It was a blue-skied start to the day, but three layers were essential to combat the cold and biting wind. In typical South Pennine fashion conditions soon deteriorated so we worked the bulk of the day under grey skies and in the face of squally rain. Consequently, only a few pictures were taken and those were mainly at the start of tasks.
Task 1. Finger-post near Clough Foot Car Park.
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| Finger-post less than vertical! |
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| Fred in action excavating new post-hole |
No picture of the end result nor of Task 2 (installing a marker post and adding various waymarks near Walshaw Middle Reservoir).
Task 3. Marker post on Pennine Way below Pack Horse Pub.
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| Old marker post: Difficult to see, but it is rotten at top and very loose in the hole! |
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| New marker post firmly in place (and vertical!) but . . . . . . the sky is already darkening! |
Task 4. Path improvement through a ruined wall
A path leading down from the Widdop road to the Pennine Way, crosses a field boundary. The stile that was there is now redundant and the dry-stone wall has partly collapsed onto the path. We attempted to improve the route through this collapse. It was a very 'bitty' task but, at least, it is better now than it was!
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| Before: collapsed wall and redundant stile. |
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| Work in progress: stone steps rather than a jumble of rocks! |
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| Work in progress: path through the wall looking from field to Pennine Way. Walking surface now improved with water channelled under the path. |
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| Before: path through wall looking from Pennine Way to field. There is standing water on the path. |
Task 5 involved a similar clearance of a collapsed wall further along the Pennine Way, Task 6 the stabilising of a wobbly stile step and task 7 drainage improvement, with the digging of a channel, the rodding out of a pipe and the construction of a silt trap. No pictures are available because of the driving rain ... and threat of hypothermia!
Moorland of Dreams
CROWS work gangs usually receive detailed and accurate descriptions together with the location of various 'problems'. Occasionally, however, the accompanying 'map' has the problem (eg broken stile or wayward post) marked in the wrong position or has a grid reference with the Easting and Northing numbers transposed. The latter can result in a spectacular misdirection suggesting the location is somewhere in the North Sea rather than in the Upper Calder Valley!
With this in mind, to the tune of 'Island of Dreams' and with apologies to Tom Springfield who wrote the original for The Springfields in 1962 we have:
Moorland of Dreams
I wandered the moors and those grey boggy places
Trying to detect you, but somehow it seems
My map doesn't match - I retrace my last paces -
The stile's only there, in one of my dreams!
High in the sky is a CROW on the wing;
'Please spot the stile for me!
I carry the tools and want to repair it.
Please spot the stile for me!'
Fated to wander where compass doth lead me:
Roaming for miles on the moorland of dreams.
High in the sky is a CROW on the wing;
'Please spot the stile for me!
I carry the tools and want to repair it.
Please spot the stile for me!'
Fated to wander where compass doth lead me,
Roaming for miles on the moorland of dreams.
Up to my waist in a bogland of dreams!
