LOOSE AND LEAFY IN HALIFAX

Saturday, 27 June 2020

30 DAYS WILD : 27 - THE WILD SIDE OF TOWN

E Mill. Dean Clough. Halifax. Calderdale. England. June 2020

E Mill, Dean Clough. The mills at Dean Clough were built over time.
E Mill was built in 1857

I invite you to draw an equilateral triangle with its base parallel to the bottom of the page. Put an X part way along its right hand side. Now, from the bottom right hand corner of the triangle draw a vertical line of about the same length at a right angle to the base. You are creating a not-to-scale diagrammatic map of the area I've been covering in recent weeks for Loose and Leafy. Doing it this way is in the tradition of the London Underground Map. It doesn't precisely show what things are like 'on the ground', you couldn't use it easily in order to walk from A to B, but it sets things enough in relation to each other they can take a place in your mind.

Roses and coronavirus street plants at an entrance to
Dean Clough, Halifax, Calderdale, England.
June 27th 2020

The base of the square is the town centre. The apex is Warley Moor where we saw the meadow pippit (or lark), the Large Heath Butterflies and the Hare's Tail Cottongrass. Going down the left hand side we are descending into the Luddenden Valley - where we walked in the woods and looked along the stream by a bridge. The Tale of Three Levels noted some of the changes in the terrain in between.

Roses and coronavirus street plants at an entrance to
Dean Clough, Halifax, Calderdale, England.
June 27th 2020

The X is where I live and the vertical line is the Hebble Valley which is so steeply sided in places I think of it as a ravine. Where it meets the base of the triangle there's a huge, renovated mill complex called Dean Clough, which was once one of the largest carpet factories in the world and is now converted into offices, art galleries, a theatre and restaurants. In its hey day, Crossley Carpets employed 5,000 people - the majority of them there. (According to Wikipedia this number was reached in 1900 after nearly a hundred years of manufacturing. According to the 'Let's Look Again' site it didn't reach this number till 1923.) Now, around 4,000 people work in the replacement industries. Or, rather, they do usually. There's a pandemic and the car parks are empty. And this week, because of the rain there are few people wandering around at random. Perfect for my first foray into 'town' for months.

To be blunt, the contents of Dean Clough are not as exciting as they sound on paper (though they could be!) but unlike the residential areas high on the banks either side, it is usually pretty well manicured. The coronovirus is 'seeing to' that and plants are on their way in, springing up between the stone paving slabs in front of the rose beds at one of the access points on the west side.

Nettle growing through cobbles in street. Halifax, England. June 27th 2020.

Walking through Dean Clough is not only to dip into the combined history of the area and the hopes for a Halifax 'on the rise', it's very good for leg muscles. You go down lots of steps to the buildings, then can climb even more on the other side of the valley to reach the park by the Bankfield Museum in Boothtown via a steep cobbled street which is unkempt at the best of times. But with less traffic and fewer pedestrians, plants here are beginning to get even more of a hold than usual. Nettles are one thing

Tomato plant growing through cobbles in street. Halifax, England. June 27th 2020.

. . . the tomato plant was a surprise!

It's a little disconcerting. A bit 'end-of-the-world-ish'.

An extraneous fact:

during the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester (1819) many escaped injury or death because the horses of the Manchester Yeomanry couldn't managed the slippery cobbles of the steep streets in the rain. Manchester is nearly 60 miles away but I think of Peterloo as well as the mill workers in their clogs when I am walking these kinds of streets here. I am amazed the clogs gripped.

LINKS

Dean Clough on Wikipedia

Crossley Carpets on 'Lets Look Again'

Hebble Brook on Wikipedia

Bankfield Museum

Peterloo Massacre on Wikipedia

Manchester Yeomanry on Wikipedia

British Clogs on Wikipedia

Wearing Clogs in Yorkshire in the 1920s on the Bancrofts from Yorkshire Blog

Buying clogs in Calderdale now - the Walkly Clogs site.

This post is for Day 27 of the '30 Days Wild' challenge organised by the Wildlife Trusts.

Friday, 26 June 2020

30 DAYS WILD : 26 - DRAWING TO A CLOSE

Hart's tongue fern in wall. June 16th 2020

Seeing this Hart's tongue fern in someone else's wall (June 16th 2020)
inspired me to find out more about how to look after them.
I've cleared away some clutter from in front of those
in my own wall and have been drip-feeding them plant food.

After today, there will be four days of '30 Days Wild' left - a challenge set by the Wildlife Trusts to do some random act of wildness every day in June. The 'wild' ideas they suggest have not been very 'wild', not in the way of the street parties which have been breaking out around the country as lockdowns are lifted . . . they have been things like going for walks, for picnics, for listening to the birds, watching out for butterflies.

It has coincided with other challenges in all our lives. For my part, in the early days of the month I could not go out at all because I was 'shielded'. More recently, we 'shielded' people have been encouraged to go for walks as long as we keep away from others so I have swung from being totally at home and pretty inert to walking in remote places and scurrying along for the sake of exploration and to re-animate my body before it gets too sluggish and slow.

I've managed quite a few of the 'challenges'. I planted some corncockle flowers for the sake of pollinators. (They didn't come up.) I checked there is water both for the frog at my allotment and for the birds but as I'm allotmenteering by delegation instead of in person I haven't the photos to show you. But it's there.

The Wildlife Trusts sent an email poster with 'Wildlife Yoga' positions. My next door neighbour, with whom I now share a long-distance cup of tea every morning, suggested we should add outside yoga into our routine. 'What, in front of all the people passing?' No! And I haven't taken up the suggestion that I should make a mandala out of leaves and things either. (A sort of circular pattern which I think is supposed to be meditative but . . . )

I suppose these sycamore seeds (13th June 2020} could have
been turned into an artistic arrangement but I got carried
away by looking at the inevitable aphid . . . and wondering
whether the two sizes and shapes of seeds came from different trees outside my house.
Then I realised - that despite there having been plenty of blossom
on both, one has masses of these winged 'helicopters'
or 'keys'but the other has none.
Can you spot the aphid? (Clicking the picture will enlarge it.)

So it's been a bit of a mixture. Some things I've done. Some things not. I think perhaps I've been a bit lacking on the artistic front. I included a poem but I've not drawn any drawings. My photos are my 'art' so maybe it's a good moment to introduce you to 'Message in a Milk Bottle'. Until I got leukaemia I used to post a picture there every day. And I have, from time to time, on and off, since. But mostly, recently, Message in a Milk Bottle has been neglected. Unlike on Loose and Leafy there are no words - just the photos. The discipline of (almost) daily posts on Loose and Leafy for June has been gearing me up for going back to posting on Message in a Milk Bottle. Loose and Leafy will gradually drift back now to a post roughly once a week but if you like my work you might enjoy Message in a Milk Bottle on the days in between. I'll aim to start again at the beginning of July. In the meantime you might like to browse what's already there.

It isn't all nature - perhaps about two thirds. It depends what I'm doing and what's around. I like shapes and colours and walls and things dropped on pavements and bits of plastic caught in barbed wire too.

Has doing the Wildlife Trusts' Challenge changed me in any way? I think perhaps it has made me more self-aware of what I am looking at. After all, a post a day calls for rather a lot of concentration. And I've become more aware of my place in the landscape. The photo of the digger on the hill is the kind of picture I would usually post on Message in a Milk Bottle but this digger is so prominent it has become a sort of Pole Star on some of my walks.

21st June 2020

And I've become more aware of some of you. Some who have been reading and commenting on these posts are old internet friends. Some have newly arrived. As I potter around the house, noticing the presence of woodlice in the cellar and the strange absence of spiders, as I've left my vase of flowers to decay on the windowsill so I can watch the petals fall, as I've counted the sycamore seedlings I've pulled out of the pots in front of my house . . . I've been chatting with you in my head. Some of these conversations have turned into posts. Others, you may never know about. For both, thank you. Thank you for accompanying me - in my head as well as on our screens.

Links:

Wildlife Trusts

Message in a Milk Bottle

Thursday, 25 June 2020

30 DAYS WILD : 25 - TODAY I WALKED IN THE WOODS . . . WATER

Path through woods in Luddenden Valley. June 25th 2020

Today I walked in the woods.

Cuckoo spit. Woods in Luddenden Valley. June 25th 2020

There was cuckoo-spit in the grass. (Cuckoo spit is a damp froth which conceals the nymph of an insect called a 'froghopper'. I once brushed the 'spit' away and found a little green monster inside. It was nothing like its adult form. It would seem cruel to repeat the experiment for the sake of a photograph so you will have to imagine what it looks like!)

Gate leading to stone bridge over Luddenden Brook. 25th June 2020

I came to a gate.

The gate led to a grassy stone bridge.

Style into field. June 25th 2020. West Yorkshire

At the far side of the bridge was a style into a field.

Luddenden Brook. West Yorkshire. June 25th 2020.

But I didn't go into the field, I went under the bridge.

And looked along the brook.

Water in Luddenden Brook, West Yorkshire. 25th June 2020

And into the water.

(This reads as if it's a story for very little children learning to read so perhaps I should finsish by saying

"THE END"!)

This post is part of the 30 Days Wild Challenge set annually by the Wildlife Trusts.

Wednesday, 24 June 2020

30 DAYS WILD : 24 - I WENT WALKING AND I SAW . . .

Foxglove and dry stone wall in Luddenden Valley

This is where I went for a walk today.

It's hard, currently, not to be overwhelmed by heat. Today is sunny and clear. Before that the weather was heavy and oppressive. And before that the sky was dull and overcast. A letter arrived from the hospital with a list of nine series of vaccinations I will need to replace my immunities but my new GP practice seems to have shut up shop. I don't understand! There was a leaflet with the letter. I mustn't forget there's still time for me to get Graft Versus Host Disease and because of the transplant I am more at risk from a selection of cancers so I must use high factor suncream, wear sunglasses, get out of breath for thirty minutes a day to keep myself fit (this can be in ten minute chunks) and have ten minutes a day with my skin exposed to sunshine (for the sake of vitamin D).

Butterfly observed by fly. June 24th 2020

Butterfly being observed by a fly. June 24th 2020

So when I go for a walk I feel like the invisible man - my woolly hat has been replaced with a flowery sunhat and I wear large dark glasses in between it and my flowery mask. The sunglasses change how I see the world. They enrich all colours. Butterflies, pretty at the best of times, become absolute stunners. The sky is bluer. Clouds more dramatic. Leaves greener. The earth is enriched and warm. Photos don't look the same when I get them home! This butterfly was bright orange when I saw it through my glasses!

It's National Insect Week. I spent an age before I set out, trying to photograph bees on local poppies. Bees never stop moving and when they ping off the poppy and on to the next one, its petals are left vibrating. It's easier to photograph bees on sturdy bramble flowers I have discovered. However fiercely the bee wriggles, the flower stays still. (I've used one of the blurry poppy photos for a temporary header in honour of National Insect Week.)

Today's walk was in the country, through some woods between the moors and a stream. There was bracken and there were ferns, This, I think, is bracken. Who knows the difference between bracken and ferns?