Rudyard

 A short walk from the car park at the Leek and Rudyard Railway, following the railway line, gets you to Rudyard Lake.

From the first train stop, called The Dam, you can walk onwards at the side of the lake or turn left onto the bridge and down by the lake on the opposite side where there are visitor facilities.

We walked along by the railway.  Just us and a few dog walkers.  Well I say a few but each of the walkers seemed to have several dogs.

 It was quiet, sunny and for once quite warm.  There were several birds calling. 

We heard Chiff Chaff, Robins, Wrens, GreatTits and also a Nuthatch.

We spotted a Heron and also a swallow, swooping over the water.

We stopped for a while on the other side of the lake and sat outside with a coffee and shared a piece of banana bread.

 

 The lake was built by the Trent and Mersey Canal Company. under the guidance ofJohn Rennie, to supply water to the Caldon branch of the Trent and Mersey Canal.  It was begun in 1797 and completed in 1800.  It still supplies water to the canal system it was designed for. It is now owned by the Canal and River Trust.

 It was here that Rudyard Kipling's parents, John Lockwood Kipling and Alice MacDonald met.  Here is more about the Kipling connection.

Writer George Orwell visited Rudyard Lake between the two world wars when he was researching for his book The Road to Wigan Pier.  He didn't think much of it. 

'Not a soul anywhere and bitter wind blowing. All the broken ice had been blowing up to the South end and the waves were rocking it up and down making a clank-clank, clank-clank.  The most melancholic noise I ever heard.'

Thank goodness we had bright, Spring sunshine for our walk.  Next time, if the train is running, we may take it to the other end of the lake.

All for now.

The Mayfly Throne

 In one of the local city parks at Burslem you can find a sculpture called The Mayfly Throne.  

  It's by local sculptors Andy Edwards and Philip Hardaker and was inspired by the life cycle of the Mayfly.

It replaces a statue of a water nymph which was donated to the park in 1894 by Sir Henry Doulton. It was vandalised in the 1960s and taken away for repair but never returned.

The Mayfly sculpture was unveiled in 2012. It sits on the original plinth the top of which was decorated by pupils from three local schools.  I assume the idea of throne is  because you could possibly, if small enough, sit between the wings. 

The Mayfly Throne isn't a replica of the orgiginal as a detailed photograph of it couldn't be found.

 

Andrew or Andy Edwards is famous for many sculptures including the one below.

I took this photo when we visited Liverpool in June 2016.

Also locally on The Brampton in Newastle-under-Lyme the WWI  nurse inspired by author Vera Brittain writer of Testament of Youth who was born there in 1893.

For once it was a sunny morning when we walked in the park although very cold so gloves and scarf came out of the drawer again.

 

More blossom trees.

Blossom

The blossom trees are flowering along the River Trent at Trentham Gardens so we thought we would take a few photos yesterday morning before all the blossom is dashed by rain and wind.  It has been very windy here over the last few days although we did manage a sunny if breezy walk on Sunday morning.

As I was typing this post there was a huge clap of thunder like a whip crack overhead, for a moment I thought the window had broken.  We are now being bombarded by hailstones the size of frozen peas.  A bit more than April showers I think.  I managed to rescue the towels from the line, just as wet as when I put them out this morning.

I'm so glad we photographed the blossom yesterday.

ChiffChaff?

For the last couple of weeks a small bird has been appearing on and around the patio usually at lunch time and again in the early evening.  It hops around the plant pots on the patio and amongst the heather and other plants in the beds before flying off to the same corner of the garden.  We wondered if it was nesting in the hedge behind the rhododendron in the top lefthand corner of the garden. . Every time we've seen it we haven't had a camera handy to try and catch an image of it.  We thought it looked like a Chiffchaff.  Looking at the RSPB website it appears that Chiffchaffs and Willow Warblers can be easily confused.  Chiffchaffs have darker legs than the Willow Warbler and this bird has dark legs.  

This lunch time imagine our delight when two birds turned up and hopped around the patio happily pecking in pots and cracks between the flagstones.  Paul managed to take a few photos but only one was clear enough to be of use as they were taken through glass with pouring rain outside.  It does look as if there is a pair and that they are nesting not far away.

If we could hear its call we could be absolutely sure it is a Chiffchaff as it is very distinctive.  Here is a link to a short video from the British Trust for Ornithology about both birds.

In my copy of A Country Woman's Journal by Margaret Shaw* her entry for 24th June 1928 reads

Saw a Chiff Chaff for the first time in my life - he was hopping about on the top of the fruit cage and on the pea sticks. 

 

In her book A Year Unfolding.  A Printmaker's View  Angela Harding writes of the Spring Hedgerow.

April brings in blackcaps and the chiffchaff returns; this is another sign of Spring.  High in the branches is the chiffchaff chirping out its name in a short staccato rhythm.
 

The poet John Clare (1793-1864) wrote a poem about the Chiffchaff or 'chippiechap'.

Here is a link to the poem.

* apologies for some reason I wrote Mary Shaw, it's actually Margaret Shaw.

A Woodland Walk

It's raining again today but over the Easter weekend we did have a couple of rain free, mostly dry days when walks could be taken and some garden tidying could be done.  The garden wheelie bin was full.  We now have to pay for collections and had done so a few weeks ago but hadn't received a sticker for the bin.  It was due for collection on Tuesday and we put it out not knowing if they would take it without a sticker.  Thankfully they did.  The sticker arrived in the post about three hours after the bin had been emptied.

On Saturday, as the sun was out and the sky was blue we decided to walk in our local Staffordshire Wildlife Trust Reserve at Hem Heath woods.  We parked at the World of Wedgwood (V&A Stoke) and  had a morning coffee in the Six Towns Cafe Bar before heading into the woods.

In just a few weeks time these woods will be full of Bluebells but for now there were Lesser Celandines along the paths.

We walked down to the pond listening to the birds.  A Woodpecker was heard but not seen and there was song from Robins, Wrens and Blackbirds.  

 

Some of the paths were very muddy but we had changed into more suitable footwear to tackle them.

We didn't see any waterbirds but we did see signs of Flag Iris.  This will look wonderful in a couple of months time.

 

On the way to the pond we passed many trees that had been chopped down.  There has been a programme of work over the winter to tackle the presence of Ash dieback disease on several of the Trust's reserves including this one.

It was sad to see so many trees had been felled.  The Trust have taken down those trees considered to be a high risk to safety.  Mostly along the paths.

Ash dieback is a fungal disease for which there is no cure.  It was first discovered in Europe in 1992 in Poland and reached the UK in 2012.  Symptoms of the disease are dead branches, blackening leaves and discoloured stems with diamond shaped leisions where fallen leaves were.  This causes the tree to weaken and drop branches and to eventually collapse.  The disease is spread by the wind.

On a happier note there are these beauties to look forward to in a few weeks time.

 

Definitely something to return for.

 

The photos of bluebells above were taken on previous visits.  A walk amongst them has become a yearly ritual.

Inside and Out

It seems a long time since my last post so I thought I'd take a few photos in the garden.  Firstly though a lovely bunch of daffodils have been cheering up the living room windowsill wth their frothy exhuberance.

I've dug out my Mark Hearld fold out card with hares to go with them, hoping they would look quite seasonal.

 

The garden is still very wet so very little has been done but it has been wonderful to see so many plants and flowers coming to life again.

 

The tulips we planted in October have all flowered.  We did lose a few bulbs to the badgers so we placed an old oven shelf over them to stop them getting dug up and eaten.  It seems to have worked.

I like the two colours together.

 

The other tulips we planted are now coming along too.  They look a bit like peonies.

 

Elsewhere in the garden under the laurel bush the Wood Anemones have appeared and flowered, thank goodness.

 

 I thought they had succumbed to the wet weather.

A lone frittilary at the top of the garden.  We put several in last year but this one is the only one to appear so far. 

Buds have appeared on the Wild Garlic or Ramsons.  It won't be long before those pretty white flowers appear.

 

Tiny Violets have appeared in random pots and in the edges of paths and there are signs of Forgetmenots waiting in the wings too.

 

Take care. 

Water Voles

 In a comment on my last post Caroline from Ragged Robin blog reminded me that as well as seeng Little Grebes on the Cromford Canal in Derbyshire we had also seen Water Voles. 

I didn't think I'd taken any photos of them as I had a small camera then but I knew Paul had taken a few photos.  After a quick trawl back through photos stored on a hard drive he found his photos.

Here they are.  

Such beautiful little creatures.  As these photos were taken on 28th February 2008 these particular ones will be long gone, but not forgotten.  It was such a joy to see them.  

 

Water Voles are red listed as they have become an endangered species.

Here is more information from The Wildlife Trust website