After moving to Arnside eighteen years ago I enthusiastically explored on foot and by car including a drive down Paradise Lane: over a mile of single track, deeply set between high hedges, grass growing in the middle and only about three iffy passing places, which even if used would risk hawthorn scratches down the car. I vowed never to put myself under that stress of meeting another vehicle on Paradise Lane again. At my age I am a reluctant reverser, I don't trust the gimmick camera, and turning my head is like turning a cross threaded nut. But as my teacher-daughter tells me there is some good in,...well in her case: "all children."
As I scan the map for increasingly obscure new venues to suit our Thursday walks, that is tarmac if possible, and only gentle undulation, and hopefully no traffic, I find the Mac's cursor fancied Paradise Lane - ideal!
At the start, a modern cast iron sign said we were at the old boundary between Heversham and Beetham going back to the 1700s - the modern sign seemed to be competing with the extant nearby 1820 cast iron boundary marker which was still in pristine condition after two hundred years, albeit almost buried in the long grass - wow!
The modern sign also boasted of the high hedges with a wide variety of trees and shrubs proving apparently that the lane dates back to the Middle Ages. Alighting from the car there was a cool breeze, enough for us to don windproof gear, but once in the sunken lane we were protected, but if we stopped, as one does to emphasise a point in one's conversation, horse flies were on the attack.
My expectant prediction of nil traffic was short lived - this was a there and back walk and on Paradise Lane alone we encountered at least three vehicles in each direction - some considerate, and some gung-ho, but forcing us to tiptoe onto the grass and press against the hedge to avoid being scythed by wing mirrors.
The other lanes were not much better in that respect and on one occasion we were nearly ploughed under by a fast moving tractor which showed no indication of slowing to let us re-group ourselves into the side; I suppose ploughing was it's vocation.
There were photo opportunities along the way, and although I have made this sound like The Wall of Death the bits in between provided interesting and attractive country walking.
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| CLICK TO ENLARGE The next photo is the medieval country lane with ancient high hedges referred to in this sign, and the one after is the two hundred year old boundary sign |
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| Farleton Fell |
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| Another for tractor enthusiast Alan R. I thought there was something unusual about this one although I don't think it is all that old, but it was on private land and this zoom was as good as I could get. |
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| How many ways are there of hanging a gate? |
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| This is a pretty complex old oak tree, yes it is all the same tree |
No nothing unusual with that Leland 262. You will see lots of these around but usually still working.
ReplyDeleteLovely pics as usual although I was surprised the cafe at the garden centre didn't get a mention!
ReplyDeleteI'd been hankering after a visit to Paradise Lane for some time and we finally managed it a few weeks ago on the bikes, it's a bit disappointing when you realise it is really named for a parish boundary, but at the moment all these beautiful little lanes are heavenly ☺
kendal grufties - good to hear from you again. Beetham Garden Centre café is well known to me and visited every now and then - the standard is high, but often a bit overpopulated. We traditionally end up at Café Ambio attached to the new Livestock auction mart just off Jct. 36. Depending on when you visit, vis-a-vis auction days it is a place of character. The cakes are of generous proportion and the whole ambience is agreeable. If you want a bit of tongue in cheek description look at my post from a while back:
ReplyDeletehttp://conradwalks.blogspot.com/search?q=Café+Ambio
Doing a lot of road walking in Scotland at the moment. Hate the way some cars give you no room at all and whiz past your ear, nearly knocking you over in their slipstream. My current strategy is to walk in the middle of the road, and not step to one side until I hear them slowing down. I’m sure it makes me very popular 😆
ReplyDeleteI tend to walk with the pointy ends of my walking poles sticking out into the road. I've found that ignorant drivers are far more concerned about their paintwork than they are the life of the person walking, so they give pointy ends a wide berth.
DeleteCan't complain about the mass of incidental detail in this account, as well as a sentence which genteelly includes "Alighting" (spoilt by its association with a dangling participle) and "don" (as a verb).
ReplyDeleteBut my mind was on other things. The notice you have photographed refers to a shortish lane. Imagine if this practice were to gain in popularity throughout the land. My memory stutters as usual but wasn't it a governmental rule - as British motorways began to emerge - that advertising posters would be denied the adjacent countryside? Or am I thinking of France? The point I'm trying to make is at what point do officially approved slabs of info in public cease to be an intellectual titivation and become a plague:
This is XYZ Lane in Arnside. Famed even as far away as Milnthorpe for the terrifying gradients of some of its access driveways. Such that some drivers have been known to leave their vehicles behind and to walk - yes, walk - up nearby Arnside Knott. The OS reference is such-and-such. The average summer temperature is this side of Normal. Literacy is down and the way out of Arnside is up.
PS: Needing to check the spelling of Milnthorpe I consulted a map and discovered a village called Ackenthwaite. Even by northern standards that surely teeters on the brink of self-parody.
Ruth - My walking Pal Pete adopts the same strategy as you. He is now 83 and I am only 78 so he is another stage ahead of me in the grumpy old man hierarchy. But, to be fair, if a driver slows down to a snail's pace he does give them a friendly, gentlemanly wave.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I am not suggesting you are a g. old lady - FAR FROM IT!
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RR - I presume the dangler is contained from "Alighting from the car..." To some extent I agree and on reflection would change it, but the sin of a dangling p. is when the meaning is almost totally obscured, and in this case that is hardly so, but even so one gets a hiccup in the flow as one reads.
As for "don" it is definitely a verb:
don 2 |dän|
verb (dons, donning, donned) [with object]
put on (an item of clothing): in the locker room the players donned their football jerseys.
ORIGIN
late Middle English: contraction of do on. Compare with doff.
RR - After a bit more reflection I now remember editing this post by going through the routine of eliminating unnecessary words and I think I probably deleted "As we alighted..." thinking how clever I had been in banishing two more words.
ReplyDeleteDon't presume dangling participles, know them. And no, obscurity isn't the issue, it's a combination of ugliness and proof that the writer is not in control. Of course I knew don was a verb - I said so. You've missed the significance of "genteelly".
ReplyDeleteI was about to provide a memorable dangler but a great weariness descended. Here instead is one by WS:
Sleeping in mine orchard, a serpent stung me.
The sense is apparent as is the clumsiness.
Here's one you may find more apt:
Walking down the cliff, his smile went brighter.
Although I approve of the sentiments, if not the confusion, of your second re-comment my blue-pencil finger still itches. How about:
Cutting unnecessary words from this post I seemed to recall deleting "As we alighted.." and thinking: How clever! Two more words gone.
That's 22 words vs. 40. But numbers alone aren't the key. Test the two for impact.
RR - I can't argue, and wouldn't do so for the sake of it - that's all valuable instruction.
ReplyDeleteI would take issue with the guy "walking down the cliff." A cliff in my mind is something more or less vertical, or even overhanging. Our foolish walker's bright smile would soon be wiped when he hit the bottom.
Cliffs often have paths. Pedanticism has few friends; idiomatic speech is regularly inexact but the argument is usually long gone. Taken literally "I weeded the garden." is more likely to mean weeds were sown than removed. "I switched on the telly." is outdated; a switch - as you would have recognised it - wasn't involved if you used the remote.
ReplyDeleteHad the cliff been vertical ("walking" suggests it wasn't) the better preposition would have been "off".
Viewed as the tiny photo on my phone that cow looks like a plastic toy!
ReplyDeleteParadise Lane sounds like some of the lanes along which I accidentally took us in Colin, including one which involved a half-mile reverse, with me standing in the rear window directing operations. Since the acquisition of Bertie I've been a bit more careful as to routes involving little yellow roads.
Gayle - The stick defence sounds like a good strategy. I am getting ever more cautious about narrow roads - many of them now have suspension breaking potholes, especially those that are cul-de-sacs.
ReplyDeleteI once made the mistake of driving down Paradise Lane - never again. (I blame my satnav). Worse still, I was once a passenger in a friends car who took great delight in terrifying me by driving far too fast along there. I'm glad we didn't meet any walkers on that occasion. Milnthorpe parish seems to have those green signs at almost every turn - I'm all for them, they're very informative and often very interesting.
ReplyDelete. . . cliff walking . . . maybe he too was on his way to Paradise -
ReplyDeleteI recall the Paradise lane or road or walk in Heaton - it led to the burying ground, of course. As do most.
The hanging gardens near Srinagar, descending gently to the Dal lake, lit softly by the fading light of summer evening, are, in my mind, the nearest thing on this earth to the idea of Paradise - as of course they are meant and were designed to be.
Sinous paths aplenty, and smiles - but not a cliff in sight.
So to find such a banal root for the name of your lane is most - almost - distasteful - certainly nose wrinkling.
An ice axe, casually swinging, is a surer defence than a pole, however WC its tip !
Gimmer - what’s in a name? Just because it is called Paradise it seems to have attracted more comment than any post for some time. If it had been called Long Lane or something similarly mundane it would likely have attracted much attention.
ReplyDeletewords, words, words - meanings as much in the mind of the reader or user as the dictionary - public definitions overlaid and intertwined in the memory with layer upon layer of experience and nuance - i read recently that deja-vu is more common in youth than age - when one really has been everywhere and seen everything (apparently) and there is 'nothing new under the sun'.
ReplyDeleteOne experiences it only when novelty seems familiar - apparently.
Ah Paradise, Omar Khayyam hath spoke before !
You are quite right: words conjure up moods and memories, to weave their tapestries of meaning. I look forward to an exegesis of some length from he whom 'long' has frame his life (for he/his read she/her, of course - a convention under quite unnecessary threat)
(- a not is missing somewhere there - surely ?)
gimmer - thanks for your comment. Unfortunately, whilst I understand your comments on that eternal pronoun problem, I do not understand what you are trying to say as whole in that sentence, or if it has any relevance to my post and its attracted comments.
ReplyDeleteComments needn't be relevant to your posts, they're not part of some rigorous transaction. You may be left with a conundrum but there's no obligation to solve it. Hope for the unexpected. The expected is blah, frequently not worth saying, someone not too far away clearing their throat. Tell 'em to go suck a Zube.
ReplyDeleteWas that relevant?