walking the old road

This is 2 views of the old A625 which once snaked it’s way up the side of Mam Tor. The landslips and earth movements of Mam Tor,   ‘ the shivering mountain’  caused the road  to be patched up many times,  reduced to a single lane road and then finally closed in 1979. Tarmac as ancient geology, sheep and walkers clamber over it.

-in between- left and found

left in the Dover Castle Pub

found, near huge swirly coffee

within the space of 2 days, news of -in between- left in Brighton and the first news of one found! It can’t be in the same pub, maybe it’s just travelled down the road, or maybe this is an entirely different book.  Why did I not insist on a number tracking system  – oh I remember, I did! Now where did I put that list…..

a quick decision in heavy rain

saw us catching a bus across a causeway to hideout at Roa Island, scoffing nut roasts and chips til the skies cleared and we could sit in the ‘ferry’ without getting toowet.  Off we went to Piel Island…..

wind worn windows

the castle, built in the 1300’s , stands on the shore, not far from the pub and a terrace of houses, the only buildings on the island, apart from the camping toilets, as far as I could see. The stonework was pretty well intact but the windows well showed the years of wind that had blown through them.

Piel Island was presented to the people of Barrow in 1920 as a memorial to those who lost their lives in the First World War. You can get a boat there and back from Roa Island for a fiver and if you get a  permit from the pub you can camp anywhere on the island. A tent was very snugly set in one of the fortress’s towers.

Roa Island used to be an island, now it is part of the mainland, joined by the causeway that passes through the flats and marshes that I guess have developed since.

This structure and the marshes it sits in brought to mind the start of Great Expectations, the prison ships, the hiding place…the door was padlocked and there was no interpretation  plaque in sight so I might just keep that story in place. Either that or it was an early lighthouse, now very much inland.

many chimnies

Growing growing gone

the Jarden at the plot

Carnivorous plants at Tatton Flower Show