For newcomers

At the bottom of each post there is the word "comments". If you click on it you will see comments made by followers, and if you follow the instructions you may also comment and I always welcome that. I have found many people overlook this part of the blog which is often more interesting than the original post!

My blog nick-name is SIR HUGH. I'm not from the aristocracy - my middle name is Hugh which relates to the list of 282 hills in Scotland compiled by Sir Hugh Munro in 1891. I climbed my last one (Sgurr Mor) on 28th June 2009

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Thursday 14 March 2024

"Extreme*" - (the new buzz-word) photography manipulation by an expert

 Thursday 14th March 2024

I am not keen on circulating supposedly humorous views and clips from Internet sources on my blog or by email. As for any other social media platform I just don’t participate, they have far too much to answer for, and on rare occasions when I have had a look they irritate me when I see an unexplained photograph with no backstory and a string of comments usually saying nothing much more than “good photo.”

Another problem is that for any re-posted item the degree of humour is relative to each recipient and what one finds hilarious may not be so much appreciated by others. 

Having said all that I make no apology whatsoever for posting this item from You Tube which almost instigated the need for the Heimlich Manoeuvre as I was scoffing my breakfast this morning.


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*I reckon our dictionary compilers will now have to redefine "extreme" as meaning "anything?"



Wednesday 6 March 2024

Eden Way 2 Aisgill Farm to Outhgill

Tuesday 5th March 2024 

AT LAST...

...with leg wounds not healing and many other factors the last proper walk I did away from home was  on 12th November 2023.

Wounds now healed and weather more friendly I was off to continue a vague project to follow the river Eden from its source which I visited on 18th November 2019

https://conradwalks.blogspot.com/search?q=Aisgill+Farm

A large lay-by about quarter of a mile south of Aisgill Farm provides parking. From there the road descends to Aisgill Farm quite steeply but provides a sting in the tail at the end of the walk. As one descends the extent of the Eden valley is revealed and you are conscious of the splendidly named Wild Boar Fell on your left. Snow is still clinging to the tops on Mallerstang Edge high away to the right - all in all a magnificent setting.

From the farm a hardly discernible path on the ground traverses the hillside with a series of well constructed stone stiles, snd passing by a number of isolated farmsteads. Those stiles are well constructed but evermore awkward for my advanced years and that  awkwardness is augmented by a massive fear of inflicting even the slightest wound to my lower legs. The path is above the line of cultivation -  just rough sheep pasture with large areas of reeds and boggy moss but with care I was able to do the whole walk wearing only trail shoes keeping my feet totally dry.

I have had breathless problems since October 2022 culminating in a hospital stay in January 2023 with blood clot problems. Since then I have been passed from Acute Medical, to Cardiac, and then to Respiratory with all sorts of tests and appointments and the problem has hardly improved and I am now accepting it is something I will have to live with. Whilst It was hugely uplifting to be back out in semi-wild country and absorbing that ambience  I was huffing nd puffing much of the way and taking many brief stops, and walking ever so slowly, but not quite enough to spoil the return to doing what I enjoy so much. I had measured the route roughly at six miles but later plotting it in detail it turned out to be just short of seven and that was certainly enough, especially with the final climb from Aisgill back up to the car.

There is a higher path on this valley side dating back back to Roman Times and it has now been incorporated into Lady Anne's Way as  an LDP I have walked sections of before. My route also intermingled with A Pennine Journey, the LDP created by Wainwright and published in his book of the same name.

I descended back to the valley road for a long stretch of tarmac before another footpath diversion back on to the valley side lead me to my furthest point at Outhgill with its archetypal collection of stone built centuries old stone cottages and a church. One house is named Faraday Cottage. It seems the parents of Faraday of electrics fame lived there, but unfortunately for otherwise insignificant Outhgill they had moved to London where Michael was born so Outhgill could not claim his birthplace. However, naming the cottage seems like a brave try.

The church was locked, but as always they had a bench and it was midday so I sat with my sandwich and coffee with a rewarding view of Wild Boar Fell. A guy carrying a kind of fishing net in one hand and a specialised vessel of water in the other, and wearing waders approached from the path down through the churchyard to the river. He was from the Environment Agency. I asked if he had found anything adverse with the water but he was reserved and perhaps living under something akin to the Official Secrets Act and just suggested that I looked at the website.

My return journey followed the river more closely with footpaths, but in the wrong direction (to my way of thinking.) If I am following the river from its source I prefer to do so travelling downstream and in retrospect I could have done it that way round. Eventually I had to go back to the road for the long trudge back to the car. I was well tired, but it was great to be back out again in the outdoors and exploring new territory. 

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Two extracts from Wikipedia:

The dale is closely associated with Lady Anne Clifford, and the ancient road to the east of the river is now part of a long-distance path known as Lady Anne's Way in memory of the Countess of Pembroke, who often travelled along this track while moving between her many castles. It is, however, much older than this and was used by the Romans as a route between Wensleydale and their forts along what is now the A66. A local shepherd found a hoard of Roman coins on Mallerstang


Two brothers from Clapham, Yorkshire, moved to the area in the late 18th century. Richard Faraday became a notable businessman in Kirkby Stephen, where a road is named after him. His younger brother, James, set up as a blacksmith in Outhgill (in the house now called Faraday Cottage). As he moved to London a year before their third child was born, the area narrowly missed being able to claim the great scientist Michael Faraday as a Mallerstang man.


PLEASE CLICK PHOTOS TO ENLARGE. THE WEATHER WAS BETTER THAN THE SMALLER PHOTOS SEEM TO SHOW

The lay-by parking is just behind me.

Wild Boar Fell, the morning cloud just clearing

Aisgill Farm down below in the Eden valley


Crossing the Eden at Aisgill Farm

I reckon these moles must be bumping into each other underground

Mallerstang Edge with snow





Wild Boar now clear of cloud

I think somebody must have given them the paint for that porch

Mallerstang Edge overshadowing Corrugated Iron Shanty Town.
For goodness sake, there should be at least some basic planning regulations?

My son W researched this and tells me this model is going for £2k on Ebay. Let's hope the crims. don't find out.

A dry stone waller - he was a man with a large white beard and few words. He was the only other person apart from Mr Environment Agency I met on the whole walk

A brief glimpse of the Eden on the long trudge up the road towards Outhgill


At last I was able to leave the road and follow these red dots on more path to Outhgill


This monster came over very low. I just managed to get the camera on it as it disappeared

Descending to Outhgill

This and two below: in Outhgill




Outhgill church

This about Lady Ann refurbishing the church in the 1600s.

In the churchyard. In memory of those who died in the construction of the Settle Carlisle railway.
Click to enlarge.

My view of Wild Boar Fell whilst doing my sandwich and coffee

Looking back at Outhgill church with Mallerstang Edge above

A bit more of the River Eden


 


Monday 19 February 2024

Torpedo away!

Monday 19th February 2024 

I see the last walk (away from home) I did was on 12th November from Barbon. Since then I have been nursing a wound on the rear of my ankle which ulcerated. I've been having weekly visits to my GP's nurse and at last it is now sorted. Breathlessness continues and more boring medical appointments have been attended and I reckon it is something I am just going to have to live with, so walks I suppose will be be modest, but at my age I can't complain, and I am hoping to get back to more walking on new ground, but I want a reasonably benign return combined with a decent weather window, so I wait...

...,meanwhile modelling continues:

The Bristol Beaufort is a WW2 torpedo bomber. I was attracted by the proliferation of  complex canopies including a rear gunner's turret. Canopies are perhaps the most difficult aspects to model with aircraft. The many panes have to be masked and there are several methods. This time I jibbed and bought an aftermarket masking set with the pieces already cut to size, but they still took more than a couple of hours to apply. Normal modelling glue melts plastic together to form a kind of weld, but with clear canopies that glue can also fog the plastic. The alternative is to use a PVA based glue which dries clear, but it doesn't stick well, so there is an ongoing debate with modellers on how to proceed. This time I have used the modellers glue waiting for any fumes to disperse before placing the part, and it has worked ok, so far, but that is quite risk. I hope the results will be ok when the masking is removed. That operation is one of the final procedures at the finishing of the model and it is a heart stopping moment to see if any fogging has occurred and if any wayward paint from the air gun has leached under the masking instead of remaining only on the canopy framework.

All this may well be taken as nerdy, but humans have progressed by solving challenges and that is innate with most of us. Anything to avoid sitting in a circle in a nursing home passing round an inflated plastic ball and singing It's a Long Way to Tipperary, and We'll Meet Again, and being spoken to in childese.


If you click to enlarge you may see that there are many more tiny parts on those sprues that are not apparent from the photo. But for a reason unknown when "click to enlarge" is applied it doesn't always work on the first photo - the mysteries of Blogger.




Monday 5 February 2024

2CV Citroën finished.

 Monday 5th February 2024

The Citroen 2CV is finished.  The bonnet (hood)  I haven't been able to make fit properly and rectifying that I guess could cause irreversible damage, but the rest of it I am quite pleased with, especially the engine detail.

A new kit is on the way, so watch this space.

Still work in progress here



The last three. Nbote ill fitting bonnet on 2CV.



If you copy and paste the link below you will see a short video, only just over 3 mins. but if you slide on to about 2mins. 20sec. you will see a short but jolly little film featuring the 2CV, only about a minute long.

https://youtu.be/iRDQaC__7t4?si=cM38O2siDtjQaXTx





Monday 29 January 2024

Ofsted -think before you speak

Monday 29th January 2024 - thought for the day 

MPs are lobbying for the scrapping of Ofsted single word/phrase awards. First of all, along with perhaps the majority of our population, I believe that the whole system needs overhauling and I speak from fairly close contact with much of this, BUT...

...using a phrase or single word description is immediately emotive one way or the other, and despite dictionaries that define,  words and phrases can have different nuances for different people. When anybody makes a statement, however they intended it to sound the result that matters is how it is interpreted by the receiver.

If say a five star system was used a lot of the emotive interpretation would be removed. A parent considering a school that had four out of five stars would usually think that sounds ok, perhaps accepting the fact that not many schools would have five stars anyway.* With three stars or less the parent would likely take the trouble to dig deeper and find out the reason which may well not be something that was directly relevant to their or their child’s situation. It might even reveal a strength in an area that was actually relevant to their situation.

I realise this is a somewhat naive comment on a very complicated issue and I am not making a wholesale plea for adopting a star system, but just trying to illustrate how many things can be improved when common sense and an appreciation of the needs, thoughts and emotions of all parties are considered - in this instance that is fourfold starting with pupils, then teachers, then parents and then the Establishment.

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* When I occasionally complete a survey or review on the Internet I believe that four stars means "good" and five stars must be for something exceptional and beyond normal expectation which of course is rarely awarded.

Saturday 27 January 2024

Wisdom

Saturday 27th January 2024

It has taken me a lifetime ( even past the Three Score Years and Ten) to take some interest in football. It was kindled by unavoidable watching of the sport sections on TV news and being impressed by Jürgen Klopp who seemed to bring a  new aspect to football management contrasting with the entrenched gum chewing fraternity. Jürgen kicked it off in one of his first interviews when he was asked if he considered himself "special" in comparison with José Mourino, self claimed as The Special One. Jürgen replied, "no, I am normal, I am The Normal One."

Having mentioned my interest to my son W, family banter ensued accusing me of being a closet football fan after all, and to keep up the image I started to idly follow the fortunes of Liverpool FC. The next Christmas W presented me with a Liverpool merchandise red dressing gown, incidentally one of the best items of clothing I have had  in all those three-score-and-ten-plus years. I even bought a  mini metal pin badge, not lightly added to my fleece along with a revered cut out map of Scotland and a badge made and painted by granddaughter Katie with a miniature painting of  OS mapping in the background overlaid with the word Mapman.

Yesterday the news of Jürgen's departure at the end of the season was a shock, but on reflection it underlines his character in having the wisdom and courage to make the right decision at the right time. Jürgen's commitment to Liverpool was further demonstrated when he said he would not manage any other England club, that compared with most managers who flip backwards and forwards like the ball in that early ping-pong computer game.

I suppose I may continue to take some interest in Liverpool FC. We will have to wait and see what happens. In the meantime I have been impressed by the success of our England women's team where here again we have a whole new approach to football management.






Wednesday 17 January 2024

Perhaps pigs can fly?

 Thursday 17th January 2024

I had the second f/up appointment for my detached retina operation from 3rd. January today.

Mrs Linton, the consultant who did the op. was wholly satisfied and all has gone well.

I have had a diminishing black shadow on the eye working its way down from top to bottom permitting an increasing amount of vision. That is now reduced to a small strip at the bottom which Mrs. L is confident will disperse completely within a further week. To all intents and purposes I am now seeing as well as I could before.

Having had the details of the procedure described to me I am in awe at the skill employed and hugely thankful for the prompt attention I had for this serious problem. I was assured that left unattended blindness would have been certain.

BC commented above on the possibility of pigs flying - I am beginning to wonder.

All the staff at Chorley Eye Clinic were helpful, considerate, and full of good cheer in their newly purpose built environment where it was unexpectedly a pleasure to visit. Let's hope that many other areas of the NHS can be so modernised producing an atmosphere for increased morale and well being for staff, patients and overall effectiveness.