Great Langdale

Now that the year is turning, the summer over and the nights are drawing in, the temperature is dropping and the camping season for most is over. But not us. Nope, this is the time of year to get out your tent, warm poufy sleeping bag and head for the hills.

We had planned to visit Glenridding and the North Eastern Fells, but there were horrendous traffic jams, delays and bridge repairs on the M6 north on Friday night, so Plan B was Great Langdale and the Langdale Pikes. As it has been a while since we did any 'proper' walks, we decided to keep it simple and follow a route up towards Harrison Stickle, but skirt around underneath to Stickle Tarn without going all the way up.

Sheep enjoying the view.

Pavey Ark overlooking Stickle Tarn.

From the tarn, we headed round to Castle How and down to Chapel Stile - stopping for a welcome sit down and a pint at the Wainwright Inn

before heading back along the valley to the campsite (9,5 miles). The day was a little grey and hazy, but it stayed dry and was quite a lot warmer that I was expecting, partly because there was hardly a breath of wind - something that would have been quite a relief while huffing and puffing up the steep bits!

The pointy one in the middle of the background is Harrison Stickle.

Rather dramatic moon - photographed at bedtime en route to the toilet block.

Daisies this morning at Sizergh Castle - where you can see lovely autumn colour and some very impressive scaffolding & plastic sheeting.

Autumn Equinox

The days are on the slippery slope getting shorter at their quickest towards winter. We've had some fairly cold nights, and the spiders and woodlice are letting us know it's chilly outside by coming in and setting up home by the fireplace. I'm not especially scared of spiders, thanks to my Mum (whom I have a picture of somewhere holding a tarantula) but I won't pick them up (having seen my Mum's finger swell up and go numb after being bit by a spider that she was rescuing from the dog's water bowl) so we have plastic pots and pieces of card handy for taking them outside. Some of them have been monsters! Spiders may be hairy and scary, but they are useful little creatures who help reduce the number of insects in the world and I would urge you to put them out rather than squash them (you only end up having to deal with a dead spider instead of a live one, which is worse, in my opinion, as you have to move it yourself). Woodlice that come inside die very soon from dehydration, so if you like the teeny armadillo lookylikeys you should put them out too before they succumb to the Sahara-like conditions of your carpet.

So another weekend has gone, but it was fairly productive. I painted the front window, which now looks white and glossy and makes all the others look twice as bad. I uploaded my latest photos to the online gallery (there is a link over on the left if anyone wants to see more of our walks and days out - although there has been shamefully less walking this year than there should have been). I did some baking and some knitting. I managed to ignore the untactful utterings of my MIL without laughing in her face or poking her with a paintbrush. Job well done.

Curved Shawl Progress

It took a while, but I am a changed woman. I haven't suddenly become the world's speediest lace knitter, but everything seems to have fallen into place and I am at least now a relaxed lace knitter. The pre-blocked knitted fabric is uninspiring to say the least.

But with a little bit of pulling about (I managed to get a photo where you can't see my foot in it!) we can have a sneak preview of what the magic of blocking will reveal.

In which there are sheep

Yesterday's walk was over Rishworth Moor, from Green Withens Reservoir around Dog Hill (9,5 miles). Didn't see any dogs but we did see plenty of sheep, which is fine by us. The day started fine but breezy and got windier. The rain just started as we were stopping off at the Co-op to buy beer on the way home.

Sheep on the moors

Sheep in the grass

Sheep in fields

Crackly wires

1,2,3...over, knit, over...1,2,3...repeat ad infinitum

The knots-on-a-stick-turned-curly-wurly-scribbles-on-a-stick are now some floppy-blue-messiness on a bendy plastic cord. The Addi lace needles are lovely to knit with, nice and pointy and the yarn just glides over them with no snagging on the joins or anything. I give them the Sheep Happens seal of approval (woo).

So I have lovely yarn and lovely needles and a relatively simple pattern... why am I not gleefully working away on the shawl and nearing completion? I don't know. I really don't know. There is something about the openness of the pattern that makes it difficult to see where you are in the repeats and I have had to keep counting, something that is easy enough for a short time when there is peace and quiet, but not so easy once His Nibs gets home, turns the telly on and expects replies to his conversation. Progress on the shawl has been slow and I am getting a bit bored of it.

Poor shawl. My head has been turned by lace cuff socks and a pretty cardy pattern on the Garn Studio website and I am trying to decide whether making tiny knitted hats for innocent's Age Concern charity appeal counts as being unfaithful. I've only made three so far. And they're very small.


Not much walking has happened lately, but the other evening we did go to Dovestones Reservoir just down the road from here. It's not a bad spot for a picnic tea.

Views as the evening progresses