The lion and....

The lion and....  the lamb? Or maybe a goat? Alpaca? Who knows? A colourful, crocheted post-box topper anyway. Both snapped on my way home through Saltaire village. 

Obligatory autumn shots

We're having such dull, wet weather that it's hardly been fit to go out. Sunday, however, was at least dry so I put my boots on and took a short local walk. The autumn colour has finally got going, so here are a few obligatory autumn shots. I wouldn't have said it's a stellar year for colour, at least not yet, but there are some good yellows and a few oranges and reds. I think I mostly take the same views every year! But I suppose it's never quite the same. 

Crossing the railway bridge affords the first glimpse of the church tower in the trees. Then Victoria Road dips down, past Salts Mill on the right, towards the park. 

Another view of the church... 

and a better view of the church, though the autumn glory has been reduced somewhat by the loss of a large tree at the church end of the drive. 

Gracefully arching trees over the canal give an attractive tunnel effect to the stretch behind the church. 

Further on, leaning over the aqueduct (where the Leeds-Liverpool Canal crosses the River Aire) gives a good view of the trees on the riverbank below, just beginning to lose their green tint. 

Rooms with views

The windows at Salts Mill have varied and far-reaching views. The one above looks over to the tower of the Victoria Hall, whilst below is looking south-west towards St Paul's Church and Shipley (with allotment poly-tunnels in the foreground). The bottom image looks north, with the New Mill tower prominent and a view up to Hope Hill on Baildon Moor.  Perhaps they didn't have time to gaze out but I like to think that these views were enjoyed by generations of the mill workers who toiled here from 1853 to 1986 when the textile mill closed. 

Kitty North at Salts Mill

There's a new exhibition, 'Continuum',  by Kitty North in Gallery 2 at Salts Mill (until next April).  Kitty is an artist who works from a studio in Arncliffe, up in Littondale. She paints people and places inspired by the Yorkshire Dales where she grew up and now lives again after spells at Chelsea School of Art, Brighton and Manchester. She had a commissioned exhibition here back in 2017 (see HERE) with highly coloured paintings inspired by Salts Mill. I enjoyed that though I find these current paintings much more subtle and beguiling. The figures have a Lowry-esque feel to them, though there the similarity ends. Kitty's paintings are much more cheerful and exuberant than Lowry's! See HERE for her website. 

Bingley's staircase locks

Returning to my car after my walk from Crossflatts to Riddlesden and back, it seemed a shame not to go another quarter of a mile or so into Bingley to the top of the Five-Rise locks. It's always a popular spot with boaters and walkers. I love the view from the top of the staircase, looking down through the five locks, which raise the canal through almost 60 feet.  (See HERE for a view from the bottom looking up.)

Doors and apertures

I've visited East Riddlesden Hall, our most local National Trust property, lots of times and it still holds a fascination for me. It's a 17th century manor house, rebuilt in the 1640s around an older house for wealthy clothier, James Murgatroyd. (A good Yorkshire name there!) Originally an agricultural estate, it has a Great Barn near the entrance, which would have housed cattle in the winter as well as providing storage for food, fodder and tools. It's a magnificent oak-framed barn with a stone flagged floor and huge entrance doors. There's another old barn too, the Airedale Barn, now used for weddings and events. 

Every time I visit I seem to 'see' different things. This time my attention was focused on all the ancient doors. 

This one has a date stone of 1642 and family initials from when the Murgatroyds bought the estate.

At the rear of the house, across the garden, behind an unassuming little door, lies this old privy. Disconcertingly to our modern sensibilities, it has two latrine holes side by side!

Round the side of the house in a small walled garden, these holes in the wall would at one time have held straw skeps: upturned straw baskets in which bees would have made their honey combs. 

Flora, fauna and stone

Although the canal towpath is a flat and easy route, by the time I reached East Riddlesden Hall, a walk of about two and a half miles, I was ready for a drink and a rest. There is a nice café there but it was packed so I took a coffee outside and sat and watched the ducks, and then I had a wander around the gardens. I've been inside the hall before so I didn't do that this time. 

Unfortunately by this time the sun had gone behind clouds, so the light was poor. It did brighten up a bit again as I walked back to my car. 

Our gardens are coming to the end of the season and took a battering from Storm Babet too, so they were looking a little bedraggled. 

There are plenty of ducks on the lake, all mallard at this time of year. The males are just beginning to regain their colourful plumage after a month or two spent moulting. It was a long time (in my life) before I realised that ducks eat grass (among other things) and these were chomping away quite happily around my feet. It was similarly a long time before I realised that some of the the medium-sized black birds that you often see on lawns and in parks were jackdaws. I suppose I had lumped them under 'crows'. They are, of course, members of the crow family but smaller and paler with blue-grey plumage and a black crown and wings. They are very social birds, highly intelligent problem-solvers, often amassing collections of shiny objects in their nests.  

I name this boat....

A walk along the canal side is enlivened by the huge variety of boats and their often very creative names. Here are a few. What would you name your boat? 

You probably know that Valium (Diazepam) is the name of a drug that calms the nerves and reduces anxiety. I guess, for some folk, boats may have a similar effect.  It certainly worked for this cat...

Calm after the storm

After Storm Babet had blown through, Sunday was calm and started off bright and sunny, too good a day to waste inside. I decided I'd walk along the Leeds-Liverpool Canal from Crossflatts to Riddlesden, just for a change. It's a suburban area, with housing on the south-west side of the canal - the Bingley to Keighley corridor - though to the north-east it is a little more rural with fields and villages, and walking along the canal feels green and leafy. 

The swans had discovered a ready source of food, dropped from the bird table in someone's garden.

A few cold nights seem to have kick-started the change to autumn colour.   

When boats go past the boaters mostly wave in a friendly way, and most people you pass on the towpath say hello too. It's like an unspoken conversation: 'Hello, lovely day. Yes, it is. Good to be alive, just enjoying the day. Yes, it is'.  

And it is good to be alive, feeling grateful for our peaceful land and the freedom just to enjoy it.  Never take it for granted. 

Storm Babet

Ever since they started naming storms, the weather seems to have got a bit above itself. It definitely has a swagger to it! Storm Babet swept in over the past few days, bringing torrential rain and high winds across much of the country. It was particularly bad over central and eastern Scotland, with widespread flooding. Yorkshire took a battering too, but thankfully I haven't heard of any floods in our local area. You can often judge how bad things are by where the river level in Roberts Park rises to. It's been known to flood right across the lower field, but this time it only spread over the footpath and had already receded by the time I went down to take these photos. You could see people were having to divert across the grass though, so the perimeter path must still have had some standing water.  The weir was rushing and foaming but, again, I've seen it worse. 

Beningbrough in black and white

Particularly on such a gloomy day, with virtually blank skies - and somewhat inspired by Kate Somervell's exhibition of black and white photos - it seemed natural to look for lines and textures that would translate well to mono. Here is my selection of Beningbrough Hall black and white subjects.