All buildings great and small...

Gateshead & Newcastle on Tyne

Only heroes need apply...

If you want pictures on a day as cold as today, make sure you get a photographer who doesn't mind getting frost-bitten fingers ! Even in a mild winter you get a few cold snaps, and this has been one of them, with sub-zero temperatures. Tomorrow, we are promised 11 degrees centigrade ! These pictures were taken this morning, along our local bit of the River Tees, on the outskirts of Darlington.

Ice ferns and feathers form on the underside of the ice on a bucket of water ! In my bucket at home, not by the Tees, although I noticed that the river was frozen at the edges.

Durham delights...

Only a short drive from home we have a World Heritage Site ! Durham is a delight to visit at any time of the year, but especially in winter when the city is relatively quiet. The Normans hadn't behaved very well in this part of their conquered lands, but what they left behind for us is treasure indeed ! What a place ! This is the finest Norman architecture in England !

Remember snow ?

Times have changed. We just don't seem to get much of the white stuff anymore. Gales and rain. Life ain't what it used to be. Now, when I was a lad...

This is what we have now ! To be fair, it was July.

Lost in the hills...

Mickle Fell used to be the highest fell in Yorkshire. Following upon boundary changes in the seventies, it is now in County Durham ! Many aircraft have come to grief in the hills of the Lake District and the Pennines, when navigational aids weren't as good as those of today. These pictures were taken over three expeditions to the site of one such sad event.

In the early hours of 19 October 1944 a Stirling bomber, (LK 488), on a cross country training flight from Wratting Common in Cambridgeshire, crashed, almost at the very top of the fell. Only one of the seven crew, (six New Zealanders and one Briton), survived. He managed somehow to drag himself down to lonely Birkdale Farm. From there he was taken to hospital at Northallerton. Some of the wreckage was spread over the other side of the fell, suggesting that the aircraft had only just failed to clear the top. The wreckage of the aircraft, said to be one of the most complete wrecks in Britain, was removed by helicopter in 1980.

Once upon a time in The Lake District...

One of the many advantages of living in Darlington, is the wonderful areas of five star fellwalking, which are more or less on the doorstep ! The Yorkshire Dales, (especially Swaledale and Wensleydale); The Northern Pennines, (Teesdale and Weardale); The North York Moors; The Howgill Fells; and not much more than an hour's drive, The Lake District. This is our Northern Heaven !

Before the 1930s, Haweswater consisted of two small lakes. A village - Mardale Green - was at the head of the valley. A huge dam was built and the lovely valley was flooded to provide water for Manchester and industrial Lancashire. Buildings were demolished, but on rare occasions, during exceptionally dry summers, what remains below the waters of Haweswater Reservoir, can be seen. This was the case in the drought of 1995, when these pictures were taken.