Staithes turnstones..

I found it really hard to whittle my photos down to one - so I didn't! These were so confident - a delight to sit and watch.

Port Mulgrave beach huts.

What an eclectic mixture of properties back the beach at Port Mulgrave! Check out my previous posts though for access!

Port Mulgrave fossils.

A prolific site - but many of the fossils in the shales disintegrate as soon as you look at them! Others though are more sturdy - especially ammonites cracked open in the blue grey cobbles. We found good examples of Dactylioceras commune (not photographed -yet!) and the belemnite is Acrocoelites sp. The oysters shown are Pseudomytiloides dubius.

The 'path' - it'd recommend going down the steps and up the rope! 

Top left - a belemnite with its impression.
Bottom left - a bivalve - Dacryomya ovum.
Top right - tiny shiny bivalves and bottom right the flaky shale full of fossils. 

Left: A cobble that someone else had left both halves of. 

Ammonite and oysters.

Walking amongst the beach dwellings at the back of the beach you realise the path is made up of broken ammonites!

Runswick Bay - Port Mulgrave - Staithes and back.

A cracking day which will, in time, yield multiple blogs. A straightforward cliff top walk with blue skies and warm sunshine - but the highlight for me had to be Port Mulgrave. This now abandoned harbour was once a hive of activity for ironstone extraction. Remnants of the pier are still visible, but getting there was fun - the footpath is technically shut but a steep ladder and steps provide reasonable access in dry weather to the beach. Coming back up it was far easier to pull yourself up the cliff using the rope which is in situ. The beached was backed by an eclectic collection of 'beach dwellings'. The shore itself was littered with ammonites in shell laden shales - which often disintegrated as soon as you looked at them! Carrying on through superb blackthorn blossom we regained the cliff top and then carried on to Staithes. A picturesque village - with a lovely cliff full of kittiwakes - and some friendly turnstones. The return along the cliff top provided cliff panoramas in the opposite direction.

Top left - Runswick Bay and top right Port Mulgrave.
Right hand middle pair - Staithes.
Bottom left Staithes.
The polar bear is a willow sculpture by Emma Stothards - from a previous arts festival. 

Robin Hood's Bay fossils.

A few photos from yesterday's walk click here for the walk....Plenty of fossils!

Ammonite imprint with three pentacrinoid imprints.

Worm casts, belemnites, corals, oysters, devil's toe nails (gryphaea) and bivalves.

Ammonite: Arnioceras semicostataum showing its keel - Lower Lias and from robin Hood's Bay. 

Ammonite pieces.

Pebbles....Septarian nodules.

Lots of inspiration here!

Robin Hood's Bay to Ravenscar (almost)

A sunny and warm walk along the beach and cliff top. The tide didn't allow us to get as far as Ravenscar at the time we were walking, but it didn't stop us from finding a rich variety of fossils - that is going to have to be a separate blog!

Spring has sprung and there seems to be a chiffchaff in every bush! Plenty of bee activity and a peacock butterfly too. The cliffs are spectacular and clearly collapse regularly and beach rough at the top. The climb into Bogglehole and out again was steep but well stepped- what a great name!

General views along the beach. 

Solitary bee.....andrena sp.

Tiger beetle.

Solitary bee - a different andrena sp.

Coltsfoot - lots on the slumped parts of the cliffs and pussy willow.

Bee fly.

Fused glass wave ...

Another enjoyable morning with Roxy of RD Glass. following the success of my last glass wave Click here I decided to do another similar one, but this time more in the style of a breaking wave. Once again I used kiln paper which is shown as white behind the glass - hopefully it will be as effective as last time in creating for without colour....we'll see when it is fired! At the end too I decided to do a straight forward experiment with wire to create lines - if successful we'll see where it takes me design-wise .....

The lower layers showing the white kiln paper underlying the glass.

Multiple layers and fritt ....apologies that it's out of focus, but you get the idea 

An experiment with wire - another layer of plain glass will be placed on top before firing.

As always - everyone made loads....

Pen-y-ghent and purple saxifrage

An annual pilgrimage to see this beautiful plant. We parked in Horton in Ribblesdale and took the Pennine Way up to Pen-y-ghent side. Where the path turns right at the base of the side we turned left and walked along the base of the crag. We were a bit late in the season as it had obviously flowered quite early, but there were some nice clumps still in flower. The wind was fresh but really fierce on the top as we descended the southern face before taking the path across Brackenbottom Scar back to Horton in Ribblesdale.

Looking back up as the first cloud just began to lower to summit level. 

The first tulips

Lovely to have some tulips out - admittedly cut from the greenhouse!

Pebble prints...

My final session leading gelli print workshops for Northern Fells and we had a great time.....

Lino cutting preparation

I'm leading a set of three workshops in April and have been pondering how to make them different from each other, while building on each other for those that book on all three, but also as units on their own. The first session is going to be inspired by the work of Jan Brewerton. I have quite a few nice pots, jugs and mugs that we can use as a design source, so it was a quick piece after work and before cooking tea to test some new water-based inks and just to get my own head around a design ...an excuse to play too. So the design isn't perfect, and nor is the cutting or printing but that wasn't the point. Pleased with the inks and potential to develop a design too...as well as test the same design on soft sculpt for those who may find cutting grey lino hard. So session one - single colour and focus on line.

Walla Crag and Bleaberry

A brief trip out this morning ...good views and only the one hail/snow shower. We parked at the National Trust car park at Calfclose Bay and followed the National Trust signage for Walla Crag. This indicated 2 miles and 2 hours (we took 1hr), which took us back across to Castlerigg and Rake Foot before following the wall along the crag top and crossing through it at the large pile of stones to follow a minor path along the crag itself. This gave us good views across Derwent Water which was brimful after yesterday's down pours. Then onto Bleaberry Fell and we returned down the path that follows Cat Gill, which was steep and quite rough. Definitely the correct way to do this circuit!

Looking over Keswick and Derwent Water and Bassenthwaite from Walla Crag top left; Bleaberry Fell bottom right
 and Borrowdale views. 

Overlooking Borrowdale.

Views over Borrowdale and Cat Gill Falls.

Rocky on Bleaberry Fell.

Incoming sleet!