Looking West

My thanks to Natural England for the last in Peter Wakely's 1995 series: is this looking down the northern flank of the hill towards the west from quite a distance or have I misread the perspective? 

A Small Celebration - the 400th post!

I am now back at home recovering from the arthroscopic relocation of two parts of my shoulder socket which have been successfully reattached by the amazing orthopaedic surgery team at University College Hospital: a couple of months in a sling and I should be fully  fit and well again. May I just say thank you to all those of you who have sent me good wishes for a speedy recovery?  You have been very kind and I have much appreciated your e-mails.

I thought I would mark my return with yet another beautiful picture from Peter Wakely's 1995 series for Natural England, to whom thanks, as ever, for permission to reproduce on the blog.

This particular post is the 400th since I started the blog last year and I'd like to give my personal thanks to the many of you who have contributed by sending photographs and penning reminiscences.  There's quite a bit in the pipeline which will be posted over the course of the next few weeks in the run-up to the reunion itself.

Meanwhile Google's 'Analytics' software tells me that there have been well over 4000 visits and more than 10,000 page views from 57 countries: what they make of the blog in Norway, Brazil, South Korea, Japan and Indonesia I do not know!  The readership is predominantly from the United Kingdom, America, Canada, Italy and Cyprus.

Heartbreakingly pretty, why aren't we up there?

Thanks to Natural England for permission to publish Peter Wakeley's 1995 shot of Crickley Hill, taken presumably from Birdlip.   The scarring on the south side of the hill caused by the limestone quarrying is, as ever, easy to see being marked both by the bareness of the rock and also by the line of trees along the Quarry Road.

Crickley idyll with cattle ...

Crickley at its best.  Glorious effort from Peter Wakely in his 1995 series for Natural England: it must have taken a while to get the cattle in the foreground to arrange themselves properly for the shoot.

Beautiful view of Crickley

Another fine prospect from Peter Wakley's 1995 series for Natural England: this time Crickley from, I would imagine, Birdlip.  

During a wet winter, a reminder of summer ...

Again courtesy of Peter Wakely and Natural England: limestone sward with harebells (Campanula rotundifolia).  Taken at Crickley Hill in 1995.  I just thought in the depths of winter that it would be good to look forward to the warmer days.  For some pointless fantasies about harebells, see this link.  

At first I thought that harebells flowered in spring, but these looked very familiar so I checked: they flower from June to September, so, of course, the reason for my familiarity is that parts of Crickley are covered by them in the summer.

Crickley Hill and Barrow Wake

This fine view was taken by Peter Wakely in 1995 and is by permission of Natural England (English Nature before October 2006). The picture is from the northern flank of Crickley Hill looking south west.