This week offered two different visions for humanity. The first came from Trump and was based on self-pity and ignorance. The second came from Nasa and was based on reason and common humanity open.substack.com/pub/iandunt/...

Brief sunny interval in West Cumbria Neighbour’s Jacob lambs Bryson’s Hot Cross Buns

Low Fell summit stile and dog gate @lakesstiles.bsky.social

Views from Low Fell this morning Good walk with @tutty352.bsky.social

Solway seascape with Blue Sky And cloudage for @lakesstiles.bsky.social

Layers: Rannerdale Knotts, Haystacks, Gables

Landlocked crab heading for Crummock Water

Two lambs and Red Pike for @cathylowe.bsky.social (needs a click)

It’s not only Herdwicks who are masters of camouflage: Two black lambs sheltering in the lee of a pile of charred brushwood

Herdwicks, sieves (rushes) and heather

Three Herdies on the fellside by Hope Beck #Herdwicks

Chilly afternoon walk with fleeting sunshine and hail showers

Arrived in the North after lunch and have collected a binful of ash & sycamore twigs and small branches brought down in winter storms and stacked against walls to dry during rainy visit last month #kindling 🪵

In a field Watching 🐈

An oak, a gate and a stile: perfect combination

#fabulamurina (mouse story) 496 euge! ver adest et sol lucet (Hooray! Spring is here and the sun is shining). Silvius in ramulo salicis sedet, amenta lanata spectans (Silvius is sitting on a willow twig, looking at the furry catkins).

Unexpected fritillary I planted half a dozen 35 years ago and occasionally one or two appear, but this one has come up 15 feet away, where I cut back a yew tree and wild rose during the winter 💜

Article in this week’s Sunday Times about @quintinlake.bsky.social ‘s book Perimeter @lakesstiles.bsky.social @tutty352.bsky.social

Spring in West Oxfordshire

Ladder stile on the roof of the Bodleian Library for @lakesstiles.bsky.social

At Latin teachers’ event in London on Saturday in brilliant sunshine but icy wind @profrmaslen.bsky.social will recognise the location

Indeed they are: 8 nests last year, 15 and counting this year 😊

Views from the cupola of the #SheldonianTheatre #Oxford 1

Silent Whee in the cupola at the top of the Sheldonian Theatre Oxford #WheeeClub

An eagle brings Cuthbert and his companion a fish which they share with the eagle. BL Yates Thompson 26; Bede, Prose Life of Cuthbert; 12th century; England, N. (Durham); f.28v @blmedieval.bsky.social

Haha and sundial at Charlecote Park for @lakesstiles.bsky.social

Through the Eyes of the Stoop 1. Melbreak 2. Whiteside

The lonely stoop contemplates its solitude, but cheers up when I place a battered companion, washed over the meadow by winter floods, by its foot

Skiddaw, Whinlatter Pass, Grisedale Pike, Lorton Fells, Lorton Valley, Solway Coast, from Graystones

Silver stiling with cloudage for @lakesstiles.bsky.social

Excellent day’s work by strong man in West Oxon who split all the huge logs from the enormous willow I had felled before Christmas 🪵 🪓

What to do in wet weather in February: hack brambles from around trough and ephemeral pond in village paddock

The chapel at Gvaldai in Lithuania is built directly on top of a flat stone with prehistoric cupmarks, which forms the floor of the chapel

No light quite like that produced against gathering clouds after a day of sunshine. The pinky-hues drenching the road paving and walls of Pompeii are magical.

Well if it’s Cheese Week in Old English I must have cheese before Wednesday @lakesstiles.bsky.social

Stone step stile with mini gate near Ullswater An iconic specimen from the #StileArchive for @lakesstiles.bsky.social

Now this is spooky 👻 Clearing stuff yesterday I found tag with “keepable owl” coloured in by sister in 1980s; today in village café I saw this tag and wrapping paper Psychedelic Owls rule 🦉😵‍💫😱

Another lesson in the series Stile Types and Terminology from the eponymous expert

Foggy morning

Nearest book, p42, 2nd sentence: “The coast is iron-bound; strangely contorted schists and sand-stones stretch away northward in an almost unbroken line of rocky wall to the point of Hartland; and to the south-west a bulwark of cliffs, of very similar character, extends to and beyond Tintagel…”

Dual personality village stile on path between houses leading to field

Educating novices in stile etiquette

Sunset, West Oxfordshire

Evenlode eddies

After the discussion about the mango wood CD/book shelves I bought a jar of mango chutney: the ceramic kingfisher approves

Bought a wooden CD rack, but the CDs have bespoke shelving so I filled it with the smallest 12mos in the house @lakesstiles.bsky.social will notice a Scots Gaelic NT and @sculptedinstone.bsky.social the yew bowl made from a fallen tree in Bampton churchyard

Lakeland Sunset end of December

For those who know about #SnecklifterTuesday in the Other Place this is today’s Snecklifter through the Eye of a Stoop (stone gatepost) 😁

West Cumbrian Pastoral

Boxing Day bonfire 🔥