Snow on snow...

We crumped through the snow yesterday up to Fanshawegate and back through Gillfield and home. Geese honking in huge wavering V's scrawled across the sky.

Maybe snow.....

Colder than cold. White doves lift-drop-turn around Fanshawegate; a kestrel held high above the windmill on the Lydgate horizon. Sheeps dit-dot the fields below sugar sifted top of Totley Moss. The light is electric at my favourite ash tree. We stop, look, slow the pace despite freezing fingers and paws.

Hi ho for Spring....

We never tire of our default walk - up through Gillfield Woods, across the Totley Brook and up Shep's Hill to Woodthorpe, then back along the White Lane. Or in reverse of course. It's always different, always new things to discover. And grand views to fields near Fanshawegate and across to moorland on Totley Moss.

Yesterday morning's sun lifted my heart.

And a note to myself that over the past few days, at dusk, there are lots of thrushes up on the Bradway bridlepath enjoying the sound of their own voices. Scolding blackbirds too. Robins singing much more assertively now. The rooks' nests by the council flats growing. The residents don't seem to mind their noisy neighbours - lots of bread being thrown out for them this morning. And they definitely know Barbara who feeds them regularly.....

Moss Road

Here is the path leading up to Moss Road and the moorland of Totley Moss, taken by Blacka Blogger last Summer.







Here it is again, photographed yesterday, showing resurfacing in progress by the Council. Pretty surface eh?

Stone would have been so much more in keeping. This is the original path higher up.....

and here is the new surface - tarmac chippings.


Don't you despair?

I applaud their attempts to stop 4 by 4's getting onto the open moor though, by building a dry stone wall:

Unfortunately, the fuel guzzling darlings have started to knock it down: