Two out of three ain't bad

I went for a walk in the Strid Woods on Sunday evening. It is still quite cold and the wind always seems to funnel downstream at Bolton Abbey (i.e. from the North) whichever way it's blowing, but I saw redstart (one handsome male) and pied flycatcher (a pair near the Hobbit's bus stop) along with lots of other woodland and riverside birds (LTT, treecreeper, nuthatch, willow warbler, common sandpiper, oystercatcher, sand martin etc) 

There was no sign of wood warbler (the last two years there have been three or four singing males in the area around the Strid itself) but I'll probably go for another walk later this week to try to see one. A wood warbler was found near where Stef's folks live in Devon and there are great photographs of this real woodland special here and here 

Richie Havens

Fellephant's Fellraisers

Cockley Beck

The weather was a bit mixed to put it mildly for our break at Cockley Beck, with a couple of stunning sunny days but two or three extremely wet and windy ones too. We managed to do 77 miles and around 29,000 feet of climb, which sounds incredible looking back now!  In fairness this was mostly jog / walked at Bob Graham pace (2.5 to 3 miles per hour or so), but we did run up Hardknott Pass one day over to Eskdale and back

The cottage we stay in at the Beck has no mobile phone signal or internet plus it's six miles to the nearest pub so we always take loads of food and drink and largely are either on the fell or in the cottage. There are some great birds in the area and I usually make a list of what we've seen during our stay. This year's highlights included siskin, swallow, raven, buzzard, red kite, wheatear, meadow pipit, chiffchaff and willow warbler

Stef has her Bob Graham attempt in two weeks time and is about to start her taper after this weekend's Highlander MM, which she's doing with Yiannis. I've been looking forward to a weekend catching up with friends and no (or relatively little) running. I went to the Narrowboat last night with a dozen or so KCAC pals to celebrate Brett's birthday and I'll probably have a walk in the Strid Woods at some point today; hopefully to see a wood warbler or two

Surreal picnic

The Seventh Seal

Update

A broken computer followed by a week in Lakeland have severely disrupted blogging for a few weeks but I'm back again now. More to follow on our time at Cockley Beck soon

The Loser

Marvin Gaye