The Festival starts

Apologies for the break in blipping - just didn't touch the camera for a couple of days.

Today was great excitement with the start of the Haltwhistle Walking Festival. We had 3 walks out today. The first was 15 miles including Cross Fell in Cumbria. It was sunny but incredibly windy and people could not stand up on the top. I was up early and went to see them off on the bus.........glad it wasn't me there.

The second walk was Featherstone and Lambley. About 30 went out on this walk and had a lovely time

The third walk was a 10 miler, called A Walk on the Wild Side. The "wild side" in question is open access land north of Hadrian's Wall. Apart from the wind, there was nothing wild about it today. Even the boggiest patches were hardly damp.

This photo, from the third walk. shows Broomlee Lough, one of the loughs near Hadrian's Wall. The colours today were very intense. This one is OK but others suffered greatly from the harsh light and high levels of contrast. Perhaps I'll pop the polariser on tomorrow.