A dull day in Stanleyburn Dene

We are off on a set piece walk today but in the opposite direction because there was a letter to put in the post. Actually I think it might be an improvement because there was a bin this way and they disappear soon enough down Moor Road. 

We are heading down the public footpath through Prudhoe Hospital and the dene is opening in front of us:

Which is nice. Clearly part of the grounds of the old Prudhoe Hall which became the hospital, it suffers from Cragside envy as evidenced by the attempts to turn two minor streams into something sublime and of course the ubiquitous rhododendron bushes.

Whatever the human impression, the dogs love it. Any woodland turns them into happy little hunters, although Amazon has become very much an "at heel" dog as she has matured and leaves all the adventurous stuff to Rover - until she hears the hunting call of course! It is strange to think that they are nearly seven years old now, so in dog years my "puppies" are now older than me! I think the hardest thing about owning dogs is watching them grow older, seeing them slow down and take less risks than formerly. Rover will be the puppy for as long as he can, but Amazon, old before her time in her bid to be dominant, is showing her age.

She has finally left my side after crossing South Park - a nice little meadow this summer, now just another grassy field. She knew it was the last chance for freedom before going back on the lead on Moor Road, which is a rarely used single track lane here. She is now back, as is Rover, and it is their job to pull me back up the road into Prudhoe. 

Mush!

Northumberlandia

The lurchers and I are at Northumberlandia today which is a bit of a downer for them because they have to stay on the lead.

Initial view of Northumberlandia - her face in profile between two gateway mounds.

The idea of the place is one of landscape sculpture combined with wildlife conservation. The sculpture part is of a goddess or giantess called Northumberlandia who is looking up to the sky. You explore the sculpture by following circuitous and maze-like paths. For example we have just now walked up her arm and are passing her ample right breast.

Northumberlandia's right arm and bosom. You can just make out one of her open eyes. 

The opportunity for the landscape sculpture arose in the wake of an area of open cast coal and fireclay extraction being closed down. It is normal for the company extracting the site to restore the landscape to something like its former state, but in this case it was felt that they could create something a little bit different.

Blagdon Estates open-cast workings continue adjacent to the Lady.

Although Northumberlandia is a brazen hussy on top, she is a little more demure further down, lying on her right hip which is deep within the earth. You can see her left hip and her left knee beyond the swell of her breast below: they look a bit pointy because there are shelters there, which were very much appreciated by visitors today, with the remnant of Hurricane Bertha still being felt here in the North East of England. In this picture you also get the best idea of what her eyes look like, as the picture is taken from her brow, looking down her nose. You are not allowed to get any closer to her face than that.

View from the Lady's brow. You can just see her eyes gazing up into the clouds and the ridge of her nose. If you follow the path through her decolletageyou come to her left hip and left knee, both visible here.

Northumbriana's face from below. You can just see her eyes, her nose is prominent and the grey lump below is her mouth. Not her best side!

There are handy sight-lines dotted about the site: this one to Lindisfarne is on her left bosom.

Rather than have a single place which points out local landmarks, etc, they are instead dotted about the site so that you are rewarded with them as you explore. Her left pap points to Holy Island (above), while her right acknowledges her rival, The Angel of the North. I feel that what the Angel is to travellers from the south on the A1, Northumbriana must be to air travellers, as the site is on the eastern approach to Newcastle Airport, although I must say that I did not notice any planes flying overhead while I was there.

The Lady from the much neglected left side

The rocky bump at the summit is her hip, so I guess this is the most flattering view of her bum.

Well, I'm sorry that had so little to do with the lurchers today, but apart from getting a very long walk, they really didn't get to do much here. I had planned to take them to Plessey Woods Country Park, but I didn't have my wallet with me and the coins I had in my pocket would not have covered even the two hour stay in the car park there. It seems daft that all of the town centres in Northumberland now have free parking, but the country parks do not. Still, there you have it, for want of £1.80 the lurchers had a walk on the lead around the biggest lass in the North-East!

Back to real walks

We have been away for a while now, for a number of reasons which predate our move from South West Denton. We moved to Benwell last July and that was not really a very inspiring place for lurcher tales. 

Now things have changed a bit and we are living the semi rural life in Prudhoe, which is a lovely village/town in Northumberland. We are just getting used to the network of official and unofficial paths around here, so we have yet to settle into anything like a daily route. Today we crossed a field from which there was a fantastic panorama - I would say nearly 300• - covering swathes of Tynedale, Newcastle and Gateshead, as well as the near horizon which is the view from the house, of Hedley Fell and Currock Hill.

The picture is just a quick one of R and A on a path through a rape seed field near home, just to show that there have not been any more changes in the dog lineup since my last post.

Little Lost Lurcher

Happy New Year Blogosphere!

I seem to have taken a bit of a break on the blog, mostly to do with the Christmas season, but as the last five of the Twelve Days of Christmas see us getting our lives back together, I thought I would put finger to keypad and get going again.

I’m going to start with a look back to Little Christmas Eve – the 23^rd December. It was a lovely day with blue skies, light winds and mild air. I had planned a bit of a change in the usual round of dog walking to include exercising our little ones as well. Some days you can get away with not exercising your children but they had broken up from school the day before and Christmas was two days away. They were in more need of unbouncing than Tigger.

So we got in the car and drove up to Whittle Dene. This is a favourite walk for ourselves, the dogs and the little ones and that day we also had Stephen with us, our second-born, back from University for the holidays. We drove up the A69, turned off for Ovington, then took a bumpy, splashy ride along St Andrew’s Lane, which is a public byway, and parked up in the usual spot at the Lane End. Rover was over-excited from the start and he grew more and more squeaky in his barks as we got closer, for he knows and loves this walk. Amazon and Holly stayed in the back, but Rover squeezed through to the middle and had a good view of what was going on.

We had our walking boots on as we know from previous winter visits that the Dene gets pretty muddy at this time of year. We had to hold the dogs back while we put on our boots and they were getting very hyper. Eventually Amazon squeezed past Cath, closely followed by Rover. Holly stayed in the back until it was opened and then ran around us barking for a while as she had not been able to do her trademark trick of running after Amazon and barking at the point that she could no longer keep up.

From the start Amazon was off doing her own thing. This is the normal pattern for this particular walk as she know that she has flushed deer out of cover in this location before, and in typical Amazon style she thinks there will always be deer to flush out. So we walked down into the Dene and waited at the bridge until the lurchers were back, giving Holly some time to feel a little more adventurous than usual.

We didn’t expect to see many people and so it was. Normally there is at least one other car parked up at the Lane End but not that day. As we headed up the Dene I noticed a couple of other dogs, one of which was an Alsatian, ranging about higher up the east side of the dene. Holly must have thought it was R&A as she sped up the hill to join them, but the lurchers were already well ahead.

This is the usual pattern of our walks here, unless we have plenty of time and are in the mood to explore: down to the bridge by the huts, wait for R&A to turn up after their initial romp, head up the valley with R&A going on ahead, wait at the upper bridge for them to arrive, climb out of the Dene and follow the bridleway that runs alongside the Dene southwards to  St Andrew’s Lane End. That day did not go according to plan.

The boys were having a great time getting their clothes muddy as they found all of their favourite climbs and scrambles. When they reached the bridge they were not inclined to wait and headed off. Holly was nearby and Rover returned to the call of the whistle, so we decided to start up the hill and not wait for Amazon as we thought she would find us as long as we were whistling for her. We made decent progress, stopping from time to time to call or whistle but there was no sign of Amazon. We carried on anyway, as we knew that she could quite happily appear at any point of the route back and still be able to beat us back to the car. However, the further along the bridleway we went, the more nervous we were getting as she was looking to be more and more lost.

Then Cath’s phone rang. I laughingly suggested that it was Amazon calling to find out where we had got to, and that turned out to be about right. It was a call from home: someone had called to say they had found Amazon “at the bottom of the Dene.”

Before I say anything else, I have to say that I am very grateful for this call, and for the subsequent help. However, we interpreted “the bottom of the Dene” to be where it comes out near Ovingham, over a kilometre from where we were. I hurried on, overtaking the boys who had been keeping ahead of us all the way. I called and whistled for Amazon from the Lane End but of course I was pointing the wrong way, as it turned out. Cath decided that she was unhappy with the information, so she called back home and got Owain to find out the number of the person who had told us they had found Amazon. She was then able to speak to them directly and learned that Amazon was near what I think of as the upper bridge. Some people walk into the Dene from the A69 and I imagine that to them this bridge is the lowest point of their walk and so would be the bottom of the Dene.

By the time we had this information, we were back at the huts. The boys were already ahead, ready for lap 2 of the Dene. As I was sure that Amazon would find her own way back to the car, I decided to go back and walk the route backwards. I ran up the slope and jogged back up along the bridleway, calling and whistling across the fields in case she was up looking for rabbits or hares. Eventually I reached the path down to the upper bridge and I called again, to be answered by Cath – they had found her.

When Amazon saw me she didn’t want to look me in the eye. She knew she was in trouble. She was wet and muddy and looking as unbounced as I had ever seen her. I decided to put her on her lead rather than risk her running off again. I know her style, as soon as she thinks she is forgiven, she is off again. Cath thought I was being mean to her, but by the end of the bridleway I was vindicated. Rover was off again and Amazon straining to be after him. I put down water behind the car and fastened her lead to the tow bar. Holly was happy to have a drink and be back in the car, but Amazon was distracted until Cath finally got Rover back.

Thus ended our double walk of Sugley Dene. Unfortunately it will be our last for some time as two days later (yes, on Christmas Day!) the timing belt went on the car and we are now without our own car, so it will be local walks only for the foreseeable future.