Rannerdale Bluebells - and a Surprise!

Blip buddies Technophobe and LooseCanon, with whom we'd spent a lovely day yesterday, had to wait in their cottage for the gas man this morning, so we'd said our farewells to them last night and planned to "do our own thing" today. We'd heard that the blubells in Rannerdale are particularly spectacular this year, so we headed off there for a lovely walk - up Rannerdale, down into Buttermere village and then along Crummock Water back to the car. It was a fabulous walk.

The main blip is my attempt to show a tiny fraction of the carpet of blubells at their best. The yellow gorse sets them off nicely.

The first extra shows a lovely surprise we spotted across the valley - a clutch of photographers. And if you look very closely you'll see one of them standing on one leg like a bird...yes it's blipper/photo maestro John Gravett, the man who introduced me to blip 4 years ago, with his current guests from Lakeland Photographic Holidays! Of course we had to go round and have a word. What's more we met him twice more - firstly on our return journey and again in Buttermere tea room.

The second extra is a close-up of the lovely bluebells.

After leaving the Lake District we had a super journey home: Hartside Pass was at its most beautiful in the evening light, and there was hardly any other traffic. Altogether a wonderful day.