This afternoon with the family , hooray the lads were with us, I had a lovely 2 hour walk around the Durham Woods and into the City Center . The weather was slow , low and sultry and in the River Wear fronds of lilies and rushes were growing sometimes in the middle of the river which shows the time the river is very low is increasing so much that aquatic plant seeds have time to settle and germinate and are rooted enough for the following flood which is a long time off to not sweep them away . The climatic times are a changing ! Interesting to observe as the years roll by . At the weir next to Framwellgate Bridge was the amazing sight of two Common Terns a long way inland stood on the weir and fending off mallards and seagulls trying to mob them neither of which were a match for these two toughies and those long sharp beaks that are useful for stabbing fish when they do there huge 30 meter plunges into the sea to get fish in any and all weathers. We noticed that one of the Terns was a fledgling . Biscuit break was on the newly refurbished Durham market Square and the Council has done a good job . Saw some Morris dancers today which was nice and even the lads were interested . Back home listening to Buffy St Marie in the car , then crash out with the wonder wife I have and listen to John Wuilliams and Juliam Bream . I a lucky man !

Yesterday with Fiona but not the lads because they were both ill with bad colds I went to visit Fiona's mother at Dalton but before then had a trip to the Dales. Going over the old tank road To Wensleydale I saw a huge flock of 20 to 30 curlews feeding away in a field and I knew we were going to have a good day from that point on. Wensleydale is a gorgeous Dale and as we approached Barningham a rabbit shot out in front of the car running in a absolutely straight line which was because there was a stoat pursuing it which shot out immediately after. As soon as I got alongside the animal it popped right back into the hedgerow! Always worth getting out early. Pulling in at Barningham we went to see the water powered Archimedes screw driving a small turbine to generate electricity for the village. Very interesting not least because the thing was not running because there was not enough water in the river. It is the river Bain that provides the power which I hope does not signify that the lack of water which can occur for over half of the year in Wensleydale is not a bane on the whole project .Food for thought for those making claims about so called renewable energy. Buy lots of candles folks! Next we went on to the National Nature Reserve on the plain beneath Ingleborough Hill near Ingleton. There are acres of limestone pavements all conveniently laid out by the last glaciation and before that by warm shallow seas 360 million years ago and from a distance they look very regular but when you actually walk on them they are very irregular eroded all over the place and the grikes the gaps between the clints have whole mini ecosytems of ferns, flowering plants and spiders . There are 12 varieties of fern living in these mini worlds which are very sheltered because of the depth of them . Today we never saw sheep skulls which is what I saw a lot of the last time I was near here in the '70s because the sheep fall into the grikes and can't get out , no one can see them and they starve to death. Always reminded of that Betjeman poem "Late flowering Lust" "The mouth that I kiss has no tongue inside" neither does a sheep's skull wedged in a grike. Ingleborough Hill loomed over us constantly and I was very tempted to go piling up its flanks to tread those Millstone Grit capped peaks but Fiona said a very and I mean very firm " No". We saw loads of Wheatears as well, mostly fledglings so the breeding season has gone well and they'll be off back to Africa soon. Also spotted the tiniest and cutest frog I've ever seen it was so small that it grabbed a thin piece of grass and just held on for dear life trying to blend in and not get eaten . Lucky I wasn't a heron! Onward to visit Fiona's Mun at Dalton and she was in good fettle and we took several family 'photo albums and she really enjoyed them particularly seeing herself over 20 years ago . It really got her thinking and talking . A beautiful experience not least because she is in a steadily declining phase at the moment but she is plucky , tries hard , gets the jokes and points things out . Its difficult for us sometimes but the enjoyment she gets from seeing us far outweighs any hassle . A road many of us will have to tread because its the price of living longer . I've told the lads I'm going over Whitby cliffs if I get fed up when I'm a lot older! They actually took that seriously when I first said it! Good! Coming back over the A66 I'm always struck by the geological diversity of our amazing UK. Driving over Carboniferous rocks under the road I get to look at the Jurassic under the North York Moors with the Silurian under the Howgills to the right . What was best about our Ingleborough walk in Chapel le Dale was standing next to a huge cairn with Carboniferous limestone all around us for miles and walking off after lunch only to find a small blackish boulder about the size of a football which was was so rough that you had to be careful you didn't graze your self stroking it and it was a Borrowdale volcanic rock a piece of tuff , flying ash from a volcano spewing it out around 400 million years ago when Scotland joined England in a final act of union. This rock had been dragged all the way to Ingleborough from the Lake District by a glacier 14000 years ago and deposited . It is truly amazing what you find and just as amazing looking at this process from the past still affecting my understanding and wonderment of the earth now . Get out there folks there is a lot to see and understand and its great fun .

Today with the family the first of the Lake District walks got underway . Going over to Ullswater via the A66 cross Pennine route with the Carboniferous Pennines on the right all rolling and anticline ( look it up its a good one ) with a fluffy duvet cover of grey white clouds following the gradients and on the right the sun blazing away over the Howgills , Mallerstang and Wild Boar Fells were all putting us in the right frame of mind for a good foot slogging . Chicago 1, the album not the show thank God, was rocking out of the stereo and it was Jazz Rock all the way to Glenridding and because we were early virtually nobody there ! Well the lads were going the high way up to Hellvelyn via Striding edge which is a bit of a joke because that's the last place you can stride unless you want to break your leg , and tred around Red Tarn and then a deviation from what I suggested to "lengthen the walk " as Miles said. Good lad . The intrepid Fo and Paul were going the low way around the Ullswater Lake to a Delta near Hopetown named because if you get there there's no hope of getting back and when we watchfully went along the path with a might be a Whinchat or Stone Chat we actually saw two bird species that we were confident we could identify when we got back because they were rare but blindingly obvious namely a Common Crossbill all orange and err Crossbilled , thats what millions of years of eating nuts does for you but best of all after scanning an oak tree with more forensic intent than CSI we saw a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker and joy of joys it flew straight at and over us and its mate or brother or sister joined it and they winged over to a prominent Larch and just perched there just posing for us to look at them . Wonderful and they pranced around a load of rocks as well putting on a good show . Well all of this within 250 metres and on the rest of the 8 mile walk we saw little but got quite into some interesting droppings which were jet black like blackberry jam but they had undigested red berries in the stuff and for the life of us we could find no Flora with red berries . We think it was the droppings of a Pine Marten because we've seen similar droppings in Grisedale forest but the jury is still out . After getting close to Hope Town but with no hope of getting there and getting back to the boys in time we ripped back just to make sure we were on time and galloping through the rocky woods was great , so great that we realized we had got well ahead of time so we crashed out near where we saw the woodpeckers and amongst about 50 Cubs doing hiking and a fine bunch of young hiking ladies went by all courtesy, fine legs and curves and I wish my lads had been there to see that the Hiking Lady species is not dieing and is there just waiting to be ummm hiked with . They're coming with us next time although they ran into a large group of young hiking ladies trudging down a steep bit of Hellvelyn and they looked like they'd gone a long way . A great day and several birds we saw like the Little Grebe or was it a Wigeon we are busy trying to nail down . We've got to take notebooks to write down what we see because its easy to forget . A great day out !

Today , without Miles again due to his cold, me and the rest of the family had a sweet 2 hour walk around the Durham City River Wear area. The river was muddy brown due to the heavy downpours that have occurred all over the north but when they happen in the Upper Pennines the valleys concentrate the force of the water and a lot of erosion occurs , hence the brown water heavily laden with peat sediment. Over the whole river area barely a bird in sight. July seems to be a quiet month for birds ! Biscuit break in Durham City center was interesting because there was a South American duo playing tribal music and one of the guys had a Pan Pipe that trailed all the way to the ground . Massive. It was so low in pitch that when he played it whales were attracted up the Wear estuary way down in Sunderland.Really good and they were raking in the money . On the way back we had a typical husband wife series of comments : Fiona " Oo look Paul at those flowers in the hanging baskets " Paul (trying to impress his wife with Bob Dylan lyrics " Can you cook and sow make flowers grow do you understand my pain " , looking meaningfully at Fiona . Fiona : " Yes Paul but I don't share it!" If anyone wonders why I love her now you know ! A nice afternoon out .

Well, with Fiona and Clifford but not Miles because he was zonked with a nasty cold we did the first walk of the holiday a glorious 8 mile pad around York. Fiona loved Homestead Park gardens and they have a new wildflower section there and after enjoying that we trekked into the center and on to the York Uni campus. The weather was sultry and this was reflected in the very quiet and calm ducks we saw at Derwent College lake and when sat down having a rest I unsuccessfully tried to get one of these ducks to put its head in my old Cornish Pasty bag so it could nibble the crumbs . No chance , ducks are not daft ! Good fun though and the activity was terminated by my youngest son telling me quite affectionately " Dad I'd better take that off you now" Which he did . Ahhh hes treating me like an old man. Ummm. Further down the lake we saw a Great Crested Grebe a young one , so they had nested somewhere on the lake after all but whilst viewing this bird with the binoculars we looked up and saw a huge seagull through this transparent roof and what looked like a fish . "Ignore the seagull" my little brain said but then there were several short stabbing thumps and the seagull had a live fish up there and was busy stabbing the thing to death. Isn't nature so nice !? There was a fair bit of red flesh showing and as we moved further down the lake we saw the seagull wolfing down the fish in chunks. Its never boring . Trotting off over the Walmgate Stray we saw a gorgeous Bullfinch and it was doing its single short tweets , not those tweets , because this little bird was in a tree and it is well known that our feathered friends only access the net when perched on phone lines . And yes they are recharging their batteries when they are perched on power lines. Oh, must get this in on the way down that very unnatural nature reserve called the A19 motorway we saw a huge Buzzard circling in a cornfield . Nice . Anyway back to the Stray; the allotments at the end were full of birds and overgrown with produce on its way to what looks like a good harvest . A good , humorous and fit warm up for the rest of the holiday and Fo was pretty tired when we got back to the car and slept most of the way back to Darlington! Start as you mean to go on!

On Saturday with the family on a very wet and blustery day I went to Duncombe Park in Helmsley North Yorkshire. As usual for our weekend walk we go anywhere within an hours drive of our house but the particular reason for going to this part of Yorkshire was that a lovely Facebook friend Julie Shackson and her partner Toby Philpott and the Stoical Dandy Doggins were having a weekend there at the reputable Black Swan Hotel. We had also wanted to visit Duncombe Park for years and given that there are so many places to go to in our area and we go back to the same places again and again because they are so great we had driven past Duncombe Park loads of times on the way somewhere else but on Saturday we stopped! Unbelievably for me I forgot to take my coat which considering I always check that the family have got thiers was very annoying . Still it was warm and once I had got thoroughly soaked through to the skin , after half an hour, I was comfortable. There are managed mini forests of Ash , Lime , Oak and Elm predominantly which with all the rain soaking through the carpet of mostly rotted leaves brought out the sweetest and most interesting smells I had whiffed in years! It was sensual and pungent and if we hadn't gone out on such a wet day we would have missed it all. I'd wanted to look at some birds but with all the rain there was very little around . We go very close to a flock of swallows moving ahead of us on a fence and saw a large hare in the distance . There were some gorgeous views of the small and winding Ryedale Valley going up to Rievaulx Abbey and just further up from there is the small and twee Hawnby Hill where Fiona and I had our first date walking when we were courting and I realized that she was a very nice lady , good to talk with and physically very pretty not least because she had good walking legs and just plodded on very much as I did . That was the foundation for a marriage that had lasted nearly 23 years! We were supposed to meet Julie and Toby at the tearoom but it was closed in fact I've never been to such a laid back country house and grounds because there was no one there at all! They just had an honesty rox at the house and of course Miles just had to know if it was secured to the table or not , but Fiona prodded it first out of criminal curiosity as I subsequently teased and then claimed she wasn't testing its security at all . I'd never realised until then what dark interests my wife and eldest son had! Soaking wet we met Julie and Toby back in Helmlsley and had a really nice chat .They are great people who I sincerely hope I meet again . I've now got a good reason to go to Wales and of course they have mountains, superb geology and great fauna and flora . So watch out Wales the Saunders-Priem family is coming . A great weekend and it was a sheer pleasure to tell my lads to stop complaining about the rain although we let them mutter on about having "Crazy parents" because that is so true!

A very pleasant and interesting weekend. On Saturday whilst the family were tucked up in bed I really fancied a good 2 1/2 hour walk around York and that's what I did. I went round the usual route and early morning York was serene and purposeful as usual. Whilst going past the Central Hall in York University the General Synod was in progress and I didn't think it was a good idea to go tell them to get way into Christian Unity and making a better society and don't get diverted by all these silly issues to do with homosexuality and women priests. There is absolutely nothing explicit in the Bible which forbids same-sex relationships or women priests. Women priests are a good thing in my view. When I went back through the centre of York a whole load of people had turned up many of them dressed up because it was Race Day which would explain the very horsey looks. That's gambling for you. On Sunday with the family we went to see Veronica Fionas Mum over in the South Lakes and on the way we stopped at the foot of Bowderdale and had a one hour walk into the valley. Which was totally amazing. The strong sweet smell of freshly cut grass where the farmers had just laid out the Hay was overpowering and beautiful. The lads shot off ahead to stretch their legs and Fiona and I kept stopping to look at the various plants and geography features such as the amazing gullies that carve up into the sides of the dale and the various alluvial fans massive deposits of gravel and small rock which were in the gullies a few thousand years ago. Actually, as I found out today some of the gravel was in the gullies only 30 years ago and Bowderdale is a well studied one with lots of information about it . Through the binoculars looking up at the snakelike meander of the river coming down from the large Fell of Yarlside was magical. When we got to see Veronica she was in good health or as well as she can be and we had a really good laugh and a nice talk. It is truly gratifying to know that she is in such a fine old people's home where they really care for the residents. A very nice day and I cannot wait to go back to the Howgills and Bowderdale in a couple of weeks time to look at all the plants, birds, geology and geography features and I'm planning the route already. Though I must mention this I really enjoyed the Wham Charity Bash on Saturday sitting in with all the people and talking with them but I found playing difficult because the sound quality was so abysmal. There were several mikes at the front of the stage and one of them had been left turned up way too much and was just constantly feeding back throughout the set. I thought it was my amp at first but it wasn't. Next year I will insist on a sound check before we get going. It was my fault really given was the most experienced musician there! I feel I let Button Hall Jam down a little bit and was disappointed that I did not manage to have a good warbling session with Klara the female lead singer although there was plenty of harmonica blasting out! A good weekend.

Yesterday with the family we had a lovely two hour walk around Billy Banks Woods in Richmond North Yorkshire. It felt like walking through a heat sandwich between the white grey fluffy clouds and the lovely land of Richmond. When we got down to the River Swale all the brown murky peat of the showers last week had washed out and the colour of the water was a light apple brown clear and beautiful. Just as we got past Round Howe the remnants of an oxbow River formation we noticed a sudden flapping on our right and straight away I realised this was something more than just a couple of wild Mallards and I was right because as we peered through the tree canopy down into the river we saw joy of joys a small flock of about seven fledgeling Goosanders. They were swiftly moving away from us using the current and paddling very quickly downstream. Immediately I said to the boys to meet back at the Green Bridge so they could do the full walk but Fiona and I went off to look at this highly prized and very unique sight of fledgeling Goosanders. We had seen many Goosanders last winter when County Durham was frozen over and there was nowhere else for them to go but to fast flowing water which was not iced up that being the only place where they could feed. I had often wondered where they went to breed because over the summer I never saw Goosanders. Well now I know! They go anywhere where there is water full of fish. They don't go anywhere particularly quiet to breed because the riverbank we were walking on is frequented quite regularly by dog walkers but I noticed that the Goosander fledgelings were on the opposite side of the bank which is not open to the public. We swiftly walked back to Round Howe so we could attempt to meet up with the boys as they were circling back and we belted up the bank and were ahead of them so we asked a couple who were walking on the path going in the direction of the boys to tell them that we were ahead of them! I was also manically enthusing about Goosanders and must have sounded a bit deranged to them! So what's new! We sauntered off down to the Green Bridge through a field of tall fine grass and sweet smelling clover where when you stood still all you could hear was the quiet hum of thousands of bees feeding off the nectar of the clover. It was a magical and heavenly moment and if we hadn't had to meet up with the boys it would've been nice just to lay in the field listening to it all and smelling it. Beautiful. We had biscuit break in the woods and were quietly pelted with the outer casings of beech mast dropping from the trees although we have yet to confirm that. We met the boys at the Green Bridge and they would not have caught up with us after all because Miles had taken a diversion! He certainly takes after his Dad although he had more sense than to call it a short cut as I often do. A smashing walk and seeing fledgeling Goosanders has been the high spot of my year!