Nature Diary Rocks History Gallery Links Home Page 
WE PAUSE for a few minutes on Lady Anne's Bridge looking over the subdued winter landscape of the valley. On this dull afternoon the fields and hedges have the texture and the understated natural colours of traditional Harris Tweed. We're relieved to have finished our Christmas shopping, enabling us to take time out here, rather than joining the last-minute rush in the local malls.
Water levels are still well up, the water rushing through the overflow channel at the Figure of Three locks foams like a highland burn.
In other blocks the pebbles appear to have dissolved away, leaving pebble-shaped holes in the stone.
|
I think of this part of the valley as a sort of no-man's land, a riverside space that's not exactly agricultural, not exactly derelict, between railway and canal. A small train rattles through. It's odd to think that ten minutes ago the passengers were in one busy city centre, in another ten minutes they'll arrive at the next. The train whisks them through a landscape in which they may, perhaps, never set foot.
Red ironstone pebbles lie embedded in some of the sandstone blocks in local field walls and buildings. They were rolled along as pebbles on the sandy beds of rivers that flowed here 300 million years ago.
There's a feeling that next spring is already in preparation. Hazels have carried small grey-green catkins for a month or two now. In places alongside the lane there's new growth of the heart-shaped leaves of Lesser Celandine.
