Ticking off a walk!

 

The Railway Children Walk #1

I finally managed to complete a walk that I've been meaning to do for a good ten years, as a friend and I arranged to do it together. It's always really good to tick something off my 'bucket list' but these days I'm a bit nervous about trying new walks on my own, especially if they are slightly longer. The walk in question is a 6 mile circuit around Haworth, Oakworth and Oxenhope, visiting various locations seen in the 1970s film 'The Railway Children'.                                                                                                                                                  We started just beyond Haworth station, walking up the Worth valley towards Oxenhope, following the line of the railway and the stream called Bridgehouse Beck. It was a very warm and humid day; the promised showers barely materialised. We felt about ten drops of rain! The heat made it in some ways quite hard going and I was a sweaty mess by the time we finished

The first stretch was a gentle incline, along a well-defined path that has obviously existed for years. Despite passing a new housing estate in Haworth right at the start, and then a few much older dwellings and a water treatment works en route, it all felt very rural - and surprisingly green, given the very dry weather we've had. 

We passed through several 'kissing gates' (see top photo) and over a rather attractive iron bridge. They don't make them like that anymore! 

There was at one point a graceful but very narrow stone packhorse bridge over the beck. It must have been there for centuries, a reminder that these well-trodden pathways existed long before railways and motor transport. 

I'm not sure I'd trust the 'thin blue line' holding the little swing... 

I was a little disappointed that we didn't see more wildlife. I have seen deer in the area when I've been on the train travelling up the valley. There were a few small birds, and a grey heron flew across and landed by the beck. He took off again as we approached, keeping a safe distance from unpredictable humans! I think it was simply too warm for anything to be exerting any energy. 

Nearing Oxenhope, we had to cross the railway line - we stopped, looked, listened... We had heard trains and a little earlier we saw one of the vintage diesel locomotives that the Keighley and Worth Valley heritage Railway keeps in service. Nevertheless we crossed safely. 

Looking up the line into Oxenhope station, we could see the diesel train sitting beside the platform. 

Colourful Pride

There was a Pride Festival in Bradford's City Park, a 'loud and proud' event celebrating our local LGBTQ+ community. It had a stage with live music and comedy acts, merchandise stalls and some local organisations offering support services.  

People had come to enjoy themselves, with some very colourful and individualistic outfits on show. And I think they were deliberately 'on show', so I didn't really worry about taking a few street photos (although I tried to avoid photographing children).  

The rather glamorous drag queen in the sparkly dress is known as Nova Gina, one of the event's hosts.  

Music was provided by a number of different acts and bands. When I was watching, the main performer was Sam Ashby (Smashby), whom I rather took to - high energy and catchy pop music. He's a singer, Zumba instructor and was a housemate in the 'Big Brother' house on TV in 2025. 

The act below is 'Lady Bushra' (aka Amir Dean), a British South Asian drag comedy character, quite funny and very professional. It strikes me as being rather courageous to personify such characters. 

 

All good fun, though I didn't stay for the whole thing. (Waterstone's wonderful Bradford bookshop in the historic Wool Exchange was emitting its siren call!) 

Keep smiling

Another heatwave, our fifth this summer! To be fair, it's not been as hot in Yorkshire and the North as further south, where it reached 38.1°C/100.5°F.  It's been plenty hot enough for me though. I don't cope well with sun and high temperatures, being a fair skinned, once upon a time redhead. It's taken me years to understand that I need to drink water all the time once it gets into the high 20sC, otherwise I start feeling headachy and nauseous. I missed the window of opportunity to buy a portable air conditioning unit for my apartment in the spring and everywhere quickly sold out. So I've been having to be ingenious with window screens and fans. 

In an effort not to stagnate all day in the semi-darkness (!) I've been getting up a bit earlier and going out for an early morning walk, along with the joggers and dog-walkers. It can be quite pleasant. There's an anticipatory stillness in the air at the start of a hot day, as though everything is waiting...

'Keep smiling' seemed to sum up my mood! 😬 And what more guaranteed to raise a smile than a row of sunflowers in a neighbour's garden, albeit even they are looking a bit parched and droopy. 

Thankfully the temperature has now dropped a bit, though still no sign of the rain that we desperately need.

Foraging

I went wild blackberry picking! Of course, I forgot to take a photo before I froze them, so if they look slightly odd it's because they have just come out of my freezer. Foraging is not something I habitually do... I usually forget and leave it too late. This year all the fruit seems to be early: blackberries don't usually start to ripen until mid to late August but this year they were beginning to mature by mid July in places. There are rowan and hawthorn berries, rose hips, and masses of beech mast. It seems, in an unusually hot and dry summer like we're having, as if the plants start to worry about the climate and decide to produce a lot of seeds in case of trouble ahead. 

I went for a walk up in Northcliffe Park and along the boundary of the allotments there's an unkempt border that, on close inspection, holds a mass of brambles. 

There were copious amounts of berries in varying stages of ripeness, so there are plenty left for other people to pick - and for the birds too. 

Talking of birds, I spotted a tiny vole scurrying along the pathway. I pulled my phone out to try and get a photo of it but, before I could, a sparrowhawk swooped down in front of me, not two feet away - and grabbed the vole and made off with it, presumably for a tasty lunch! Rather upsetting actually, and even more so because it was such a sudden and swift event, lasting only seconds, so that I didn't manage a photo!

Turn 180 degrees from the bramble patch and there's a wide open view across the cricket field towards Idle and Wrose on the opposite side of the valley. It was breezy enough for someone to be flying a kite. 

 

Shapes in nature

I found plenty of subjects for my camera in the glasshouses at Cliffe Castle. 

Partial solar eclipse - 12th August 2026

I was determined to experience this, since I'm pretty sure I won't be around for the next one in 2090! 😂  You had to be in Spain to see the full eclipse this time but, from my own balcony, I saw the partial solar eclipse, said to be around 90% at this latitude. It went a little dark, though nothing like the drama I remember from the only other eclipse I think I've seen, which was a total eclipse in 1999. 

I had a not-very-scientific set-up, involving two step stools, some white paper and a colander suspended from my curtain rail! It did the job, though the distance I had to have the colander from the paper made it a bit blurry and these are only phone shots, taken one-handed as I had to hold the colander still too!  I suppose the image being projected through a hole means it's upside down and/or back to front or something, rather than how it would have looked viewing the sun directly (not recommended!). I didn't have any proper viewing glasses, but I was pretty happy with the encounter, especially considering I didn't have to leave home to see it.  

It all seems rather marvellous, even though we understand these days why it happens. I can empathise with our ancestors, who thought these were supernatural occurrences - the gods being angry or a celestial or mythical creature eating the sun. 

Anjaana

There was a stage with music at the Creative Earth Eco Fest at Cliffe Castle. I happened to be there when Anjaana were playing. They are a band formed in Bradford in the late 1970s, focusing on pure Punjabi folk and classic Bhangra rhythms. They were honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2025 UK Bhangra Awards. Led by artist Paul Chand, the group has spent over 50 years performing traditional South Asian music across the UK and India.

The (mostly) traditional instruments they are playing are (from left to right): dohl drum, tabla drums, a vaja - a type of harmonium - and a keyboard. 

 I really enjoyed their music. 

Elsewhere in the park there was an elegant young lady teaching people some Bollywood dance moves, which are high energy and rhythmic. I loved watching her - though my own dancing skills are less than zero! 

 

Creative Earth Eco Fest 2026

Creative Earth Eco Fest at Cliffe Castle, Keighley

This little free festival sounded worth a visit and I had a very enjoyable time. 

Set in the grounds of Cliffe Castle, Keighley, Eco Fest was produced by Impressions Gallery and Photo Hub North CIC. It hoped 'to help people respond to the current environmental emergency in positive and creative ways', using plant-based art and photography activities, artist-led workshops, a sustainable fashion show (which I sadly didn't see, as it was later in the day), pop-up photo gallery, outdoor play, photo trail, wellbeing taster sessions, talks, music, dancing, food and more. 

I particularly enjoyed the photographic work on display. There were some lovely portraits, by Louis Little, of people involved in the regenerative farming movement, with little labels telling you who they were and what they did. Most encouraging reading! 

Another display was of anthotypes, created by pupils at Beechcliffe school, a local specialist school for students with complex needs. Anthotypes are eco-friendly, camera-less photographic prints created using light-sensitive plant pigments (beetroot on the left, turmeric and spinach on the right) exposed to sunlight. They are a bit like cyanotypes but not involving chemicals. 

There was a display of beautiful Ukrainian embroidery by Olha Zhydetska:

You could learn T'ai Chi or Nordic Walking, have a forest bathing experience, sketch with charcoal, explore wet felting, try out a darkroom using plant-based developers or investigate a small caravan that was a camera obscura. I'd not booked on any of the workshops so I just wandered around but it was all really friendly and uplifting - a very good day out. 

Riverside plants

High summer means lots of plants are flowering along the riverside walk, many of them statuesque and sculptural. We've met Himalayan balsam already and, despite it being a huge problem plant, I still enjoyed this little trio of flowers I spotted (above).

I've no idea what the seed-head below is. I'm old enough to refer to it as a 'sputnik', after the spiky satellite first launched by Russia in the 1950s! Google Lens suggests it is some kind of angelica. Nice, anyway. 

I can never identify the various umbellifers you see either. There are too many similar ones. I like their sculptural forms. 

I do know this one (below): meadowsweet, with its fragrant, feathery, creamy-white flowers. Apparently parts of it are edible, used to flavour desserts and jams. It contains salicylic acid, related to the active ingredient in aspirin. It was traditionally used as a strewing herb to scent rooms. 

Parched

My two favourite trees again... It's interesting to keep documenting the differences. After the very dry summer, the grass around them is parched a dusty yellow. The cows were taking shelter in the shade under the tree in the top field. The trees themselves look healthy for now but the drought must be stressing them, I think.  And I now have to stand on tiptoe to see over the recently planted hedge at the field boundary. I'm all for mixed hedges so it's good that it's been planted but I'm a bit sad that the view I've enjoyed for years is gradually disappearing! 

Discovery

Dundee 2026 #5

I didn't know that, in a dry dock right next to Dundee's V&A, sits one of the great historic ships, RSS Discovery. She was built in Dundee and launched in 1901, the first ship designed specifically for Antarctic scientific research. Built with heavily reinforced wooden hulls to withstand pack ice, she was one of the last three-masted wooden ships to be built in this country, though she also has a steam engine. She carried Captain Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton on their groundbreaking 1901-1904 Discovery Expedition, where she spent two years trapped in ice before she was freed. In 1925 she was designated a Royal Research Ship and returned to Antarctica to conduct extensive oceanographic studies to conserve whale populations. She has quite a history beyond that, which you can read about HERE.

Alongside the ship, there is a large and very interesting museum to explore, which I found much more fascinating than I expected to. It details not only Discovery's history but also various other Antarctic explorations and the ships involved, with lots of details, photographs, videos and artefacts. Many of these are well-documented and the stories of the men involved and the hardships endured are legendary. 

Once you've explored the museum you're free to board the ship and marvel at the strength of its construction - layer upon layer of massive oak planks and other woods, carefully designed to withstand the harsh conditions. You can tour the crew's quarters - the huge table in the officers' mess:

Captain Scott's cabin:

A bunk room for the sailors:

I was intrigued by the ingenuity of the design. 'Salt boxes' opened into the space between the inner and outer hulls. These were literally filled with rock salt, to soak up any moisture and preserve the timber. 

It asked you to consider things like what provisions they took with them, and how the holds were packed with supplies so that the ship was balanced and stable. 

I couldn't help but marvel at the resilience of the men - sailors and scientists - on the expeditions. They didn't have our advanced technology so, even in things like the clothes they wore, they had to be resourceful and ingenious to deal with the harsh conditions. They were geologists, naturalists,  oceanographers and photographers and the research they did was foundational to our understanding of the mysterious Antarctic region.