A Visit from John

John Irving arrived to spend a couple of days with us on Friday. Its a few months since he was last in Langholm so it was nice to see him and we planned a couple of walks. The first was a 4.5 mile circular walk round St. Bride's Hill which takes you up towards Arrisgill and then over into the next valley to Westwater. 

The start and finish of the walk at Wauchope School House.

This is the Forestry Road which takes you down into Westwater

The beautiful new house built up at Shaw by a young Langholm Businessman who has done so well in his contracting Forestry business. It is the perfect site with wonderful views.

The early part of the walk and the road up to Arresgill

This is a Falconry Breeding Centre established fairly recently at Westwater

The Forestry Road that takes you from the Logan water up the hill towards the Westwater Valley

This is the start of the last section of the walk which is on the B7068 road. We were fortunate in that this road is closed at the moment so there was no traffic at all on it. 

A view from the highest point up the valley towards Arresgill

The Logan Water on the way up towards Arresgill

The Farmhouse at Westwater

 

Saturday morning and another walk but this time it was not as clear and sunny as it had been on Friday. Tom joined us and we walked round The Pheasant pens and The Curly Snake

Taking it very carefully down the road from Pathead as the road was very icy underneath a light covering of snow. 

Tom and John on the Castleholm which hopefully will soon below to the community. It has been a hectic 36 hours and included dinner at the Eskdale on Friday evening and a visit to The Market at The Buccleuch Centre on Saturday morning. 

Lockdown January Walks

It has been a very cold January and as we are again in Lockdown I have decided not to even go far out of Langholm for my daily walks. These photographs are a collection of all my walks during the second half of January. I have only missed one day of walking since Christmas and am managing to average almost 5 miles per day.

This is on the walk that I call The Curly Snake and it runs parallel to The Lodge Walks and comes out at Pathhead near Buccleuch Estates offices.

Plenty of ice on the Tarras road between Skippers Bridge and the turnoff for Jenny Nobles Gill

The Castleholm

On the way round Jenny Nobles Gill

My most regular walk is round by The Pheasant Pens and this Robin regularly comes up to me near Holmhead. I have started to feed him some seed so he is becoming very friendly.

This is called Hair Ice and there has been a lot of it about this month.

The river Esk at Hollows Bridge on the one occasion I ventured a wee bit further for a walk

I normally walk on my own in the morning and then in the afternoon go for a shorter walk with Gaye. We certainly make sure that we are appropriately dressed for the situation.

The face mask certainly improves my looks.

The Castleholm and Langholm Lodge

Easton's Walk and the path was very slippy so Tom is hanging onto the fence to save himself from falling

Jenny Nobles Gill walk on the frostiest morning

This is well below Skippers Bridge on the Esk and Mike Tinker pointed out to me that Birds Nest Orchids grow here in the summer. 

The monument on our most snowy day. We have been very fortunate and missed most of the really bad weather but did have some very cold nights with the coldest being about -12C