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.