Pilot Boat

One of Liverpool's Pilot Boats zooming past the waterfront and a ROV Support ship, the Fugo Saltire.  The pilot service celebrated its 250th anniversary of guiding ships into port last year. 



The Liverpool Maritime Museum has an exhibition on at the moment called 'In Safe Hands' which charts the service from those days of sail to today's high speed launches.

All the pilot boats are named after seabirds

 

and this is the Turnstone.  What a pity I don't have a picture of an actual turnstone but here are some beach pebbles

and the turnstones might be around somewhere busy tuning stones to find something tasty underneath.

The preening juvenile herring gull has other things on its mind.

An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet, this week sojourning at P here

 

Old Sluice

The old sluice gate on Tarn Beck which once controlled the mill race which would have turned the water wheel  at the Carding Mill further down in Seathwaite. A carding mill combs out wool ready for spinning and at one time this one would have employed about 10 men.  When it was first set up in the 1790s the spinning yarn produced would have been used by hand weavers. The building today has been converted for other uses.    

Tarn Beck flows out of Seathwaite Tarn which nestles at 1,200 ft (365m) on the western slopes of the Coniston fells and as you can see there is always copious amounts of water coming down, the beck has broken its banks.  From old water power to

wind power, this is all that remains the old windmill at Hodbarrow Point, the photograph taken just as the colours were about to turn last September.  The name Hodbarrow is from Old Norse, hafri (oats) and riff (a ridge) so it is appropriate that this used to be a corn mill.

An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet, this week sojourning at O here 

Notice

I haven't walked past here since last year so it was a nice surprise to see this 'Open' notice with its promise of things like tea, cakes and pizza.  This was once the Hodbarrow Mines Offices (built in 1873) and it is the only building that remains of the enterprise.  In more recent times it was the Commodore Club (a bar and restaurant) which closed a long time ago and was eventually put up for sale.  We've noticed a lot of building work over the last couple of year and then managed to miss the actual opening of the Hotel and Bistro which I now discover was back in December.  

Its new name is Herdwicks (the name of the local breed of sheep) and their Facebook page says this door, kindly donated, is from the original Hodbarrow Mines offices, still with the 'Hodbarrow' lettering in place, although of course the paint is sparklingly new..  It always surprises me the amount of historical 'stuff' that people have squirreled away locally.  As it was late in the day we didn't go inside but anticipate it will be a nice end to our circular amble in future.

Here is the other side of the building as seen from the sea wall over Hodbarrow Lagoon.  I've had to dive into my archives for this photo which was taken in February 2016, a colder winter than this year's warm one when we have only had the occasional fine dusting of snow on the hills which soon melted away.  

An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet, this week sojourning at N here 

       

Men Mending

Maddening. On the way home and pop, the tyre blows but looking at it in a glass half full way what better surroundings to put things right, a sunny day on the corner of a cricket field by a quiet pathway.

Earlier in the day I had passed the signposted 'men at work' delving down the canal banking.  I don't know what their objective was

but they were certainly concentrating on the task in hand.  One thing is for sure I can't think of a

'Pennine Way' Canal and River Trust work boat

better way to arrive at work than on a boat. 

An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet, this week sojourning at M here