5th October, 2014....Harvest Festival and Furness General!

A tiny bit of rain has finally fallen, and very nice it was too....I'd forgotten how clean things smelled after a rain shower! The beck at Furness Abbey has a small amount of water in it at last.

 

The skies seem heavy with rain, but none of it is falling yet...? Greengate little ones invade Abbot's Wood tomorrow so lets hope the rain holds off until after that!

 

 

Lovely sunrise from our bedroom window this morning, and the SteveHillman camera went to a new venue yesterday...the church at Penny Bridge and then Rusland Pool! Don't think I've ever been to either before, though an old friend of ours did OWN the Rusland Pool for a while.

 

 

 

He thought the hotel was a really good venue for a wedding, and it's not far from Barrow if you don't want to pay a fortune for wedding cars!

 

 

 

 

Tested my new Jack Wolfskin boots out down at the amphitheatre today......they were perfect......a cross between hiking boots and wellies!

 

 

Frank decided to give his Berghaus walking boots a test too....now he's worried he'll have caught leptospirosis from the water, so he's having a lie down!! We were all having a quiet morning, pottering, reading papers, drinking tea etc when the phone rang. It was Rosie saying she'd come off her bike on Birkrigg Common and was lying in a heap. We got in the car and threw in the first aid kit and a couple of tea towels for good measure, and headed up there. Land Rover to the rescue again!

We did go to Furness General Accident and Emergency because she had smashed her head on the road, but luckily the helmet took the full force of the impact and she's escaped with cuts and scrapes and a head ache.

 

 

Furness general were very good though....she saw a triage nurse within ten minutes and then was seen by a doctor within the hour, so well done to them, they were very thorough. They have obviously pulled themselves up by the boot straps......I ended up in there a couple of years ago after something nasty, and they were rubbish....slung me out with the most ridiculously dangerous pain killers that I could have sold for massive money on the streets.....and I'd never even taken paracetamol! I binned them and suffered! Happily, things seemed to have improved there now!

 

 

Just got across the train lines in time....wonder if Mr. Woodcock is heading back to London to his day job!! My boss went to one of his mobile (!) surgeries on Friday.....I haven't asked her how it went yet.....hopefully there

 

will be some good news for Central Ward. In the mean time, I've noticed many local schools are donating their Harvest produce to the Barrow Food Bank, as we will be doing after our Harvest Festival on Friday. We do split it with Ostley House too, as that is a very worthwhile, and sometimes overlooked, local charity.

 

 

Greengate Junior parents are always so generous! This was last year!

 

 

 

 

It's looking lovely down here at the moment! I was talking to an old sparring partner the other day, who cannot understand why I put heart and soul into my job, when the pay is rubbish compared to his managerial salary, for half the effort. Here's the answer.......

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

28th September, 2014...Autumn drought and the Great Hillman bake Off!

More beautiful autumnal weather, but the local streams and becks are looking worryingly empty!

 

 

Yes, that is the dried up beck....and it's like that as far back as you can follow. Really dry down here at the moment.

 

 

You've got to wonder how much prolonged rainfall it will take to get this filled again. Last week's short spell of rain obviously had no effect...no chance of spotting a kingfisher or heron with no food available...?

 

 

And yet another old tree fallen into the beck further up...there is nothing but dry soil for the roots on the banks of the river now and things are sliding in. We found a wasps nest fallen on to the river bed near Bow Bridge...nothing holding it in place now.

 

 

We spotted Barbra Dunn from  British Heart Foundation putting out markers down here yesterday, and there were lots of walkers today, so I guess BHF had a charity walk...we did our bit for charity on Friday, with a Macmillan Coffee Morning, our first event of the new school year, and raised £160.

 

 

 

Mad coffee ladies!!

 

 

Parents at our school are so kind and supportive! We had a 'bake off' of our own this morning....we got so fed up of eating rubbish food last week because we were busy, we decided to cook five complete meals from scratch and freeze everything to keep us going at least this week (and some bonus mince pies were made from left over pastry so that can't be bad!). We do this 'now and again'!!!!! Can't sustain it though!

 

 

 

 

So, this lovely weather....Late September is a very popular time to get married, and the Steve Hillman camera has been very busy...

 

 

 

 

 

 

.....and congratulations to all the happy couples past, present and future! There is only one photographer you would choose (but I'm biased obviously!).

 

 

Frankie is growing ever larger...I'm always shocked when I see him in these photos by Abbey Mill Café....their sausage buns are just too good! Well, I've purchased my Jack Wolfskin snow boots, but I kind of think we will still be in shirt sleeves in December this year, though the weather in the latest book I'm reading is making me shudder.....

 

 

 

 

.....even their eyes freeze if they step outside for a few minutes!!! Bring it on!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

14th September, 2014...English Heritage...what are you playing at?!

 

Not a good week for Furness Abbey and it's surrounding manors....English heritage have pronounced that there would be very little impact on the site if houses were built on this beautiful field in the background here...what utter rubbish....imagine thirty eight houses shoe-horned onto this field...what a disaster!

 

 

Let's hope the local council has the sense to rule against allowing these houses to be built...there is no need, and if pros and cons are truly balanced for a decision like this, the cons are far heavier.

 

 

 

 

A flat, grey, clammy sort of day today, but what a beautiful week of weather it has been...did you see the Harvest Moon the other evening...beautiful!

 

 

The Steve Hillman camera has been busy again at weddings over the weekend, and he was at a venue on Friday that he hasn't worked at for at least fifteen years...Lakeside Hotel.....

 

 

 

 

 

.....so as well as the wedding shots, he did get some lovely autumnal photography whilst eating his 'Billy NoMates' pack up by the side of the lake, whilst the bridal party had their meal!

 

 

The lonely life of a wedding photographer!! I don't think so....we walk around the town quite a lot, and we can't go anywhere without people stopping us and chatting...I always say afterwards "Who was that" , and the reply is always...'Oh, I did his/her/their wedding in....'etc! Steve Hillman Photographer is now as well know as Ray Hillman, Postman!!

 

 

 

Frank treated himself to an Abbey Mill Burger today......well...he has had a hard week at school! Haven't we all!!

 

 

This running group use Abbey Mill as their base now.... It's great to see these different fitness groups starting up around here...I can't run, but a 'Power Walking' group might be more my style!

 

 

Any policemen reading this, there has been a bit of sneaky 'flytipping' down here, by the railway bridge...it looks awful...

 

 

 

This is us walking along the river bed today...the beck has pretty much dried up, which is strange...and further along towards Bow Bridge, there are fish dying on the dried up bed...it's pretty gruesome because there is nowhere to put them. Has it dried up or has it been blocked somewhere????

 

 

 

 

How strange...!!