Saturday 7th May

Gorse is flowering all round the edges of the moor.

A trip to Whitby: This to see a painter about decorating the sitting room of the cottage, we did various things around the cottage but the highlight of the last couple of days was going to the beck.

Listened as we walked to the continuous cuckooing of a love-starved cuckoo maybe but so glad that there are some cuckoos still around.  But it was a lovely sound.  It is a place that drains the soul of worry, the old hawthorns and rowan trees gnarled and bent against the weather of the moors.  Lucy deliriously happy to be trotting along the path, dipping her feet into the little stream that runs parallel, LS is always worried about her running off, as if ;) she has a damned good life, spent most of the time at the cottage stretched, or maybe sprawled would be a better word, out on the sofa, proving that two adults and one dog cannot fit on it...

The icing on the cake, as we went over the cattle grid was a black grouse, and her young, at least 10 floated over the lane.  The mother sat on the stone wall calling her young whilst they scampered through the long grass down below, took a hasty two photos but would have dearly loved to stay longer, but I did not want the mother going off and leaving her young.

strange bulges on these old hawthorns

Lucy about to fly