Killabrega

Killabrega - The Walk

Sunday 29th September 2013-09-30

We don’t usually walk on a Sunday but Trevor and Dorothy are in Ireland for two weeks so we could just pick any day that suited us – and Sunday had the best weather forecast.  Strong winds were predicted but at least it promised to be dry with sunny spells.  The strong winds are expected to last at least until Thursday so there was no point in waiting for calmer weather.

We started from the parking area at Tholt-y-Will and walked down the road towards Sulby.  The gate by the footbridge over the river near the Craft Centre was taped shut and there was a notice saying that Tholt-y-Will Glen was closed due to fallen trees.  The notice looked as though it had been up since the blizzard in March.  Trevor and Dorothy mentioned last week that most of Glen Helen is closed too – so our choice of “autumn leaves” walks is going to be limited this year.  I expect it will be a long time before the glens are cleared because government cuts have had an impact on the manpower available to deal with the problem.

As we walked down the road, Tim stopped to take a photo of the Irish cottages – now one house and called Irish Cottage.  

This is the photo that he took on Sunday . . . 

. . . and this is how the scene appeared in an old postcard.  According to George E. Quayle “ . . . between the road and the river we come to two little cottages known as The Irishmen’s Cottages.  Irishmen probably lived and worked here when the stone walls were being built at the time of the Enclosure of the Common Lands.”  I tried to get a shot from the place where the old photo was taken but the house was completely obscured by trees.

When we reached Killabrega Cottage we discovered that a new fence had been erected and we were no longer able to turn off up the zig-zag path on the southern side of the cottage.  We walked past the cottage and noticed a new gate on the far side of the little garden on the north side of the cottage.  The gate led to the hillside beyond and the grass looked as though people had walked across it from the road to the gate.   So we walked through the garden.  The zig zag path dates back to the 1930’s when the last resident of Killabrega Farm moved down to the cottage in the glen.  He walked up this path every day to feed his hens up at the old farm.  The next photo was taken from the path and shows the back of the cottage.  You may just be able to make out the gate on the left of a small tree but it is almost completely hidden by the bracken which was about head high.  I tried to take a photo of Tim who was walking ahead of me up the track but only the top of his cap was visible.

A little further on I caught up with Tim because he had stopped to look at this hairy caterpillar on the path.  I have often seen them out at the Ayres but never before on a bracken covered hillside.  I think it is a fox moth caterpillar.

Eventually we battled through to the stile at the top of the zig-zag path and I balanced rather precariously on the stile and took this photo down into the glen . . . 

. . .  and this photo across the little stream to the lower slopes of Mount Karrin and a rather good stone wall which may have been built by the Irishmen.  The leaves on the bracken are starting to change from green to gold in a rather patchy way.

There was another large patch of bracken to wade through before we reached the sloping grassy fields below the farm.

It was still uphill all the way but not nearly as steep as the beginning of the climb from the road.  We soon caught sight of the tops of the trees near the farm buildings.  Before all the conifer plantations were planted after the second World War, there were very few trees on the upland farms apart from those growing along streams and a few around the farm buildings.  So a group of trees is usually evidence of previous habitation.

We spent some time examining the farm buildings but I will describe them in the following post and will continue with the walk.  

We decided to walk back along the Druidale Road so we crossed the fields behind the farm, and Tim took this photo of the farm with Mount Karrin in the background.

The wind was strong and gusty.  I was interested in these clumps of small rushes growing amongst the heather.  They appeared to be green at the base and a sort of coppery bronze above.  They shimmered as they waved about, almost flattened at times by the stronger gusts of wind.

The wind was unpleasantly strong on the road, once we passed the shelter of the trees, so we turned down into the plantation and followed the track to Sherragh Vane, another old farmhouse, that is best known for being described in T.E. Brown’s poem “Kitty of the Sherragh Vane”.  By the path, near the gate into the plantation we saw a speckled wood butterfly.  There are only a few butterflies flying in the garden now but the speckled woods seem to be staying around longer than most.

Little remains of Sherragh Vane which is now surrounded by a conifer plantation but we stopped to take a few photos.

And then we headed downhill, following the path that leads back to the Old Chapel near the parking area.  On the way we passed this block of quartz.  It is one of these rocks which gave the name to Sherragh Vane, which means “white foal” in Manx.  It is easy to mistake these large pieces of quartz for a white animal if you see them in the distance.

The steep path passed many fallen trees. 

And just before we reached the car I saw this rather handsome toadstool at the side of the path.

Killabrega

Killabrega – The Farm

Sunday 29th September 2013

I have read that Killabrega means Brega’s church.  There was formerly a keeill in the vicinity of the farm which may explain the name.  I assumed that Brega was a person but the only possible origin of the name seems to be “a petty kingdom north of Dublin in medieval Ireland”.  Google’s other suggestions are 1. A port in Libya 2. A genre of popular Brazilian music 3. An Italian character actor who specialised in playing heavies in spaghetti westerns 4 A photographer.  At that point I gave up the search.  

According to the Manx Government website  “In 1995 Manx National Heritage widened its portfolio to include an abandoned, but still almost complete small upland farm at Killabrega; an addition to its mostly coastal properties. Much has been learned of the farm’s history from archival, photographic and field name evidence, and its place in the rural economy of the past is intriguing. The farm’s location, next to land in public ramblage and with commanding views over the Sulby Glen and beyond, provides spectacular opportunities to appreciate the Manx landscape.”

We took Sue Cannell’s book “Rural Architecture in the North of the Isle of Man” with us and it was invaluable in identifying the various buildings.

First, Tim’s photo of the front of the farm as we approached.   The building on the left is a barn (1) and the small enclosed field, behind and to the right of the building, is described as the orchard.

On the gable end of the barn (1) were two protruding stones with holes bored in them.  I wondered whether they were for tethering animals but Sue Cannell explains that they were used for securing the ropes that tied down the thatched roof.  I had only seen rectangular pieces of slate (jutting out higher up on the walls) used for this purpose before.  But the gusts of wind were so strong at times that it was hard to keep my camera steady – so perhaps the roof needed to be tied on extra securely.

There was no evidence of fruit trees in the orchard, just some ashes, hawthorn and sycamore and one little elm.

On closer inspection it became apparent that the little elm was the remains of a large elm.  The original tree must have blown down, just leaving a large splinter of trunk with some bark.  The small elm had grown from the “splinter”.

Few of the trees had survived unscathed.  There was a semi-hollow ash, which had lost most of the centre trunk which was now rotting away.  And this ash, which appeared to be about one quarter of a hollow tree.  It is amazing that these trees have survived and that bits of them are still growing.

In the field on the southern side of the orchard was this old bath, an example of Manx recycling.  I have lost count of the number of old baths that I have seen in the fields.  They make useful drinking troughs for sheep and cattle.  The building in the background is the threshing barn.

The interior of the threshing barn.  The mechanism was driven by a one horsepower horse mill.  A Manx pony would have walked around the circular raised horse walk behind the building to turn the gearing and power the mill.

The interior of a building marked in the book as “Cattle”.  This bwaane (cow or cattle house) was built into the slope and we were standing on the bank behind the building.  Sue Cannell writes that “ . . . its size indicates that it may also have accommodated the Manx pony or other small animals.”

The front of the “Cattle” building with the Thie veg (small house) or outdoor loo on the right.

At the other end of the building was the dog house!  

In the main group of buildings there are also two houses and a second barn.

Very little remains of the larger house.  There used to be an interesting choillagh (kitchen fireplace) but the gable end containing the choillagh collapsed after Sue Cannell had completed her thesis.

Further up the slope, looking down on the other buildings in the main group, is the smaller house.  It is more recent than the large house and was probably built for the farmer’s son in the middle of the nineteenth century.  This photo (taken through one of the windows of the smaller house) shows the gable end of the second barn (2).

Some distance from the other buildings was a ruin marked “bothy” (basic accommodation for temporary farm workers) which was also used as a third barn.

Upright slate flagstones were used to make stalls in barns (1) and (2).  They were also used at Killabrega for a more unusual purpose – as fencing.

It is possible to identify most of the buildings from this last photo taken from the slope above the farm.  On the left of the photo is the smaller house.  Below that, in the centre is the larger house, with the second barn (2) behind it.  Below, and to the right of the large house, is the threshing barn.  The square building attached to the threshing barn was the grain store - and to the right of those buildings you can just make out the circular wall around the raised horse walk.

On the extreme right, in deep shade is the thie veg and bwaane.  The bothy was too far from the other buildings to include in the photo and the barn (1) by the orchard is hidden behind the trees below the threshing barn.

Ballaglass

Season of Mists . . . 

Monday 23rd September 2013

It is that time of year when the seasons are changing and we don’t know whether to expect late summer or early autumn.  Monday fitted in very nicely with Shelley’s vision of autumn.  It was definitely a season of mists but I am not so sure about the mellow fruitfulness – unless you count the handful of blackberries that we found in the hedgerows.

The forecast was “Cloudy at first, with hill fog and coastal mist and fog.” But it was even damper than expected and we arrived at Ballaglass in fine drizzle and started off through the dripping trees.

We stopped to discuss a tall conifer but were unable to identify the tree because the leaves were so high that they were above the canopy of broadleaf trees.

It felt like good toadstool weather but the only fungi that I saw were these curious bracket fungi growing on an old decaying log.  I think the new growth at the edge is white while the centre is possibly darkened by algae.

We took a short detour to photograph a small ruined cottage and when we reached the old lead mine buildings we found Trevor photographing spider webs on some gorse bushes.  The webs were decorated with tiny water droplets.  There were so many webs that I wondered whether it was an infestation of gorse spider mites but we had a close look and they were definitely spider webs.  I found some more webs on a fuchsia nearby.

We passed the little stone bridge which carries the electric tram tracks over the Cornaa River and then climbed the steps past the tiny station and walked up a farm lane.  The mist was still clinging to the hillsides.

When we reached a lane leading towards the coast.  Trevor turned off and said we were going to Cashtal yn Ard.  I was a bit dubious.  We have walked along this route in the past, and it is described in John Kitto’s book “Family walks on the Isle of Man”, but it is actually a private road to a house which used to be derelict so nobody minded if you walked past.  But a few years ago the house was renovated and people are living there now.   Trevor said he thought it would be all right because the occupants were likely to be out at work but our discussion was interrupted by a woman who drove down from the house and stopped to speak to us.  She asked where we were headed and Trevor replied “Cashtal yn Ard”.  Either she took pity on four damp old hikers, or she fancied Trevor, because she said that we could walk along her drive “this time – but it is a private road”.  It was kind of her - but there was an understood subtext “Don’t do it again!”

Cashtal yn Ard is one of my favourite megalithic burial sites but I didn’t want to write too much about it after getting rather carried away by the Ballakelly stones last week.  So I thought I would just copy out the information on the Manx National Heritage sign and find a link to a longer description on the internet for anyone who is particularly interested.  But I found out more than I needed, or even wanted, to know.

I knew that the site had been excavated and most of the original cairn was missing.  I have a Manx Museum booklet which states “When first recorded in the earlier part of last century (19th) the cairn was rectangular or slightly trapezoidal, about 100 feet long and about 4 feet high, revetted by post-and-panel walling.  The walling, most of the cairn material and some of the orthostats were removed in the middle of the century for housebuilding.  The site was excavated by Fleure and Neely in 1935.”  But I didn’t realise the extent to which many of the remaining stones were a reconstruction.  It is rather disappointing.  You can find the rather lengthy report by Fleure and Neely at http://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/history/arch/aj16n4.htm

The concise description on the sign reads: 

CASHTAL YN ARD

REMAINS OF BURIAL SITE

OF NEW STONE AGE

CIRCA 1800BC

ORIGINALLY COVERED BY GREAT CAIRN OF

STONE WITH SEMI-CIRCULAR OPEN

FORECOURT AT WESTERN END.

A PORTAL FROM THE FORECOURT LED TO

FIVE BURIAL CHAMBERS WITHIN THE CAIRN.

The forecourt.

The burial chambers.

As we made our way from the stones to the road along the official footpath, we passed this little cottage.  It looks as though it has been mouldering away under its burden of ivy for hundreds of years but Dorothy had an old friend, Harry, who died a few years ago and he could remember when people lived in that cottage. 

Dorothy told me a bit about Harry.  He had been a farm manager and shepherd but was a talented musician, writer and painter.  That generation had to create their own entertainment in the pre-TV and computer age.  Now we spend far too much time staring at screens and fiddling with a mouse!

It was still rather gloomy but there was a little patch of brightness in the east which looked promising.  We walked down the road towards the shore at Cornaa pausing to photograph some more dew-spangled spider webs with the trees on the other side of the river in the background . . . 

. . . and a surprising solitary, drooping stem of goldenrod which didn’t look very happy on the damp shady bank.

We could hear shouting from across the valley and assumed that there were a group of young people exploring the river.  The tide was so far out when we reached the shore that there was a vast expanse of shingle. I was able to take this photo from the base of the cliffs where the river usually flows out to sea.  There was so little water that it was seeping through the stone beneath my feet.

As we approached the bridge which leads to the footpath through the Barony Estate, we passed the group of youngsters that we had heard from the other side of the valley.  They were all kitted out in wetsuits, life jackets, hard hats . . . the works.  It never ceases to amaze me how much equipment one needs to do the simplest things these days.  I must be getting old.

I was a bit puzzled by this new structure made of decking which replaced an old rotted wooden stile.  There used to be a fence and a gate, so the stile had a purpose – but the fence and the gate have both gone.  All that remains is the fine Manx slate gatepost.  I hope that survives if they intend replacing the gate.

Further up the track we were entertained by a robin, which wouldn't pose long enough for a photo, before passing a field with a couple of horses, and then coming across these rather tatty loaghtyn with rather magnificent horns.

And then we returned to the car park along the lower path through Ballaglass Glen.  It was rather surprising to come across this fellow, clasping a “Fairy Tales” book.  He had recently been carved out of a massive tree trunk.  It was probably a beech, judging by the logs littering the vicinity.

  

I am not sure how I feel about these statues which are becoming more common.   I think I prefer the authenticity of the remains of this old flax mill near the stream.

The sun finally emerged as we drove home – but it didn’t last long and the season of mists returned.

Santon

Yet more old stones.

 

Wednesday 18th September, 2013

 

While I was researching the old stones at Braaid and St. Patrick's Chair, I noticed some photos of the "chambered cairn" at Ballakelly and checked the location on my map.  We had never visited the Ballakelly stones because they are not on one of our usual walking routes and there is no suitable parking nearby but I thought I might plan a route which would include a visit to Ballakelly and a hike around the coastal footpath near Port Grenaugh.

 

This week's weather looked a bit too windy for the west coast walk that we had discussed last week so we changed the plan and met at Port Grenaugh on the east coast.   We arrived at the secluded little bay after another encounter with the morning rush hour traffic on the outskirts of Douglas. 

 

The route that I had chosen started off along the cliff path in a southerly direction.  The wind wasn't as strong as we had anticipated and the sun was shining.  I have never seen Port Grenaugh looking bluer.

 

And the icing on the cake was my first (and probably only) sighting this summer of a Painted Lady.

 

As we approached the junction with the path up past Ballafurt we saw that the field contained too many cows for comfort.  The only alternate route was to walk all the way along the coast path to Santon Gorge, which would have made the walk too long, so we braved the cows.  They may have been heifers and bullocks but as far as I am concerned "a cow is a cow is a cow" and I don't hang around long enough to examine them closely.  The path led straight through the middle of the herd so we decided to deviate slightly and walk up the edge of the harvested field on the far side of the hedge.  The "cows" were rather skittish and started a mini-stampede up their field into a higher field.  We waited until they had all passed us, hoping they hadn't gone to fetch reinforcements, and then continued on our way.  Fortunately they seemed to be even more wary of us than we were of them and they kept their distance.

 

We climbed over a stile and continued along the road up the hill behind Ballafurt.  It would be easy to assume that Ballafurt would be translated as Farm of the Fort but it was originally Ballaphurt and means Harbour Farm.  The farmlands must have extended all the way down to Port Grenaugh.

 

Along the lane we came across a welcome sign of autumn.  The blackberries are starting to ripen at last.

At the top of the hill we turned right and walked along the road towards Santon church.  It must be windy up here because we passed some wheelie bins and their lids were weighed down with heavy stones.

 

Santon was one of the original sixteen ancient parishes established on the Island in the middle of the twelfth century.  The name of the parish, Santon, has changed throughout history.  Starting as Sanctain and ending up as Santon, or less often Santan.  At one time it was mistakenly assumed that the church was dedicated to St. Anne!

 

The present St. Sanctain's church was erected in 1774 but it has a longer history because it was built on the site of an ancient church or keeill dating back about fifteen hundred years.

We never have enough time to explore these old churches and churchyards during walks but I went inside to take some interior photographs.  I had read that there were a few old Celtic crosses in the church. 

 

If I was superstitious I would believe that I was fated to get a copy of a little booklet on sale in the church.  There was only one copy left and it cost £2.  Now I don't take money with me on walks but I happened to be wearing my light anorak to keep out the cold wind and there happened to be two pound coins in the pocket.  I had put them in my pocket after returning supermarket trolleys and then forgotten to take them out.  The booklet was written by the Rev. J.M. Cotter, Vicar of Santon in 1977 and is an absolute mine of information.  

 

There wasn't much about the Celtic crosses but he wrote this about the stone with the inscription:  "The third stone is, in the Island's history, a rarity.  In fact, it is probably unique in that it is believed to be the only Roman remains of its kind ever to be found on the Island.  Its origin and history are quite unknown.  It was found amongst the foundations of what was once a former Church or Keeill during the excavating which took place for the building of the present Church.  It was once part of a gravestone and dates back to the seventh century.  Old gravestones have been used to form part of the foundations of Church buildings in many parishes.

 

The Roman stone in Santon Church bears a brief Latin inscription as follows:-

'AVITI MONOMENTI'  (The Tomb of Avitus).  Nothing is known about the Manx Avitus, but it was a fairly common Roman name in those early times and presumably had some connection with the Island, and with the Parish of St. Sanctain, in particular.  It is possible that he could have been a Christian priest, who had been sent to the Island by St. Augustine, and who lived and conducted worship on this site."

I would like to go back and browse through the churchyard.  According to the Rev. Cotter  there is an interesting gravestone - of Daniel Tear, a tinker and vagrant.  The epitaph was composed by Sir Wadsworth Busk, Attorney General of the Island and reads:

"Here friend is Little Daniel's tomb,

To Joseph's age he did arrive;

Sloth killing thousands in their bloom

While, labour kept poor Dan alive,

How strange, yet true, full seventy years

Was his wife happy in her Tears.

 

Daniel Tear, died 9th Dec. 1787, aged 110 years."

 

And another long lived inhabitant of the churchyard is ". . . Thomas Arthur Bridson, the noted Manx artist, who died in 1966 at the age of 105.  Every year, up to and including his attaining the age of one hundred, he climbed to the top of Snaefell mountain on his birthday."  I have been unable to find out his exact birth date.  I would guess that his birthday is not in midwinter like mine.

 

The road past the church led to the junction with the Old Castletown Road and we turned north and walked along the road for about a mile.  There wasn't a lot of traffic but the cars that passed us were travelling fast and we were glad to see the Ballakelly stones in a field alongside the road.   There were more "cows" in this field but they seemed quite relaxed and weren't very interested in us.  The only way into the field was over a gate which was securely tied shut.  

 

 No record remains of the first excavation of the site in 1865 but a few of the stones have been moved since the site was first recorded three years later and some prone slabs which form a rough circle around the monument were added early in the twentieth century.   I found some information about the stones on the internet.  According to Illustrated Notes on Manks Antiquities by P.M.C. Kermode and W.A. Herdman (1904):  "A stone circle on Ballakelly, Santon, may be Neolithic. It consisted of a double circle of large stones of the local Santon granite, set on edge, of which enough remains to show the original plan; in the centre is a cist also of heavy stones on edge one of the stones of the inner ring is ornamented in one corner by rows of small cup-hollows."

 

And in his address The Ancient Monuments of the Isle of Man in 1929, P.M.C. Kermode wrote in more detail "The ruined monument at Ballakelly, in the parish of Santan, seems to have been of this long-barrow type. Scarcely anything remains but the chamber, which approaches the appearance of those seen in the west of Britain. It is the only instance of a long barrow in the Isle of Man in which the burial has been found in a distinctly formed chamber instead of in a portion of the passage. There is now no trace nor remembrance of a facade, but there remains an oval space about 48 ft . by 30 ft . , with scattered blocks of stone, suggesting a passage running S.E. to N.W., towards which end is a well-formed chamber of three great boulders of the local granite, having flat faces looking inwards, and measuring 5 ft. by 2 ft. 6 ins., with a height of about 4 ft. The capstone is gone, but a fallen stone, 9 ft. by 2 ft. 6 ins., lying to the S.E. would fit this position. This is surrounded by seven rather smaller boulders (with a space from which another has been removed) in horse-shoe form, leaving the entrance open. The large outer boulder at the N.W. end is of special interest to the Cambrians since it was on this, as our Museum Chairman, Mr. Callow, remembers, that a group of cup-marks was found for the first time in this Island, during their former visit in 1865. On examining the inner face of the stone I found more cup-marks, which, from the first, must have been hidden in the ground. Of these I had a cast made, now in our Museum."

 

 

But my favourite reference was from Jenkinson's Practical Guide to the Isle of Man by Henry Irwin Jenkinson (published in 1874) "A mile from the Crogga stream there will be observed, in a field to the right, on the Ballakelly farm, a dozen large upright stones which are placed rather irregularly. They appear to form a grave some 10 yards long and 3 or 4 yards wide. The stones are unhewn, and 3 or 4 feet high, placed almost due east and west ; but what now appears to be the head is to the west. The natives call it a Giant's Grave, and in one stone is a number of round holes about ½ inch deep, which they say were made by the giants with their fingers when the stones were being brought to the spot. It is scarcely to be wondered at that ignorant, superstitious people should look with awe on these wonderful monuments of an unknown past, which are perhaps more plentiful in Man than in so limited an area in any other part of the world."

 

They are not very distinct but you may be able to make out the giant's finger prints in the top right hand corner of this stone.

We continued along the Old Castletown road until we reached a small road which turned off towards the coast and forms part of the Raad ny Foillan (Way of the Gull - the coastal footpath).  The path doesn't follow the coast all the way around the Island because some of the landowners refused to give permission for the path to cross their land - so there are a couple of detours inland to avoid the forbidden areas.  Our road eventually became a farm track and then we climbed over a stile and crossed a couple of fields (only sheep this time, thank goodness) until we reached the cliff tops.

 

Just north of this point is a little inlet marked on the map with the curious name of Pistol Castle.  I found an explanation of the name: 

Pistol (Bay and Castle).

Scand. Fiskastallr, ‘fish rock.’ In Hebridean Place-Names stal (Scand. stallr) means a ‘precipice or over-hanging rock.’

 

Tim took this photo of the view to the north showing part of the "private" stretch of coastline between Pistol Castle and Port Soderick with the Marine Drive cliffs in the distance.

Our route turned south.  I got a bit left behind because the narrow path was rather steep at first and I am nervous about slipping and falling so I am painfully slow on steep downhill stretches especially when the surface is a bit slippery.  While I was walking along I heard a strange noise from below.  In the water at the bottom or the cliff were three seals all staring up at me and apparently discussing the strange land mammal walking above them.  I tried to get a photo but they played hide and seek and ducked under the water every time I tried to focus on them.  All I managed to get were a few ripples and the shiny back of one seal as it disappeared under the water. 

 

A little further on I found a nicely static rock which reminded me of a sphinx with the top of its head missing.  The light is causing problems for photography now because the sun is lower in the sky and backlight can be a problem.  I would love to get a really good shot of the shining silvery sea and dark shadows of the clouds but it isn't easy.

Most of the way back the path followed the edge of the cliffs.  It was quite scary at times with a sheer drop, just a foot or so from the path, down to the rocks way below.  When we reached a stream below Meary Veg there was a steep climb down to cross the little bridge and then almost as a steep a climb up the other side.

There are a number of promontory forts along this stretch of coast line.  The "celebrity" fort is Cronk ny Merriu (Hill of the Dead) which features in a film at the Manx Museum but this nameless little fort also deserves a photo.   You can just make out the defensive bank on the inland side of the fort - in the centre of the photo.

 

Finally, we reached Cronk ny Merriu and Tim stood up on the defensive bank and took this photo of me and Dorothy muttering about some vandals who had apparently had a barbeque in the middle of the old Viking long house. 

I love the view from the fort across the clear water of the little bay.  The big white house in the centre was built fairly recently.  Ballafurt is further up the hill amongst the trees on the left.

While the others were getting ready to leave, I nipped down to the beach.  I wanted to take a photo of Cronk ny Merriu from the shore but there was too much backlight.  So I took a photo of the attractively weathered "striped" stone on the beach instead.

We all enjoyed the walk but Tim and I were glad that we no longer take a dog.  Apart from the danger of one of the old boys falling off a cliff there were the added problems of too many cows as well as speeding cars.

 

We are hoping for good weather at the beginning of next week because Dorothy and Trevor are off to Ireland later in the week.  They will be away for two weeks so we would like to have one more walk before they leave.