27 November 2011

Windy

No - not windy in the sense that I had eaten a brussel sprout and baked bean curry, but windy in the other sense where an invisible force buffets you to a point where it nearly knocks you off your feet. That is how it was this afternoon as I rambled up on Derwent Edge in the Peak District.

Parking near Cutthroat Bridge, I followed the public right of way for a mile across heather clad moorland up to Whinstone Lee Fields. Here the wind was channelled and intensified to a point where I couldn't even hold my camera steady as my woollen Hull City AFC ski hat was whipped off my head. However, the view down to Ladybower reservoir was gorgeous:-
On Derwent Edge, the wind was piercing my ear cavities. Though the weatherman had promised a blue sky day with strong winds, there were grey clouds about - hurrying ever eastwards. One moment the millstone outcrop known as The Wheel Stones was in shadow and the next moment it was highlighted theatrically by late November sunshine:-
Onwards I strode along the windswept edge until I found my main goal: The Salt Cellar. Such a curious natural carving in millstone grit - shaped by millennia of strong winds and bitter winters. My picture fails to make it clear that The Salt Cellar is about twelve feet tall:
When walking on the moors of Derbyshire and South Yorkshire, ramblers will often disturb resting grouse. With their curious intermittent cries, they rise in panic from the heather and I have never managed to photograph that wing-flapping moment but today, before I returned to the car, I spotted this bold red grouse up wind of me:-
But all too soon he was gone like a feathered kite, riding the invisible gale.

10 comments:

  1. all you needed in those shots is a georgian lady with a faraway expression

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  2. How I wish I was there....it is somewhere I would love to visit and keep meaning to get to...looks so beautiful...great photos too YP.

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  3. It is a lovely area and your photos certainly do it justice.

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  4. How lucky you are to live in this lovely area. I love it when I know the places you are talking about!
    We tramped around some high moorland area that looked very similar to that somewhere near Castleton( no map nearby to check that spelling I'm afraid).I don't know if that is nearby with finding said map and I'm too lazy to go searching at this hour of night.
    Bleak, windy and covered with what I think might have been heather and huge rocks and littered with big round flat stones with a hole in the middle that may have been mill wheels though why there were so many of them around mystifies me.
    It's so hot here I wish I was back there !!!
    Cheers

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  5. JOHN GRAY I have never met anyone from the former Soviet nation of Georgia but I have met people from the state of Georgia in America which is also faraway.
    LIBBY The day before the same scenes would have looked grey, misty and uninviting but I thank you for your kind compliment ma'am.
    JENNY As above.
    HELEN Yes you were right about the spelling of Castleton which is around five miles to the south west of Derwent Moors. Was Tony dressed as Heathcliff that day?
    MORNING AJ I know I am!

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  6. I know from personal experience that after any Georgian encounters Yorkshire Pudding, he or she has a faraway expression....

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  7. R.W.PLAGUE I do declare my good sir, you appear to have omitted the preposition "with". Your grammatical guile must have been faraway - perhaps in Alabamistan?

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  8. Lovely photos. If I ever retire (and I can't really imagine it at the moment as I'm so work-orientated!) I hope to spend a lot of time walking in beautiful countryside.

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  9. pud
    you are such a wag xxx

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