September 30th 2015 - Project Month 9

It's almost time to take month 10 images for October, yet I still haven't managed to put up the September images. There is a fairly good reason for this as I've been away on holiday for a lot of September, just returned now. More on that I'm sure in another posting. And so, onward with the September images.

But before then, an unrelated image. My year long project coincides with the village church's Saturday Sanctuary day. On the first Saturday of every month, between 10am and 12.30pm the church is open for silent contemplation, thought, to read, to write or just to sit and do nothing. No service, no lectures, just peace and quiet (tea and cakes available - always a bonus). And I love it.

This month my day of quiet was on Saturday 5th of September. Before heading off to take the photographs I popped in for an hour with a Richard Jefferies Book - "The Hills and the Vale".  I'd not read this book, but as a Trustee of the Richard Jefferies Museum, I am learning his craft from words on the page. Without thought I opened the book and it happened to be page 36. There at the top of the page.............

.......... In so busy a land as ours there is no place where the mind can, as it were, turn in upon itself so fully as in the silence and solitude of a village church"

Fate maybe? I read on in the silence of that church. Half a dozen other people were there, equally absorbed in this silence. Outside the jackdaws and rooks were noisily flying hither and yon. At some distance a lawn was being mown, the throb throb sound of a 4 stroke engine signifying toil in an audible way. Yet indoors as I read on, a calm silence prevailed as the sun streaked across the pews illuminating my read.  I shall be doing the same this Saturday.

The images......... (and this month in a random order)

August 13th 2015 - Project Month 8

August : I feel the Quickening arrive. 

The seasons move the sun is still hot but mornings can be decidedly autumnal. And so it felt while out photographing the landscape project in early August. That rustle of leaves losing their suppleness in the trees, the absence of screaming swifts across the fields, colours changing as an airbrush of Naples Yellow spreads behind the harvest machine.  Red berries, apples ripening and the season of bounty is upon us. Enjoy, for the seasons darken now as the back end swing into view.

The village photographed at 8.45pm on August 7th, dusk before the watershed

The field and orchard now devoid of sheep but they'll be back I'm sure

The River looking wonderful, willowherb in flower now

Hard to remember how bleak and forbidding this church felt back in January, warm and welcoming now.

I think this is possibly the only decent photograph I've taken of this view

Chocked with vegetation and on the banks the signs of autumn are evident.

For the first time in a few visits the orchard is empty

The Strawberry Line style has been cleared a bit

Cider apples developing well.........

The Bridleway looking the same..........

......... but the barn has disappeared.

...as has the Priory (I blame the sheep)

Sand Bay at the height of the summer holidays (its why I like it - empty)

And yes we did go!

Half an hour later this fold was awash with monochrome bovines

Having started the year as grass, this maize crop is growing rapidly.

Idyllic!

See you in September........................

Flying Ant Day

Christmas comes but once a year was the title of a 1930's short film, and in most years this is undoubtedly true. However in August 2015 the Festive Season began early, four months early, and with a nod to Rudolph involved a species of animal we don't expect to see on the wing - ants to be precise.

Having hacked and dug my way through 3 hours gardening I'd decided time was right for a large mug of tea and some coffee and walnut cake as a sweetener for the hard graft. Resting the weary bones I surveyed the garden with delight, it's looking good. Next to my vantage point was the Christmas Tree. Not just any tree it has to be said, this was one which I picked as a less than 2 cm high seedling in 2007 growing in the gravel of a forest track in deepest Northumberland. This minute self seedling was not going to survive there once the logging lorries hammered through. It needed saving. Popping it into a crisp packet (not having a plastic bag when you need one) I had a notion to bring it back to Somerset and make it into a pot growing Christmas Tree. It survived the 400 mile journey, and although not the best looking spruce in the wood, now reminds me of home when brought indoors for two weeks each year to deck the halls, not with holly I may add.

Casually gazing over this, something caught my eye, the soil was moving. No, it was heaving, undulating ever so subtly. I took a closer look just as the first winged queen emerged. The black garden ant Lasius niger. Within seconds the scene changed, the soil slowly became a moving mass of ants with their wings. They were everywhere.

Legend has it that the emergence of flying ants is a once a year event, on a single day, vicariously dubbed in the media "Flying Ant Day". True specific colonies of flying ants do tend to emerge on the same day, but emergence can occur over a longer period.  That said, the end of July and early August are peak 'lift off days'. Today was August the second, it was warm, light winds and blue skies - perfect.

Before moving to Somerset I'd never seen flying ants. Then that first summer of '93 swarms of them moved across walls and across Bristol pavements as I walked into work. While I was fascinated by this behaviour, most people reached for the ant powder and puffed these miracles of nature into an early grave.

Yet, until today (usually being in a hurry) I'd not really had an opportunity to observe the emergence close too over a period of time. Within a few minutes there were hundreds of ants swarming over the pot, made up of three ant body types. Half were wingless workers scurrying around after their winged brethren, and half were winged. Of the winged ants about 30% were what I call of a large and robust figure, with the remaining 70% cut-down must eat more greens versions.

This mass emergence happens when young queens leave the nest in order to set up a new colony. To do this these young females (the larger versions of the flying ants) need to find and mate with a male ant (the cut-down version) - and for some reason, rather than just staying on the ground, do this on the wing.

I was about to witness a 'nuptial flight'

To this cake munching human it all looked a bit haphazard. Many young queens flittered about on the soil or up the tree before taking off in a bumbling weakly undulating flight closely followed by hundreds of male suitors in hot wafting flight pursuit. Many ants just fell to the ground, but the garden soon became a dogfight of the most basic of biological processes, to breed the next generation. The air was alive with wing beats, close too I could just detect a fluttering sound from all this activity. Marvellous. Yet despite their lazy flight I failed to actually see the mid-air-nuptial - well would you if a 50 year old bald bearded Geordie was following you around the garden? Some decorum and privacy please.

But its all about numbers - all emerge in unison, the chances of a successful mating are high (though it never worked for me when in Newcastle on a Saturday night as a young blade about town). And of course flying from the colony decreases the chances of interbreeding.

Once mated the female heads off somewhere to begin the whole process again, and may live as the colony queen for around 10 years. Social insects are fascinating and only now am I taking their ecology seriously.

As I watched, not all the winged ants made it. A crafty spider had spun webs across some of the branches of the tree catching many, mainly male it has to be said, ants. The webs did catch the females but they are big and just too heavy for the webs to contain them; a struggle and they were free. But a few male ants provided sustenance for the hungry spider; ample reward for the long wait.

What was fascinating was that after about half an hour there was not an ant to be seen anywhere on the tree. Presumably the workers had gone back underground, and the flying new colonisers had left, though a few still flitting about the garden still.

Would I have seen this has I not stopped for a break? I doubt it. We celebrate the magnificent wildlife spectacles of the natural world, the Masai Mara migrations, monarch butterflies, shoaling fish, starlings spectacular murmurations, but for me this half an hour spent in my garden watching hundreds of flying ants emerge was like Christmas had come already, if four months early.

And if you see any flying ants this year - the Royal Society of Biology would like to know. http://www.rsb.org.uk/get-involved/biologyweek/flying-ant-survey

Coquetdale Moves With Spirit

The applause from the back of the bus was deafening. As I looked out of the window at the Three Wheat Heads in Thropton I half waited for cheers and dancing to join the applause, but then again this is the Coquet Valley in Northumberland. They do it differently here. They do it well.

 

I've followed the fortunes of Spirit Buses since they began last year by local Rothbury lad Steve Hurst. I've never met Steve before, but from people I know living here I realised he was someone who is admired and they want to see succeed. Rothbury has a long tradition of doing things their own way and from what I'd read and heard he had a passion to provide a bus service to this area and do it one better. A simple aim - to provide a real modern view of what a bus service should do in a rural area by providing the people with what they need, not what other bus companies see as a minimum service. And I have to say, from my first ever encounter with Steve he has achieved this without question.

 

I'll put my cards on the table and admit that I know the Coquet Valley well. For 20 years my parents had a static caravan up on the Coquetdale Caravan Park 'just up the hill', every spare moment was spent here allowing me to wander the Coquet landscape unhindered from the age of 6. Later I volunteered for many years as a warden at the Cragside Estate just outside Rothbury which completed my education of this Northumbrian jewel. I may have never actually lived in Rothbury, (now living 400 miles away in Somerset) but the Coquet Valley means a lot to me, in many ways provides my roots, my soul and my spirit.

 

Apt then that Steve Hurst should name his company Spirit Buses.

 

This weekend I was up with my partner Julie for the Rothbury Traditional Music Festival, but I have long wanted to support Steve and go up the Valley on his bus. The hour of departure arrived. Taking a break from the pipes and fiddles, at 14.45hrs the bus arrived in the centre of the village. A newly purchased (and as yet unliveried) Spirit bus.

 

 

We were going on the 'Coquetdale Circular'

 

 

This Coquetdale Circular route follows somewhat in the footsteps of the Royal Mail Post Bus Service which ran until January 2009 up the Coquet Valley to the last village of Alwinton. While the National Royal Mail service provided a lifeline to the many hamlets and farms up this remote valley by ferrying passengers while delivering the post, it received thousands of pounds in subsidies from Northumberland Council to keep it running. When the subsidies stopped the service stopped and for anyone living west of Thropton, the terminus to a national provider, public transport ended.

 

The similarity stops there. What Steve Hurst is doing is running a service without any financial subsidy, using his own money and driven enthusiasm. Not only up the valley, but to Alnwick (Rothbury and Alnwick have never been connected by public transport), Morpeth and other areas. How he has done this can be read below in an article in the Guardian.

 

For me last Saturday I solely wanted to experience this bus journey for what it is, which is now also becoming tourist service in its own right.

 

 

The bus was nearly full when we set off. Half the passengers were local. Steve greeting each one by name, a smile and a few words. The rest were, like me,  tourists excited at being driven on this 20 odd mile round trip for little more than the cost of a skinny latte in a city centre bistro. As I got on the bus I asked Steve if it would be okay to take photos on the way.

 

"No problem, I'll stop at Alwinton too and you can get out and take one there"

 

And we were off. Up the valley. Thropton 2 miles away, then Snitter a mile or so further on. As a car driver I have to concentrate on the road, but released from the rules of the highway my eye was caught by myriad views of the passing landscape newly seen from the height of a bus. Ohh that's what's over that hedge then? Just fabulous.

 

Onward the bus went, after Snitter, Netherton. The scenery is getting wild now. Behind me tourists 'ohh-ing and ahh-ing' at this huge, vast skied breath-taking scenery. Camera's clicked, people pointed. One lady, obviously local, had brought two guests with her and began pointing out places of interest or where she went to school. Quietly in front of me a local couple sat with their shopping, another man read a book to his little girl and an elderly lady sat next to me. More on her later.

 

Biddlestone next and it's red quarry scar, before the long drive into the remote valley near Alwinton, where the bus turned round to head back on a different route.

 

Alwinton: population 71:

 

This is the last village in the Valley. It has the last pub in the valley and is a centre for walkers and cyclists heading up Clennel Street in search of fresh air and freedom on the Cheviot Hill. Had the spirit bus continued, after about 6 miles it would have passed the last tea shop in Northumberland, at Barrowburn. Possibly the most remote café in England which is well worth a visit. Sit in the garden of this café and take the view. Nothing but hills and the odd passing sheep oh and absolute silence (providing the NATO Ranges are not firing at Otterburn). 6 miles or so beyond Barrowburn the road slowly ends close by the Scottish Border. It's a remote landscape loved by me and historically frequented by the Reivers.

 

Alwinton is home to another last, the Alwinton Border Shepherds Show which as the last country show in the calendar takes place this year on October 10th. Sometimes I sit daydreaming about the Alwinton Show while working in Bristol or at home in Somerset, its what keeps me going.

 

However my daydream was broken on Saturday by Steve. Having picked up half a dozen walkers they now filled the bus. Steve's head popped round the side of where he was sitting.

 

"Do you still want a photo here?"

 

I'd not forgotten (honestly) I just didn't want to get in the way. I got off and photographed his bus by the stop hard by the Rose and Crown

 

"Can I take a photo of you Steve as I want to write about this"

 

"No problem, I get a lot of these now from tourists, happy to do it"

 

Photographs done, I rushed back on passing the tourist information Steve has on his bus. Aside from the regular scheduled services, I'd been reading how Steve operates special events and also ties in with people like Shepherd Walks who have developed walks based on where his bus goes to and from and his timetable. 

 

This is what makes this such a special service. It's a bus service run to a very professional standard, on time and in clean friendly buses. Yet it is also a community hub, a link to other areas and people, provides tourist transport and as I was about to witness, a rural delivery service.

 

We were off, through the wonderfully named Harbottle then on into Holystone, chance for a photo of the long gone Salmon Inn in the far distance (where I spent much too much of my early years). An about turn and retrace our steps into Sharperton and a halt.

 

 

Out Steve got and walked over the bus stop where various items were. He was dropping off a delivery. Out here the community look out for each other and the additional services this bus provides is apparently well used by locals. The delivery made we left Sharperton back into the lower Valley and heading to Thropton, leaving me with plenty of time to take an artistic image of the ever smiling Steve at the wheel of his office while waiting at some traffic lights. 

 

Roadwork's in Thropton distracted everyone including Steve who accidentally drove by the regular stop where the elderly lady next to me hoped to get off.  Apologetic he pulled up as soon as he safely could, switched off the bus and walked the lady the few yards back to her home, returning to his seat accompanied by a huge round of applause from the locals (and tourists) for his act of generosity. Then we were off, Steve waving at a chap by the roadside who I later discovered was Henry, someone I'd not seen in 30 years, not since those days when the Cross Keys in Thropton and the Salmon in Holystone swapped clientele. Moving on ....

 

 

All too soon we were driving into Rothbury, time for a few last images of the Simonside Hills and the Festival from the bus.  

 

 

Matching reality to words often fails but during this short 1 hour journey I'd seen more community spirit, heard more laughter, witnessed more good will towards people, more waving at passing motorists, than I've seen for a long time. I don't know Steve but a conversation with one of the locals after we arrived back in Rothbury summed it up beautifully.

 

I was taking the photograph below and she stopped me.

 

"Did you enjoy your ride on the bus?"

 

I recognised her as one of the locals who'd been on there. Explaining how it was fantastic and more people should come to Rothbury and experience this she said (and I'm paraphrasing)

 

"Steve has brought this valley to life again. Without him we'd not be able to get anywhere. I don't drive so relied on friends for lifts. Now I can get on here and go to friends, go to Alnwick, or Morpeth and know I'm with someone who I can rely on. He's such  a good man, I only hope he can keep this service going"

 

 

I hope that too and why I've written this. As I've stated, I don't know Steve (who I hope doesn't mind my writing this), I have no connection to him other than by word of mouth, but I feel what he has achieved against mounting opposition in some areas is quite simply phenomenal. To run a bus service unaided, unsubsidised and on his own takes guts. He has guts, but he also has a charm and a sense of I am here to help the community, all with a sense of humour. Financially it must be a struggle. This is not a well populated area and running buses I should imagine isn't cheap. I hope then that more people come to the Valley and use his service. It is liberating to get out of the car and be part of a community on the move. I loved it and will do it again.

 

That lady I chatted to for over 5 minutes spoke of Steve in such warm tones, about a man who loves his village and its surrounding area and is actually doing something positive on his own for the good of others.  Steve Hurst, is in many ways the real Spirit of Coquetdale.

 

 

Spirit Busses website - http://www.spiritbuses.co.uk/

 

Alwinton Show - http://www.alwintonshow.co.uk/

 

Shepherds Walks blog -  http://shepherdswalks.co.uk/blog/netherton_to_alwinton

 

Article in the Guardian - http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/04/northumberland-man-offers-lifeline-public-transport-steve-hurst