Raven dawn

The morning wasn't promising as there appeared to be a blanket of cloud, but a sliver of light in the east encouraged me to trudge up Arnside Knott in the half light in the hope of seeing the sunrise. And the sun rose into a narrow gap between land and cloud, brightly lighting the distant landscape while cloud and foreground remained forbiddingly dark. I heard the raven's cronk before I saw him fly across the scene, a second bird was calling further away and out of shot.

From my Cumbria viewpoint, the sun is now rising well south of Ingleborough, in Lancashire rather than North Yorkshire.

A busy day. We worked hard clearing the paving of the thick and slippery algal growth - the product of a wet summer. Then later, after two years of dallying, we finally bought two apple trees for the garden: a Blenheim Orange and a Charles Ross. I had been thinking that we would need a third tree as the Blenheim Orange is a triploid and needs two other trees to help pollinate - although Arnside has several orchards, the nearest is several hundred metres away. But the apple expert assured us that would be no problem, the bees will be commuting across the distance. But we will probably get a third one anyway when we can decide on what we want.

Wifie and Bob are curled up in front of Strictly, even I watched the first part of it tonight. I usually manage to avoid getting hooked in until at least half way through, but I did want to see Queen Vic tonight, and she didn't disappoint.