Summer folded into the grey
11th July 2017
11th July 2017
The colour and music of Summer folded around the Grey and Yellow
The sky and mountains are grey, but all around are sounds and bright, yellow pockets filled with the essence of summer.
Starting out on an overcast day, with the cloud like an over large hat sat on the head of Black Coomb, my motivation is low. These are conditions that do not make me keen to venture out . However, as yet, I do not realise that the skies grey metalled back wash is only a distraction from all the light and colour that abounds.
My initial feeling of malaise and indifference is not improved as I enter an arboreal tunnel of wet, overhanging branches that bar my way. I am immediately soaked from the water laden leaves, leaving my spirits drowning. I am wet even before I start.
Regardless, I carry on towards the dark, swirling, grey murk that hovers over my horizon with a determination that is based on a ‘fingers crossed’ hope. There must, surely, be some colour and light in this dullest of days? How pleased I am for my stubborn, blind faith, as this journey reveals many brilliant, colourful encounters that shine above the grey, drab, daub of the day.
The object of my exploration is the hills that fill the area between Broughton Mill, overlooking the stunning Duddon Valley, and the slopes that fall towards Torver and Coniston. It is an easy, rolling landscape and very quiet. However, due to its closeness to the Irish Sea, it means this area can too easily experiences the full, watery impact of south-westerly weather systems. A countryside that can become wet and grey in an instance (as I had just discovered).
High up on the dripping, wet grey buttress of Dow Crag I heard a most distinctive noise. A distinct ‘chirp’: a note that comes from the moss and lichen carpeted rocks themselves as this tone is 'of the mountain'.
The percussive note echoes around the steep, vertigo inducing crags, channelling the activities of past slate miners from a long, forgotten age.
High up in these dank, black hills this little bird finds a safe, but wild home and like it's clear song, it's pure white neck colouring stands out against the grey walls of its home. This is Ring Ouzel territory and its presence is light against the black.
Further down the slopes, as the becks gather, I come across the budgerigar presence of Grey Wagtails. They flit from boulder to boulder and despite their namesake tails frantically flicking, they are not obviously grey. In fact they are daubed with yellow across their chest and tail, with white flecks giving them a very exotic, summery appearance. THey wag a tail at the grey of the day.
As I head further across the Fells I experience little improvement in the weather - sharp showers bursts through the mountains to send me diving for waterproofs.
Therefore, I head to the relative shelter of a very old, abandoned quarry. This is a place that has seen little human activity for several hundred years. However, all around is the evidence of the enormous efforts that were once taking place. This includes a massive entrance hammered out of the hard, volcanic rock, opening into a cavernous amphitheatre of rock walls.
At its heart is a huge hole in the ground that descends deep into the mountain. With walls dripping and the dark, dank, depths. The oppressive nature of the hole gives it a hard sinister atmosphere. Emanating from this dark, soulless cavern is a cold breeze that bars my way: and though I am not brave enough to venture into this seeming endless abyss and I am humbled when thinking of those who had to descend into the depths to make a living. They had to ignore their natural senses and leave the light of life behind them.
After being repelled by the ‘hole’ I assess my immediate environment and suddenly realise that the dark, quarry walls are illuminated!
Due to the hard nature of the quarry and the sinister eye-like stare of the ‘hole’ my attention was elsewhere, but like Jason and his argonauts, or Professor Lidenbrock, as his oil lantern fails, a illumination is revealed.
The walls of this grey, hard, sharp quarry were bathed in a golden glow of the rare Yellow Mountain Saxifrage. It is everywhere, growing out of every crack and ripple in the rock. I am immediately bathed in a summery light despite the grey of the sky above, or the inpenetrable blackness of the mine below.
My days exploration was all most over and though I was away from most of the worst weather, the day was still damp and grey. The drab outlook, however, no longer held any power over me as my eyes were discovering more and more colour and light in the landscape around me. Each bog was blazoned with yellow asphodels, or spearworts and all around could be found the delicate pink of Bog Pimpernel and Lousewort. The day from beginning to end was filled with the colour and music of summer, freeing me from the grey.
Postscript
The northern sense of irony is contained within the local maxim, “if there's cloud on Black Coomb it's raining and if there's no cloud on Black Coomb it's gonna rain” The sentiment of this maxim was clear and ringing in my ears as I set off today, but perhaps I should have also remembered Seamus Heaney’s advice:
“Upend the rainstick and what happens next
Is a music that you never would have known
To listen for. In a cactus stalk
Downpour, sluice-rush, spillage and backwash
Come flowing through. You stand there like a pipe
Being played by water, you shake it again lightly
And diminuendo runs through all its scales
Like a gutter stopping trickling. And now here comes
A sprinkle of drops out of the freshened leaves,
Then subtle little wets off grass and daisies;
Then glitter-drizzle, almost-breaths of air.
Upend the stick again. What happens next
Is undiminished for having happened once.
Twice, ten, a thousand times before.
Who cares if the music that transpires
Is the fall of grit or dry seeds through a cactus?
You are like a rich man entering heaven
Through the ear of a shower. Listen now again”.
(The Rainstick - Seamus Heaney)
The colour and music of Summer folded around the Grey and Yellow
The sky and mountains are grey, but all around are sounds and bright, yellow pockets filled with the essence of summer.
Starting out on an overcast day, with the cloud like an over large hat sat on the head of Black Coomb, my motivation is low. These are conditions that do not make me keen to venture out . However, as yet, I do not realise that the skies grey metalled back wash is only a distraction from all the light and colour that abounds.
My initial feeling of malaise and indifference is not improved as I enter an arboreal tunnel of wet, overhanging branches that bar my way. I am immediately soaked from the water laden leaves, leaving my spirits drowning. I am wet even before I start.
Regardless, I carry on towards the dark, swirling, grey murk that hovers over my horizon with a determination that is based on a ‘fingers crossed’ hope. There must, surely, be some colour and light in this dullest of days? How pleased I am for my stubborn, blind faith, as this journey reveals many brilliant, colourful encounters that shine above the grey, drab, daub of the day.
The object of my exploration is the hills that fill the area between Broughton Mill, overlooking the stunning Duddon Valley, and the slopes that fall towards Torver and Coniston. It is an easy, rolling landscape and very quiet. However, due to its closeness to the Irish Sea, it means this area can too easily experiences the full, watery impact of south-westerly weather systems. A countryside that can become wet and grey in an instance (as I had just discovered).
High up on the dripping, wet grey buttress of Dow Crag I heard a most distinctive noise. A distinct ‘chirp’: a note that comes from the moss and lichen carpeted rocks themselves as this tone is 'of the mountain'.
The percussive note echoes around the steep, vertigo inducing crags, channelling the activities of past slate miners from a long, forgotten age.
High up in these dank, black hills this little bird finds a safe, but wild home and like it's clear song, it's pure white neck colouring stands out against the grey walls of its home. This is Ring Ouzel territory and its presence is light against the black.
Further down the slopes, as the becks gather, I come across the budgerigar presence of Grey Wagtails. They flit from boulder to boulder and despite their namesake tails frantically flicking, they are not obviously grey. In fact they are daubed with yellow across their chest and tail, with white flecks giving them a very exotic, summery appearance. THey wag a tail at the grey of the day.
As I head further across the Fells I experience little improvement in the weather - sharp showers bursts through the mountains to send me diving for waterproofs.
Therefore, I head to the relative shelter of a very old, abandoned quarry. This is a place that has seen little human activity for several hundred years. However, all around is the evidence of the enormous efforts that were once taking place. This includes a massive entrance hammered out of the hard, volcanic rock, opening into a cavernous amphitheatre of rock walls.
At its heart is a huge hole in the ground that descends deep into the mountain. With walls dripping and the dark, dank, depths. The oppressive nature of the hole gives it a hard sinister atmosphere. Emanating from this dark, soulless cavern is a cold breeze that bars my way: and though I am not brave enough to venture into this seeming endless abyss and I am humbled when thinking of those who had to descend into the depths to make a living. They had to ignore their natural senses and leave the light of life behind them.
After being repelled by the ‘hole’ I assess my immediate environment and suddenly realise that the dark, quarry walls are illuminated!
Due to the hard nature of the quarry and the sinister eye-like stare of the ‘hole’ my attention was elsewhere, but like Jason and his argonauts, or Professor Lidenbrock, as his oil lantern fails, a illumination is revealed.
The walls of this grey, hard, sharp quarry were bathed in a golden glow of the rare Yellow Mountain Saxifrage. It is everywhere, growing out of every crack and ripple in the rock. I am immediately bathed in a summery light despite the grey of the sky above, or the inpenetrable blackness of the mine below.
My days exploration was all most over and though I was away from most of the worst weather, the day was still damp and grey. The drab outlook, however, no longer held any power over me as my eyes were discovering more and more colour and light in the landscape around me. Each bog was blazoned with yellow asphodels, or spearworts and all around could be found the delicate pink of Bog Pimpernel and Lousewort. The day from beginning to end was filled with the colour and music of summer, freeing me from the grey.
Postscript
The northern sense of irony is contained within the local maxim, “if there's cloud on Black Coomb it's raining and if there's no cloud on Black Coomb it's gonna rain” The sentiment of this maxim was clear and ringing in my ears as I set off today, but perhaps I should have also remembered Seamus Heaney’s advice:
“Upend the rainstick and what happens next
Is a music that you never would have known
To listen for. In a cactus stalk
Downpour, sluice-rush, spillage and backwash
Come flowing through. You stand there like a pipe
Being played by water, you shake it again lightly
And diminuendo runs through all its scales
Like a gutter stopping trickling. And now here comes
A sprinkle of drops out of the freshened leaves,
Then subtle little wets off grass and daisies;
Then glitter-drizzle, almost-breaths of air.
Upend the stick again. What happens next
Is undiminished for having happened once.
Twice, ten, a thousand times before.
Who cares if the music that transpires
Is the fall of grit or dry seeds through a cactus?
You are like a rich man entering heaven
Through the ear of a shower. Listen now again”.
(The Rainstick - Seamus Heaney)