Ann Gate
@ceadela
Erstwhile secondhand bookseller and Classics teacher; Cumbria and Oxfordshire
One for @conecclesia.bsky.social though not ecclesiastical: cone off duty in its rural home on the outskirts of Settle, Yorkshire
1999 eclipse booklet and intact viewing glasses found so all set for tomorrow Partial Eclipse viewers: stand under a tree and you will see crescent Suns on the ground, created by the leaves’ pinhole cameras - magical ☀️🌙🌙🌙
Highlight of ARLT Summer School final evening entertainment at Giggleswick last week was group who mimed scenes from The Odyssey - everyone shouted the answers before they’d acted more than 10 secs of each The fate of Melanthius (not this one) needed a trigger warning ⚠️ 🤣
Most of them on the above-riverside route to the Stainforth Force waterfalls - well worth the stile-climbs
I may have to admit that Yorkshire stile trump Lake District stiles, in many cases
Some of this week’s Yorkshire step n squeeze stone stiles with little gates, near Settle - there were dozens 😍 @lakesstiles.bsky.social
But what about THIS? A twofer, stone step n ladder combo - I climbed both of course! Near Settle, Yorkshire 😄
Nicely graduated stone step through stile below Blencathra Don’t know why the yellow triangle has a picture of a bus on it 🤷♀️ #StileSaturday @lakesstiles.bsky.social
I have spent past few weeks pulling ragwort on wildflower public space opposite a paddock which is cut for hay, and translocating cinnabar moth caterpillars to ragwort clumps in less sensitive spots 🤪
Most of my hollyhocks are deep shades of pink, but some are salmon pink, some white, and the ones by the hydrangea are a matching shade of pale 🩷💕
Got back to Oxon to find the hollyhocks had reached 7ft on either side the washing line; needed a bit of juggling to hang out 🧺🌺
Seasonally recreational stile yesterday near Threlkeld, stile capital of the Lakes
It’s warm and cloudy but no sunshine so have put off walks in favour of essential jobs inside and out, including windows 🧽 😇
All cleared away to bonfire site now, along with hedge clippings and long grass from margins 🤪 #gardeningholiday 😂
Clipped the Monstrous Shrub yesterday 🤪 Planted by mum 50 yrs ago at Cumbrian cottage it is supposed to conceal the septic tank, but the rampant bunnies have eaten the lower part so it doesn’t 🙄 The leaves are leathery and dusty so the experience was horrible 😬
16 nests create quite a racket of cawing! This is the partly leucistic juvenile which walked around the garden for 2 weeks until he was strong enough to fly off the other day 🐦⬛
Open garden at local Manor House this afternoon: village church from different perspective
Mullein on footpath, West Oxfordshire: a plant which appears and disappears mysteriously, but has flowered here two years running #Wildflowerhour
A juvenile green woodpecker flew from the oak to the hawthorn in my woodland garden and circled the trunk silently and camouflaged “Annihilatiing all that’s made / To a green thought in a green shade” 💚