The Beagles went to Goodbent on Saturday.
Goodbent is by the tributary to the Bilberry
reservoir and so it is in the Holme Valley Beagles country and one of their
meets.
Unfortunately the way things went many followers were left
behind for different reasons, due to the inaccessibility mostly, as it is a
rough area and even if you were able to be there when they got out of the truck
it was still hard going keeping up, although some hardy athletic folk including a good
team of young farmers had no trouble.
Setting off.
Some hangers-on!
Beside Bilberry reservoir
And that was the last I saw of them! They went over the big lump in front. By the time I made it there was neither sight nor sound
So today we will have a nature studies lesson.
I discovered many years ago while chatting to three lovely young ladies I came across in the Lake District while beagling there, that they had never seen a wild mushroom, never mind picked one. I forget where they came from but such innocence! Anyway on a similar basis not everyone has picked an oak apple!
So here are some oak apples. Do they look suitably nourishing?
Close up of oak apples
If you cut one open, ( you could bite one open if you have no knife I suppose) you will find it contains a tasty little white grub!
So you don't eat oak apples or oak gall. The grub is the result of a female gall wasp laying an egg in a leaf bud.
Having totally lost sight of where the hounds and others went I settled under a wall on a flat stone to eat my lunch of toasted teacake (bread bun to the non-Yorkshire readers) fried egg and pepperoni sandwich. The view was lovely with the sun coming out more and more and the fields across from me were minty green in a ray of sunshine. Most welcome after the dire weather I keep moaning about.
While having my my lunch I thought I was hearing voices!
I knew it is not my time yet but looking up to see if I was being called I discovered where they were coming from.
Two skeins of geese were passing and talking to one another - (only showing one).
The view with Digley reservoir and with Emley Moor mast as ever on the horizon
With the zoom one can discern the power stations over 30 miles away as the crow flies. Quite a clear day for once.
I am not a fan of trudging over moors, not least one like this. My gazelle days have slipped behind me regrettably and stuff like the 'bull toppings' as they seem to be called, locally at least, I find really hard going. (Googling 'bull toppings' probably gets you pictures of beefburgers but tussocks is not an aggressive enough description).
They are dense rigid fibrous balls that can cover large areas of the rough ground on moors. The only way is to carefully step between them in the dark voids as these things can be knee high with just enough space for a boot. So you need to be good at wading and high stepping motions. I should have illustrated them better. But going through them is exhausting so having lost everyone and being stuck in this stuff I gave up.
'Bull toppings'
On the way back, Bilberry reservoir and beyond it Digley reservoir.
Bilberry dam burst on the 5th February 1852 - you can see a ballad about it here - Holmfirth Deluge
We tend to live in the past a bit around here. We cherish our history and tradition. We are lucky to have it and we try to hang on to it too.
