves, the barley looks to have survived the earlier snows and now there are bright green shoots of woodland bulbs springing up vibrantly from the woodland floor.

I plodded away from where I'd parked the car; a salubrious neighbourhood where people have thoughtfully 'placed' sofas but not for your comfort, and me becoming slightly more jaunty in a 'my hip IS FINE' sort of way as I entered the Beech trees. I've walked through these woods many times but armed with Viewranger (no Phil, I didn't register my walk on Social Hiking) I decided to go off the normal paths I beat and head off into the wilds. Well that might be a bit of an exaggeration but there is a certain delight in treading on footpaths in familiar areas but which you've never trod before.

It involved a fair bit of mud hopping, sliding, slipping, skating, pirouetting, not quite splitting and damn, I forgot my poles so the odd hand plant was in order.

A pretty dull day, bordering on freezing in the hollows, the clouds hung heavily in the air, odd bits of rain being carried in the air but nothing more than that. A guy passed me wearing a fluorescent yellow hat and blue Ron Hills. He must have been at least 65 and fairly whizzed past me, leaping gazelle like down to sunken farm roads and bounding up onto the muddy fields. How did he manage to look so graceful where I'm as graceful as an elephant on an ice rink?

Oh well, I decided to head off on a different path to him so there was no risk of him lapping me, heading up to cross one of many stiles giving fine views over to old farmsteads and the Sheffield high rises in the distance.

On the next bit of the walk was one of two areas of heath land where the clay gave way to more sandy ground and gorse bushes were in profusion with their almost ever present yellow flowers brightening the surroundings. Coney city; you could see tunnels all over the place.
I decided as I descended the second of these to stop for a brew. I didn't want to brew up on the path so took a mini diversion to the edge of another pocket of woodland, barely more than a thicket but enough to house a Pheasant pen and a few feeding stations. I found a nice banked up, mossy area to park myself on, with my bum sized sit pad (a bit of lurid green CCF mat I've been steadily butchering) and got the Caldera Cone. As a special treat I decided to use the Gram Cracker instead of meths. Half an esbit saw water quickly boiled for a coffee and, joy of joys! I found a Twix finger in my Rucksack. How did that happen? I'm not known for leaving chocolate!

The views into the valley and across to Ford and Ridgeway were lovely. The barley was so bright in the dull winter light and the patterns the tractors had made as the seed was drilled made the landscape seem as if it had been combed into patterns especially for me.

Looking across I was on the edge of more Beech so had a blonde/copper coloured carpet laid out. I just sat for quite some time looking at the views, the patterns of the tree branches and the colours, listening to the birds and watching as the occasional rabbit ventured into the open near me.

Sadly, the brew and Twix finished, I decided to continue through the woodland as a short cut, but as I crossed the area in the photo I could hear a shoot coming closer. Not wanting to be bawled out for trespassing (I was well off the right of way) I turned around and behaved, re-joining the footpath and following the contours through more mud.

Taking a path that followed a field boundary I was surprised to see some stone walls made of more slate like stone under the hedges. The whole line of hedge and wall looked as if it was ancient, although it didn't link any obvious features; it just had a feel about it. Some of the hedge was of tall holly bushes, some ivy; one bush looking like an upturned anvil, defying gravity.

I think this set me off into sensory over drive though as from then on I started studying the hedges and what plants were in them; ferns, rosettes of foxgloves, the beginnings of bulbs, oak saplings and wasp galls, dog roses (I found a hip with the seeds exposed so took a couple to sow), unfurling seedlings of Wood Anemones, tiny Dog Violets just starting to send the first blade of a shoot through the leaf litter, the very first signs of some sort of Umbellifer unravelling tentatively. I even saw some Lamium, white speckled. I wondered if this was a rogue garden plant.

My journey back expanded exponentially as I spent more time looking. My pockets expanded with selections of dead leaves, haws, rose hips, acorn jackets (so I could look up the type of Oak they'd come from). I managed to resist picking up any twigs and branches until the last half mile when I followed the Moss back towards the car. I take fallen samples, a great believer in what Ruskin once said, that to sketch the twig you can sketch the tree. Absorb yourself in the form and understand it, and it will grow from you.