hillocks

hummocks, hillocks, mattocks, and pillocks!  With a side order of rhododendrons, all washed down with copious amounts of rainwater.

as Simon Armitage once said......

<quote>

....But I

skimmed flat stones across Black Moss on a day

so still I could hear each set of ripples

as they crossed. I felt each stone's inertia

spend itself against the water; then sink.

<end quote>

well.... i CAN tell you that it was not like that up at Black Moss today.

Let me give you some idea.....

The privilege of being free to ramble on open moorland, unfettered by paths and stiles and gates, is not one i take for granted.  We are there to make things better and it means getting off the track.

heading deep into peatlands, tussocky grass, moss, heather..... and rhododendrons.

our job, to hit the rhodies with the mattocks until they wept their toxic sap upon the heather.

The weather was not kind.  It was windy, and the rain, it did fall upon us.

strung out in a line, sweeping the moorland like an episode of CSI trying to find the intruders, and smash them up.

our square kilometre was traversed one way and then the other......  we probably did a tenth of the square in total, today.

White hare, golden plover, black grouse, grey sky..... the rewards for struggling through difficult terrain while the moorland clawed at our legs in a bid to reclaim us and to pull us into the very peat.

exhibit A, your honour..... the mattock

Exhibit B, your honour, my office for the day..... walking down Black Moss towards Wessenden Head. looking across Marsden towards Pole Moor in the distance.... before the rain came.