Roseberry Topping from Gribdale

I decided to keep out of the way of the Christmas preparations today and made the most of a bright weather forecast. I was up extra early today and headed up to Roseberry Topping in the hope of getting a nice sunrise picture of the iconic hill in a homage to Joe Cornish whose work inspired me to take photography more seriously.

Sadly there were no clouds in the sky at all by the time I had got to my location, so the sunrise was pretty non-existent. However while I was waiting for something to happen a Stoat appeared from between 2 bales. I watched it for a couple of moments, but as I reached for the camera he spotted me and shot back in between the bales, never to reappear.

I then relocated to Gribdale and walked on to Newton moor to get some more views of Roseberry Topping. It was brilliant being up on the moor as the winter sun rose and cast a warm light on to the heather. I saw Grouse (it must be Christmas now) and a Green Woodpecker. After a long walk along the ridge I returned to the car and then went the other way through the woods onto Easby Moor to the Captain Cook Monument.

Boy was it really windy on this side. The tripod was vibrating so much I went hand held and watched as the tripod sans camera crashed to the ground. I even had a hard job standing firm in the teeth of the gale that was blowing up over the edge of the moor. I had some glorious views of the Cleveland Plain at the end of the North York Moors.

After a picnic in a quite secluded spot (my car) I then headed for home, but I made a small detour to visit Masham so that I could stock up with some extra special Theakstons beer. It has been mated with malt whisky to create a Distillers Brew. I had something similar when I was on Skye a couple of years ago and it was nice, but potent, so I'm looking forward to trying some.

It's nearly tea time, so I'll catch up with journals later in the evening. I think tomorrows blip will be posted quite late due to helping my Mum and visiting my Gran,  so I'll wish you all a Merry Christmas now. I hope you have an enjoyable day.