postaldeliveries

Birch Tree On The Hill

This picture is here because it is the result of a hard won battle. When we drive in and out of our house, we go down a narrow driveway, to the gate on the road or from the gate on the road. On one side of the drive is our hill. It doesn’t look much – just your average hill. Earlier in the year, the undergrowth hid much of the detail and how much was hill and how much was forest wasn’t obvious. Now the undergrowth has died back and we can see the lie of the land much better. As hills go it’s pretty unprepossessing. So this morning as The Dog and I set out for our morning amble, I thought that now the trees have no leaves on, there might be a view to be seen from the top.

As an aside here, I must explain that whenever the local (Lake District) tourist attractions are particularly punishing, any of our guide books worth its salt will include a line that promises “the views will be worth it”. I’m becoming brain washed.

Up The Dog and I scrambled – and scrambled is a very apt word here, it may only have been twenty or thirty yards but it was near-vertical and the undergrowth had merely died back to a barbed wire like consistency. It made it quite a challenging ascent.

And the view, when we at last reached the top? Scotland? Skiddaw? The Pennines?

No. But the picture is a clue.