Today I was supposed be to hiking around the geological wonders of the Howgills but both Fiona and Miles had colds so I went for a walk around York instead. Because of a lot of serious hiking on my own 1976 to 1979 when I was periodically very unhappy with life I'm not to keen on walking the hills on my own. I didn't fancy the usual route today so I walked around the streets and alleys of the City Center including going inside York Minister. I eventually ended up at the Millennium foot bridge where I noticed several people just crashed out on the thing so I stretched out there my self which was very comfortable what with various boats sailing underneath periodically . Very peaceful. Going back through Parliament Street I noticed one of the York Bahai's, Daryoush Mazloum, who I don't think is a Yorkshireman, he is Iranian, doing a small Baha'i stall and I did that with him for the next 90 minutes which was fun , talking with complete strangers one who'd been to Haifa in Israel and had seen the Bahai World Center which slightly miffs me because I am a Baha'i and I'm supposed to go on Pilgrimage to the World Center eventually but I keep on running into non Bahai's who've been there, one of them several times. In 1990 Fiona did a stall there and it was a very similar experience of people looking at the stall then talking to us a bit about the world and how does the Baha'i Faith fit into it something us Bahai's call teaching : basically two way communication as opposed to proselytizing which is one way communication and that is forbidden to us lot. I pretty much like talking about anything I'm interested in like geology , politics, religion and birds so I really enjoy meeting the public . I mentioned to Daryoush that I'm being a steward at the Peace Festival in York this Sunday and he said he will try and get a pitch for the Baha'i Stall there so I will be stewarding , doing the Baha'i stall, socializing with friends like Sybil and Jon Wood and David Young and hopefully getting a walk in so it should be a good day out ! Anyway seeing Daryoush was great and the autumnal light and air in York was lovely . Another nice day out without the family !

Sometimes you have a day out that knocks you emotionally just because of the sheer beauty of it . Myself and the family went over to Dalton in the South Lakes to celebrate Fiona's Mums (Veronica) 88th Birthday . Beckie, Fiona's sister and her daughter were there to and we all gathered together in a day room in the fine old peoples home Veronica currently lives in . Singing Happy Birthday to her all smiling away was a joy to behold. Seeing her opening the chocolates with the freshness of a young girl and the coyness of someone who you'd think had never tasted chocolate before was lovely to watch . She just wanted to have a chocolate and share them with everyone as well. Nice . We went to the fine eating establishment the Stagger Inn , stagger in , yes , and she lapped up the attention and the food . An amazing time . Driving back via the Howgills which had thick and wispy clouds hovering halfway up the slopes and sliding down into the valley just complimented the nice setting sun melancholy that we all felt . The only cloud in my valley was that my faint heart family didn't want to pop up a Howgill " Just a little one " I said to really experience the clouds . They wanted to get home and I love them all for it ! A very nice day and God bless all the families all over the world.

Last Wednesday I went with the family to Borrowdale in the Lake District . We parked up at Seathwaite and the lads went up to Sty Head Tarn , Sprinkling Tarn, up the rocky Great End , Broad Crag and then onto Scafell in gorgeous sunshine made interesting by clouds skimming the tops for a few minutes looking rain bearing and ominous but it was dry all day . Fiona and I headed off down the Borrowdale Valley looking for interesting plants , birds and Red Squirrels but mostly just enjoying the narrow closed in valley that folds you up within its sides and interests the eye and heart. There were many boulders lying around from the Ice Age and as we crossed the river into the woods the path went very close to the river , so close that chains had been put on the boulders to hold onto as we shuffled around the path . Or , were the chains there to shackle the Mommy Monster that is known to stalk the valley and this is obviously true because there she was not there . I looked over my shoulder several times and swore I saw her . At Castle Crags I had a good poke around the slate tips looking for graptolites and think I saw them and this time I had my hand lens but I'm still not sure . Got to look at lots of field pictures of them . Onward to Grange through the Hazel and Oak forest and we went to a Cafe we'd visited years ago and the nice man vaguely remembered us because we were winter visitors . Munching over, we trundled back down the path and as I glanced along to an open gate I saw something light tan brown whisk up the gate post and thought it was a stoat , but stoats rarely climb after crossing a track they just disappear into the grass and then following the wall something jumped into the tree , I still couldn't see it , but it now had to be a Squirrel and in this valley there is only on kind , the Red Squirrel, which I'd never seen before so I tracked through the trees until it got to its destination a nut laden Hazel tree and proceeded to steadily munch its way through lots of nuts for as long as Fiona and I were there looking at it . It was amazing , about 10 metres away and very good viewing through the binoculars and I could see the teats on this fine female. After this we stopped at Rosthwaite for a cuppa and cake and this village has great memories for us because we started off our marriage there on honeymoon over 23 years ago . We sat down to tea and looking over the fields towards the magnificent Castle Crag. Laughs are never far away with Fiona and me and a large group of people came into the garden so we were just about to go and got up to let them have our table when a man said "Ah you know the Germans are coming so you are leaving " " Err, no problem mate" I said " My wife here is Latvian German and her father was in the Luftwaffe in WW2!" . The man groaned deeply and muttered a thankyou and several of the group waved at us when we walked past them settling for their teas. They all used there left hands I noticed ! What a hoot! Just before we got back to Seathwaite to meet up with the lads I saw what looked like some sort of post glacial barrier that quite likely held a lake behind it and whilst I've already had a look to see if this it the case I've found little about it . Time to get into the underground geology sources ! There are parts of the 'net few people go to except intrepid geology travelers! We met our lads one of which looked pretty wasted, Clifford, the other , Miles , who looked like he'd do it all over again and 10 miles of 3000 foot walking had ticked the parental box of keeping the doggies fit and resolute. A great day out and we are going back in the Autumn.

Willances leap just outside Richmond North Yorkshire was the place for the family walk today . The lads went on the low to high path and Fo and I did the low to middle path . Not a bird in sight and the cloud was low and foreboding but no rain fell. What was interesting was seeing Himalayan balsam in huge swathes all over the place , around the base of oak trees and a lot on the edge of the forest underneath Willances Leap . It wasn't there last year and has just arrived and is definitely crowding out the native plants . Its gonna be a problem folks! Anyone know how to cook it ! Miles and Clifford doing the high path were wading through a nice native species problem of the path being overgrown with thistles and nettles . Fo and I walked up there about three years ago and found the path getting pretty overgrown but now its virtually impassable . The path is on land between the mile long cliff edge and the pastoral fields so I don't know who is going to clear it . We bumped into the lads coming off the high path which was nice although we had been spying on them through the binoculars . Sneaky parents . Well back home to a crash out with Fiona to listen to Miles Davis " A kind of Blue" and then meatballs and tomato sauce with spag followed by "the Lord of the Rings " directors cut which is absolutely brilliant . Books are good too . A nice day with my lovely family . Did a maths session this morning and listened to the sound track from the film "Koyaanisqatsi" and that was amazing . Our lads have watched the film loads of times since Miles was 5 and I recommend it to any parents with young children because its easy to understand , musics great and it visually , there are no words, indicates that life needs to change Koyaanisqatsi a Hopi Indian word meaning "crazy life, life in turmoil, life out of balance, life disintegrating, a state of life that calls for another way of living". Amen !

Well with the family I had a gorgeous walk around the riverside path in Durham last night . The River Wear was high and a deep chocolate brown color showing a lot of deep brown peat washed down from Upper Weardale because the rain up there over the past few days was of the deluge type and that just eats into the peat bogs and erodes them . It is a process similar to what the lead miners used to do when they, in order to clear the topsoil because they thought there was a lead vein underneath, built up a huge dam at the top of the side of a valley and then let the water out to scour the soil off and then dig out the lead ore. Swaledale and Wear Dale were major centers for lead mining and both bear the scars to this day in fact one reason the moors in lead mining areas do not absorb as much rain as they did before lead mining is that the lead miners smelted the ore in the hills and used millions of tons of peat from peat bogs to fuel the smelt mills. Peat bogs aren't just great carbon sinks they are great soakers up of rain as well. Just as we got to Prebend bridge in Durham the river shallows because it is silting up and we could see the peat in the water tumbling over and over in quickly moving silt clouds . Brilliant! It got better : as we waited for the Inshanghai Restaurant to open we looked over the weirs at Framwellgate Bridge and there was a loud pop and then a splash because Atlantic Salmon were leaping the weirs to get to their spawning rivers , well they are small gills actually , high up in the Pennines , quite often above the 1500 feet contour line . Totally brilliant and some Salmon were nearly a meter in length although the highest leap , around 5 feet went to a pint sized one that seemed to have something to prove . Super , super, good particularly in a river that was dead 30 years ago. The re wilding of Durham and the UK continues apace and it remains true that if you clean it up they will come ! Food at the restaurant was super and we had a window seat and I was happily munching away , to much , whilst looking out at the Cathedral and the River Wear which I've come to know and love . York or Durham when Fiona retires : it could be a tough call!

Yesterday with the family I had a nice 2 hour walk around the Howgills focusing on Pickering Beck to find some graptolites, roughly half billion year old plankton fossils. Very tricky because I wasn't sure what I was looking at . Pickering Gill was beautiful and the Howgills look very different when you get off the main paths . Good to see Fiona getting her boots stuck into slippy gradients and there were lots of plants for her to see! I think I saw some graptolites in some shale but I'm not sure . The lads went over Cautley Spout up to the Calf the highest point of the Howgills and we met them at Sedbergh. Fo and I also looked for graptolites along the Adam Sedgewick Geological Trail but the river was to high to get to the shale banks where the guide book says they are . Nice walk out though . I did a spectacular fall over sticking by foot into a hole and I've noticed over the years that the amount of holes on the hills is increasing possibly due to the drying out of the soil cover which over most of the Pennines is very thin. The soil covers post glacial boulder fields so there could be more falls to come . It doesn't help with my tendency to get back to my old habits of wandering off paths . Its all to interesting . We went to see Veronica , Fiona's Mum who was in good fettle and Becky, Fionas sister turned up which was nice . Being involved with family is a total privilege.

Took the family to see the latest Harry Potter film at Teeside Showcase Cinemas but didn't fancy it myself so it was a two and a half hour treat of birdwatching for me at Saltholme RSPB Reserve. Lunch came first and whilst munching away on the open veranda a Sandwich Tern just drifted by so I don't have to travel all the way up to the Farne Islands , get on a boat , then jump onto an island just to see this bird . Life is so easy sometimes . There were a lot of Arctic and Common Terns about and I'm always struck how aggressive they are . At Paddies Hide a plodding Herring Gull many times bigger than a Tern came just to close to their breeding island and up shot a Tern and as soon as the Gull saw it it desperately tried to move away but to late the Tern just went right into the side of it and made sure it never came back . Mega drama . At the same place it was good to see a pair of Little Grebes with what must be a second brood all paddling across the water but diving simultaneous well the fledglings were just behind the parents . I also saw a Little Egret fly over for the first time , I've seen them walking and hunting but never flying and at first I thought it was a White Heron , but the RSPB Warden guy put me right . The grasses , rushes reeds and flowers were at their peak and overwhelming with their sweet smell and the sound of the reeds swooshing in the wind was enchanting . A lot of kids were there with their parents and some of them had RSPB supplied long nets to capture insects and investigate . Just in a small part of the Reserve but it was good to see . A nice afternoon out so nice that I'm taking Fiona there as soon as possible !

With the family I had a gorgeous walk in the Lake District going up to Sprinkling Tarn via Seathwaite and then down to Styhead Tarn and a great clamber down Taylor Gill Force which was really wet and slippy . The cloud cover was at 1000 feet so most of the walk was done in visibility of less than 50 meters although the clouds opened up occasionally . The lads went off on their hell bent on doing Sca Fell the highest hill in England so they went up to Styhead Tarn past Sprinkling Tarn and with less than 20 metres visibility Miles navigated them over Great End , called that no doubt because if you fall off it in low visibility conditions it will be a Great End, onto Broad Crag and then Sca Fell . He got lost at one point attempting to find the Corridor Route but only went half a kilometer confirming he was on the wrong path . He always knew the way back to Sca Fell and I was really proud of him navigating his way around some lethal cliffs and confusing slopes! . We met up with an old Asian couple who asked us the way , they had no map , it was poor visibility but they wanted to " Get to the top " so I gave them my map and pointed them in the right direction for the Corridor Route which is the easiest to follow but has some tricky scrambles . I just love Northern Hill fanatics! They've got to do it ! The lads never saw them coming down and I think they gave up because the scrambles are tricky . A Little Grebe was the only bird worthy of note yesterday feeding all on its own on Sty Head tarn . It didn't rain but the low cloud was so wet we got soaked anyway ! Absolutely brilliant and my lovely wife has muscles of iron in those legs of hers although were mutterings of " I'm never doing this again " when she was bum sliding down bits of a waterfall. Cracking day , proud of Miles navigating around new territory in low visibility and a good meal was had at The Loose Box in Keswick which has now after several years has got used to our large hiking order of food ! Oh and Fo and I saw an amazing boulder of lapilli tuff a volcanic gravel with pieces of pumice in it all rough and dynamic because when this loose flying gravel was hurling around at hundreds of miles an hour 420 million years ago out in the open air and got laid down as part of a whole mound of volcanic ash around 300 meters thick it was very hot . A really nice find , well not a find really because I'd walked by the thing several times over the past 30 years but only just realized what it was!