Groovy eyebrows

It was such a lovely day, too nice to be doing indoorsy stuff, so decided to have a walk. We had a few places in mind, all local - but Al always favours Bleaklow and he thought it would be good for hare/grouse spotting photo opportunities for me - good choice in the end as some Dozy Doris had forgotten her tripod so long exposures would have been challenging!

Popped into town first, and while Al had his 'Nino' haircut I mainly sat in the Norfolk Square in the sun, 'getting in the zone' - although my zone was a little tarnished when a dad allowed his son to wee in full view on the grass near NatWest, not even in a corner, discreetly - grrrrr!

Parked on the Snake and set off up the Pennine Way. After the flagged area the path became quite snow covered. It was pretty hard going under foot in the grough. The snow was quite thick in places and straying off the central part meant sometimes finding knee deep pockets, especially when I went grouse stalking. There were a lot of dodgy leg-sized holes to avoid too. We ended up climbing out of the dip and walking on the rough stuff just to make it a bit easier going. I kept thinking I heard birds - turned out it was only the sound of my sleeves rubbing on my jacket!

Had planned to go as far as the Hern Stones where I have lovely memories from years ago of being sat on the top in the sun, having a lunch stop and just listening to the silence... but they were further off than we remembered, so we had our butty sat on some rough heather with our feet in the snow and the sun shining on our backs. Simple but excellent!

Unfortunately the only mountain hares we saw were a couple that hadn't managed to negotiate the A57 successfully.