Tag: Peak District

Fog bow

The cat woke me with his heavy weight transferred through his fat kneading front paws alternately pressing into my sticking up right shoulder.

Alfie joined in the attempt to get me to feed them by his repetitive bipping noise.  The old, cheap, mantle clock chimed six so I turned face down in the pillows.

The forecast (a habit I have from Shetland of checking) read that we were to expect fog in the city first thing, then a ball of sun most of the day.  I lay there for a while, my tired body ignoring the purring and bipping cats.   At 7, I gave in and got up, fed and watered the boys, made tea then dressed hurriedly to get out onto the moors.   Fog in the city is boring, I wanted to remember what fog was like in Shetland –  to remember some part of it that used to haunt me for days on end, so I drove up to Burbage fog chasing.  But, at the edge of Ringinglow, bordering on the Derbyshire boundary, the fog started to clear and within seconds, I’d driven through it into pure blue sky and bright sunshine.  Another world.

At Burbage, both the moon and the sun hung in the sky casting their natural magic.   Fog was nowhere to be seen. A real warmth came from the sun high on the peaks at 8:30am.

I walked towards Stanage Edge where the clear moon tilted over the rocks in a beckoning way. The path was bordered by long dead bog grass, heavy with water, looking like a prairie. Then the fog started to drift in below Stanage rocks, blown gently and slowly from the left, in a long soft ribbon, thick enough for the most magnificent natural thing to happen created by the collision of two things – the bright unhindered sun hit the fog and created a fog bow.

I actually squeaked with joy, turned to look back at that sun, then saw all the fronds on the low-lying fluffy grasses hanging in tiny droplets of water shining like glistening small crystals.

The fog bow came fully into sight.

High up on the rocks, at the Edge, the fog rested in the valley over Hope and Hathersage. Every passing person had a photo at the trig, including me. And every passing person was excited by the energy of the sparkling light and visible moving shifting fog. Until, finally, the gentle wind pushed the fog up and over the edge of Stanage, covering both left and right and finally the trig.

What a beautiful world we live in.

Picking Heather and Berries for Winter.

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The moorland that borders Sheffield and Derbyshire and stretches as far as the eye can see toward Edale, is carpeted in heather and speckled with thistle. The heather is knee high.  

In the sun and breeze, the air is constantly heather scented. Everyone the you pass along the way, shares their complements on the miles and miles of purple. Apparently, it is a good year for heather.

If you walk from my flat, through the Hanging Water allotments, up the path winding through Whitely wood to Ringinglow, cross the road by the old toll bar house opposite the Norfolk Arms  and walk across Hound Kirk Moor, which is an Toll Road, you’ll see the360 degree purple carpet.  Along the moorland track are two old milestones. I head for them every time I walk this way. The most interesting milestone registers the miles to Tidswell (Now spelt Tideswell) and Buxton and has a skull and cross bones carved underneath it. The Milestone was reunited in 2014 with its base after it was found in a garden in Dore where it had been part of a Rockery. You can read about it here but go and see it for yourself – it’s always a joy.

This is the second walk that I have done in two weeks where I have seen this natural purple carpet.  Today, the view so enriched my walk that I have chosen the colours of heather, thistle, stone, rock, sand, pale sky, gravel, blackberry and blackberry for my yarn colour palette for my new work. I have been knitting the colours into Fair Isle samples for a workshop I am doing on 2nd September but in doing the samples, I can see how beautiful this colour palette is.

 

 

In September, I will bring Fair Isle back into my work and the colour palette will lean towards autumnal heathers. In the Winter, when I look at the yarns and colours,  I’ll remember this summer day and the carpet of heather.