Summer Sunday Yardtime...

It’s another summery, back yard Sunday evening in Lancaster, the clouds are breaking up and it’s gone very still. After what seems like many weeks of unsettled, cool and showery weather, we’re promised a week of higher-than-average temperatures; 21°C daytime for most of the week ahead! That should be a good 5°C warmer than we’ve been used to, and with light winds too - balmy. At least it will get me ready for a week in the warmth of Alpine France at the end of the month. Compared to my last back yard blogging session, it already seems like the summer has marched on rapidly towards the next season; sunset time is now 20:43 and the light is already fading at just short of 21:00. The swifts are still reasonably active though, screeching around above our rooftops. When the skies fall silent at sunset in a few weeks time, we’ll know that autumn is well and truly building.

On the steps of the Ashton Memorial in Williamson Park after Lancaster parkrun on Saturday morning.

We’ve had an active weekend, with Liz and Rowan visiting us here in Lancaster. Rowan came up by train from Twickenham and Liz drove from Beeston with Diva the dog. It was a weekend dominated by various sports; running, walking and swimming - quite appropriate given the Olympic action in the background that has kept us entertained in between. On Saturday morning, we were up and out early for the institution that is the parkrun. There’s a most lovely circuit around Williamson Park in Lancaster that was launched in early January this year and I’ve managed to fit in 14 of the sessions so far. I’ve a long way to go to catch up with Liz, who was out on her 50th parkrun appearance this weekend, a great achievement. Her local parkrun is Beeston, but she’s also done Cardiff a few times too. Lancaster is described by the run organisers as ‘slightly hilly’, due to the undulating figure of eight around the main park and also adjoining Fenham Carr woodlands. We were also joined by Sam and Rowan, who show us all how it’s done, coming in with fantastic sub-20 minute times and in 3rd and 1st places respectively. Well done indeed :-)!

After our morning trundle, we caught up with some more of the overnight Olympics action over breakfast. We then packed a picnic and headed up to the University so that Liz and Rowan could take a look at the latest developments at the Green Lancaster EcoHub. After having lunch there and spending some time being entertained by the antics of the newly re-stocked chicken flock (seven in total right now), we headed on down the A6 to Nicky Nook fell on the western edge of the Bowland Fells, overlooking the Lancashire plain. There are good views from the top, but the purple flowering, heather clad moors cast a dark shadow in my mind. It was one day after the ‘glorious twelfth’, or in other words the far less than glorious start of the grouse shooting season on the barren uplands of England and Scotland. The circuit improves vastly however on the way back as you pass through the lovely dense deciduous woodland cladding the valley containing Grizedale reservoir (North West Water land). Showing us how diverse it can all be where native woodlands is left to thrive.

On the way up Nicky Nook Fell.

On Saturday evening, we were back in Williamson Park for this years’ Dukes Theatre production, ‘The Hobbit’. It was the last night of the summer promenade production, using five different locations in the park to play out Bilbo’s journey through Middle Earth. It was a very entertaining production, and the atmosphere of the park is wonderful. The walk between the penultimate and final scene involved a spectacular wander through the trees, illuminated with coloured lights and lanterns, with the sounds of wood elves echoing around as they appeared and disappeared off in the woods. Gandalf looked on wisely from high on an embankment above the pathway.

Swimming at Capernwray Dive Lake. Photo: Rowan Axe.

Sunday was a rather overcast day in general and we started the day with another Olympic fix. This time it was the 10 000 m track race, featuring Mo Farrah. Another outstanding Gold from a great champion of the sport. Packing another picnic, along with many other things, we headed off a short way up to the M6 to the Capernwray dive lake. This was a location that I had not visited before, but one of my neighbours who is more heavily involved with the COLT’s (City of Lancaster Triathlon club) has been recommending for a while. It’s a great, little known facility. That is, unless you’re into diving, as there were around 200 divers suited on the lakeside or submerged somewhere in the abyss of this flooded former limestone quarry. We had not come to dive, but to do some open water swimming. After signing in and getting all the relevant info on which buoys to swim around etc., we wet-suited up and set off into the perfect blue water. Swimming in this lake was an incredible experience. None of the usual brown murky water that usually characterises our lakes, this place felt more akin to one of the large Alpine lakes, without the bitingly cold glacial meltwater. We swam a few times around the red buoys marking a 500 m swim circuit right around the lake perimeter. There are purpose built rocky reefs and every now and then, you swim through clouds of bubbles, ascending from the divers somewhere in the depths below. Quite a surreal experience. The lake is also stocked with an interesting variety of fish; among many others, there are trout, sturgeon and even pike. Some of them are absolutely huge. We didn’t see any of the mega sturgeon though, claimed to be up to around 3.5 m in length! Some divers told us the water was relatively cloudy today, due to the number of divers churning around in the depths. As a result, there were no views from the surface column of the multitude of submerged paraphernalia ranging from a small passenger aircraft to several boats and a former RAF helicopter. I did just about get a view of some white dive tanks lurking below at one point.

Capernwray Dive Lake from the cafe terrace. Photo: Rowan Axe.

Rowan and Liz headed off on their separate ways south this evening and Imogen is now up in the highlands of Scotland visiting her Uncle, managing to fit in a quick ascent of Curved Ridge on the imposing wall of Buachaille Etive Mor on the way up today. As for me, it’s now pretty much fully dark in the yard, although there’s still a faint glow in the sky out across Morecambe Bay. Back to the Olympics - I hear Andy Murray is in tennis finals action..!