Images on Posterous

I've been working at ways to move my images quickly and painlessly to a blog and have opted for ollismark.posterous.com , try it.

Arriving at the Climbing Wall I was rather surprised to be looking over a farm yard rather than the Lakeland view which is shown on the website. The image appears to looking over Derwent Water but some clever substitution has been done. No window exists and the wall is lit by fluorescent light, indeed over the half term one section was out of use; poor planning. Harry gave them 8/10 partly because it was busy but also because the staff were unfriendly.

So where is the geography here? I had assumed the wall was situated on the western side of the fell as the view was over a lake, in reality it was on the eastern side and the view towards Threkeld. Looking carefully it may have been morning mist but still no window.

The Suprise? well leaving the wall I turned right and stopped for an ice cream. We wandered over the road to Castle Rigg stone circle. I had been here once before on a dour day and was unimpressed. On Wednesday the view was superb, Harry loved the rock hopping [scoring 8 anticlockwise] and the majesty uplifted me impressively. Quiet unexpected; we then headed back to the bees to rescue a maiden in distress... who drives a BMW, but only when she has the keys.

I've had some time off of school recently and have been thinking, as ever, about the interface between my personal geography and our daily activities. For me these are inextricably linked and a trip yesterday to buy laces, pick up caving guides, have passport photos taken and climb indoors involved many geographical decisions. Most of the 'jobs' could be identified as nodes and once shuffled nets drawn between then so that their completion was systematic and culminated in the most enjoyable - the climb. As it happened a surprising outcome presented itself but this was due to location [or rather situation], more later.

The drive from the village [2 jobs down] to our local town - Egremont - involved some cross country decisions but alos some doubling back. Three choices of roads present themselves and although we [Harry, aged 9 as co-pilot] went for the middle route it was impossible to cross our main artery. I turned left [needing right], cut across the oncoming traffic before doubling back on a side road and rejoining the right flow. "That was clever" noticed Harry and subconsciously I had made a net / flow decision; now deemed old school it reminded me of my dissertation when I looked at cycle routes through Bath and considered why students use their bicycles less. As it happened it was parental perception of risk that seemed to control this decision and not geography at all.

The route twix town and large town - Keswick - has a simpler decision but one I nearly cocked up, the lesser B road is far moor interesting one weaving between drumlins and fluvially aligned landforms but we went for the straight and quick; curious to see if the new Distington by-pass had made any difference to Distington. It had, the locals now park their cars along the main road in some kind of community based protest, identifying their village gateway or car orientated red double lines.

Driving through Lillyhall local radio announced that he B road was closed at both Dean and in Cleator; good decision. Again my mind turned to nets and nodes and an areal alternative. We had turned corner and fallen under the shadow of the local radio. "Can you get Radio Cumbria in Horton too?" [the site of the caving club hut], Harry asked. After explaining why, without too much Physics we experimented with MW and LW getting a very good RTE signal. The parimpleth of overlying radio waves that of course now include the mobile phone signal remain invisible but our communication network is quickly becoming far more areal rather than linear.

One in Keswick we visited Ultimate Outdoors which has become Planet Fears new outlet. discovered that WHSmith had no Lego left and had to navigate by a different route to the newly located wall, again more geography.

Snowy Bees + Dales

A little snow always brings an excitement but so far I seem to have been in the right places for quite a lot. After an excellent day; indeed one of the best on Skiddaw in November Thursday did likewise for the Dales. The drive from Ingleton up to altitude was exciting and with an additional fall overnight we had about 6 inches to play with on Friday. Rowten sacked; we decided to play all the way up to the Goblin Shaft and return to the hut by the steepest slipperyest route. Caving suit on, who needs a sledge.

The village, by contrast. was a dissapointment. A good fall but not enough to sledge really but I was suprised how few made he effort to clear, grit or help out. What happened to the days when we all cleared outside our houses - have these all gone now? Good to hear that J + P have been dong their bit.

The most enjoyable aspect of the recent inclement conditions has been to be able to use the Defender for the purpose for which it was created.

Paddling the Derwent

At last the water has subsided enough to paddle the River Derwent. I wanted to have a look at the damage created, especially the way in which the channel had shifted. We tried to be sensitive to the people of Cockermouth by putting in at Pallets [the lay-by by the Papcastle Bridge] and leapfrogged via Yum Yums lay-by to above Barepot weir where the canal leaves the river.

Not surprisingly there was a massive amount of debris, but the types were all similar. A large number of wheelie bins sat up on the bank, most were damaged. There were a lot of trees, mostly split and with large lumps of bark missing where they have crashed downstream and a few children's toys. We saw lots of grass and reeds wrapped around wire including in one place the power cables spanning the channel. The water boiled and bubbled hiding what still lay below, in places the giant boulders removed from the rock armour. We even spotted a TV.

Towards Clifton a new channel had been cut but where it broke into the main river again a gabion was wrapped around a tree, still in one giant piece. Sadly both of my hands remained firmly on my paddle so that my camera never came into reach.

All along the river the railway snakes across the channel and the abutments and arch foundations were left in place when the superstructure was removed. In places these had been stripped away, an abutment on the left but big hole on the right. A series of arches but one or two missing, I assume most of the large sanstone blocks still lay in the channel.

We took out eventually at the Salmon weir [now gone] and looked across to the army, new hope for the people of Workington.

As Gordon Brown arrives in Cumbria and some of our students are surrounded by water my mind turns to the four severe flood warning still in place. A 1000 homes are without power and there is suddenly a sense that climate change is real.

Initial ideas at http://www.slideshare.net/sbsgeog/cumbrian-floods

One o'clock on Saturday and it has just started raining.