Winter Lingers

Mid-March and we still sit in snow and fog. A taxi makes its way through the murk. A grounded railway van has seen better days.

Dunford Bridge

The Woodhead railway line crossed high Pennine moorland, burrowing through tunnels over 3 1/2 miles long on route. Linking major cities of northern England, intermediate stations were too remote to pay, and the line lived out its later years as a coal to power station shuttle. This ended with mine closures in the 1980s and the track bed has been converted to leisure use.

After WW2 the line was electrified to 1500v DC, an anomaly in British standards, and lasted barely three decades before being torn up. Silence is interrupted by the cry of curlew and grouse and it's impossible to imagine lines of coal wagons crossing the same place.

Reservoir, Wessenden Valley, Saddleworth, West Yorkshire

Not for Drinking

Catch up time. More from the slop bucket of Poundland* film to follow soon.

*RIP Poundland Agfa Vista 200. We shall not see your like again. Nature's cheapest film went south last summer, and a replacement is unlikely. A last hurrah for consumer film before it's re-imagined as boutique commodity. I'm down to my last 50 rolls. Point. And shoot.

Way-on-High

Hay on Wye is best known for its annual literary festival, but it's an interesting town for a mooch at any time.

Holy High Points

One of the ways the CofE has raised cash in recent years is to permit public access to its church towers. While this shows a commendable spirit of enterprise, and is an invitation I find impossible to resist, one can't help wondering about the wisdom of the enterprise. Steps are often dusty and broken, handrails non-existent and the only illumination is a head torch - if you remember to pick one up. Walberswick even had a vertical ladder to access the tower. It's a bit like a 1950s health and safety regime, and all the better for it, but the risk assessment must have been written on the back of an envelope, or the church commissioners have friends in, erm, high places.

View from the top of St. Nicholas Church tower, Blakeney, Norfolk.

St Andrew's Church tower, Walberswick, Suffolk

View from Walberswick church tower

It was in these ruins that George Orwell - not a man one would normally associate with the supernatural - claimed to have seen a ghost.

WW2 relics

Stiffkey anti-aircraft gunnery camp, North Norfolk. Military relics aplenty. The place is currently a campsite, farm and boat repairer.