Posts Tagged ‘Morecambe Bay’

Monday, June 20th, 2011

Killing Red Squirrels the Forestry Commission Way

Chapel House Wood

The fell road along Gummers Howe is one of the loveliest in the Lake District. The fells here are mainly forested, but where there are gaps you can see views to Lake Windermere on one side and Morecambe Bay on the other. The woodland, known as Chapel House Wood, is owned by the Forestry Commission, whose job it is not only to look after the woodland but also to protect the wildlife.
They’ve fallen down badly on both counts. The photo shows where they have cleared timber, leaving the fells looking like a battlefield. But their biggest crime has been in failing to protect the red squirrel in one of their last habitats in the South Lakes. When I first began to commute along this road 11 years ago red squirrels were a common sight and it was joy to see them. Now they have been wiped out and the greys have taken over. One of the main platforms of the campaign to protect the Forestry Commission earlier this year was the claim that they were there to protect the habitat of the red squirrel. This was one of the many untruths told on their behalf, as the scandal of Chapel House Wood illustrates.

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Tuesday, December 21st, 2010

The Slow Life Journey to Work


On a day like today I’d be willing to bet that there is no journey to work better than mine. I begin in Grange-over-Sands on a sparkling morning when the rising sun casts long red shadows on the expansive sands of Morecambe Bay. Then along the Lythe Valley to the Damson Dene Hotel in Crosthwaite. It is deep midwinter; when I started out the temperature was –1C and with each mile inland it drops a further degree so that by the time I reach the Damson Dene it is –7. All the fields and trees along the way are thickly coated with a hoar frost which gleams in the bright sunshine.
From the Damson Dene my journey takes me to our latest acquisition, the Sawrey Hotel, which is about 15 minutes away on the other side of Lake Windermere. I cross the Lake by a ferry which works on a pulley system which gives a quiet smooth ride and allows you to enjoy the view of the water with the snow-capped mountains beyond. Today the Lake is covered with ice but the ferry has been able to push its way through. This video is a record of the crossing. This isn’t work- it’s the Slow Life.
The song which accompanies the video is A Hazy Shade of Winter by Simon and Garfunkel.

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Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

Morecambe Bay

morecambe bay
No matter what I say
All that I really love
Is the rain that flattens on the bay
And the eel grass in the cove

E. St Vincent Millais

To me Morecambe Bay is a view. To Tony it’s his tea. I thought I loved and appreciated the Bay as much as anyone until I met Tony. Tony understands the Bay and he’s the only person I’ve met who doesn’t fear it.
The Bay has a fearsome reputation. Its quicksands claim lives every year. These aren’t the quicksands of the movies, which suck the victim under. The sands of Morecambe Bay are much crueller- they suck you up to the knees and hold you there until the tide comes in and drowns you. My youngest daughter, when only four, got stuck in the sands off the beach at Arnside and when I pulled her out of her wellington boots the suction of the sand was so strong that I couldn’t pull her boots out of the sand.
Tony lives in a cottage right on the beach and has grown to know the Bay so well that he thinks nothing of venturing out on his own to cross it. He described to me the enormous beds of mussels which lie in the Bay, acres of them, a natural harvest which is there for the plucking. Which is about as close to Thoreau’s idea of the Slow Life as you can get, I reckon.

Morecambe_Bay,_abandoned_car

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