Last Wednesday with the family I had a good walk out into the Howgills. The boys as is usual went on ahead on a particular route they had chosen which would take them around the highest part of the Howgills. They walked up the watershed between Bowderdale and Langdale Valley and getting eventually to Hazel Gill Brow and then going on to the Calf. They then descended down to the Bowderdale Pass and then up to Yarlside. Down to a place called Kensgrife and then up to Randy Gill Top and then back down Bowderdale and to the car. Fiona and I slowly walked up Bowderdale having a good look at the drift geology erosion features which were really good. There were many alluvial fans big piles of small rocks which had been eroded out of the gullies which extended from the bottom of the valley right up to the top. At right angles to the valley I might add. Fiona seemed better at spotting them than I did and she also saw a wandering heron before I did. Damm, that lady is getting quicker thinking than I am as we get older. The erosion features were interesting because I thought it would be a case of straight erosion of gullies right since the end of the last ice age say 13,000 years ago but that may not be the case because after the ice age the whole of the Howgills within a hundred years so had become populated with trees and shrubs. With the retreat of the ice came the advance of man who promptly cut down all the trees and I think that that is when the erosion really started. I'll have to look up about when man got to the Howgills.You can never avoid history! God bless Tom Owen a friend of mine from the 1980s for telling me this. We eventually arrived at the foot of Yarlside and had our lunch there and I must admit I was getting a bit fed up with the similarity of the territory and because there was no chance of me finding some black shale which is where I may find a graptolite, 440 million-year-old plankton. So instead of going up Randy Gill Top we decided to charge up the gully behind us and that was really good fun because I got very close to all of the rocks and scree on the way up and there was some lovely patterns of soil creep as well.Soil creep is when water moves through the soil and causes the soil and grass to look like waves descending down the hill. You find it absolutely everywhere and I am fascinated by it As we approached the top of the side of the Bowderdale Valley I could hear the wind swishing through the grass something I have never known anywhere else except in the Howgills. Arriving at the top there was an amazing and magnificent view of the highest point of the Howgills, the Calf, and also great views down into the Langdale Valley a place we walked down one sub zero very cold Christmas Day five years ago. It looked beautiful not least because the first time I walked in the valley the visibility was down to about 200 m. Looking back on the watershed between the Bowderdale and Langdale Valley we saw some really large furry caterpillars creeping about in the grass which was nice. I did two really good slipovers because it was very wet and I have concluded the reason I am falling over a bit more than usual is because my walking shoes have finally given up their grip. They are now in the bin and a pair of new walking boots will be bought pretty soon. We got back to the car 15 minutes before the time set for the lads but they were half an hour late after having a really good ramble around the heights of the Howgills. Miles looked as fresh as ever because he is extremely fit and Clifford looked only a little bit tired so I was very pleased with them both. They were a tiny bit grumpy because they had a mild falling out over which path to be on coming down about the Bowderdale Valley and I told them off because they should have resolved the issue before they saw us and we would only be looking at 2 radiantly happy lads as we normally do rather than 2 grumpy ones. I resolved the issue very quickly as I usually do that is quite forcefully making sure which one should have done what, Miles had overall responsibility after all, and emphasising the point that we are Baha'is and whilst nobody can avoid a problem we can resolve them gracefully. They are good lads and nobody is perfect. A very beautiful day out but next year we all agreed we would like to go and look at the autumn woods around Lake Derwent in the Lake District. Both Fiona and I are as fit as whippets at the moment and I was amazed how fresh and quickly we belted up the gully which was a vertical climb of at least 500 feet. Good fun!