Fancy a bit of ploughing?

 Monday 30th September 2024

 Much has prevented walking of late though I have regularly trudged around the village, but not noteworthy enough for a post here.

Since  retuning to scale modelling in Lockdown I  have made about forty kits. Skills have improved over that time, but certainly not exponentially. Disasters still happen but less frequently and I am spending less time crawling about on the carpet looking for a bit of plastic one millimetre long which has taken life from the tweezers imitating a well flipped tiddlywink. What amazes me is how far such a piece can travel after hitting the carpet.

However, after forty plus models my latest is in my opinion the best so far. This was an intricate kit demanding many skills now learnt along the way, and I managed to achieve satisfactory weathering  portraying a well used but cherished piece of farming equipment. The inital painting, prior to weathering, was less demanding with everything being a blanket grey. My blogging friend Alan will almost certainly spot some detail that I have got wrong or misplaced

I have made a bit of field scenery diorama for my masterpiece to sit on but it is not quite finished. I have been trying to find a 1/24 scale figure looking something like a farmer, either sitting or standing, but after much time on the Internet I have not succeeded. A further photo or maybe a video will appear when I have sorted this.

Whatever I choose to build I must have some respect for in its real life form and that certainly applies for The Little Grey Fergie. Although I have no farming background I have seen plenty still being used despite their now historic production period from 1946 to 1958. Harry Ferguson invented the Three Point Linkage which enabled different implements to be attached and that is still being used in updated form on  tractors today. Before Fergie many farmers were still ploughing fields with horses.

the Ferguson Club is well active and here is a quote from their website and if your imagination has been galvanised with you desperately wanting to learn more on this absorbing subject you can CLICK here.

The ‘little grey Fergie’ is the machine that’s widely regarded as being the one that changed agriculture around the world, forever. The brainchild of Harry Ferguson, this fantastically functional little tractor with its revolutionary three-point linkage – and the system of dedicated implements and support networks that he masterminded around it – probably did more for farmers across the globe than any other tractor you could think of.

I now have an English Electric Lightning aircraft on the way. Hold onto your seats!

Comment posting problem

 Thursday 5th September 2024 

TO ALL READERS

I am having computer problems at the moment and it is causing difficulty with comment postings. I hope to get it sorted. You may find a way of posting comments with your identity, but if not it does seem possible to comment as "Anonymous" and if you do that it would be helpful to identify yourself in the text.

Thanks.

C.

"Boots and Brews" 2 - Glasson

Sunday 1st September 2024 

I continue to cherry-pick from Boots and Brews. I thought I may find some previously missed terrain not far from home from this guide but I have covered most of the ground before  and today was no exception. The  first half of the walk from Glasson and down the coast to Cockersand Abbey is familiar but certainly worthy of repeat. From there this route heads inland to complete all on tarmac. I can usually tell from the map if roads will be well used or not, and I reckoned these would be quiet lanes. I was wrong.  Despite these roads not being a through route to anywhere I must have encountered fifty or so cars on the second half of this walk, as well as half a dozen huge tractors with gigantic machinery attached, forcing me to stop and step off into the edge of these narrow single track roads. A short section back on the Glasson canal was heaving with people on my way  back to the car park, where this morning at 9:45 I was one of only two cars and now there were fifty or so.

There were good views back to the Bowland Hills from the toposcope on Tithe Barn Hill, my high point at about 17.5 metres above sea level.

I was then off down Marsh Lane to access the coast path. A bunch of malevolent looking sheep interrogated me at one point,  like a bunch of hoodies in some undesirable suburb - "Are you looking at me!" I'm proud to say I managed to stare them out.

Just after crossing Jason Pool there was an enclosure in isolation in the middle of the field, about twelve feet square with reinforced concrete supports at each corner about eight feet high and the whole encased in wire fencing and  overgrown with brambles and shrubbery. I couldn't even guess what its purpose may have been, see photo below. Any suggestions?

The walk down the coast to Cockersands Abbey made this trip worthwhile and would probably have been better as a there-and-back walk to that point. I spotted what I thought was a decent sized yacht crossing the bay about half a mile out. Back home when enlarged I identified it as a Wayfarer dinghy. As dinghies go these are seriously seaworthy and I've read of folk sailing to Iceland in them from the UK

Plover Scar Lighthouse was prominent. It was built in 1847 but was severely damaged by storm in March 2016. An heroic operation had it dismantled stone by stone in exact order and rebuilt and reopened in May 2017. 

At Cockersands Abbey I met an Austrian couple. They asked me if they could do a circular walk back to their car, but when I showed them the map they couldn't even show me where their car was located on the map, so I couldn't be of much help. They were pleasant and we had some chat about the contrast between their picturesque Austrian mountain country snd this windswept seashore of desolation on the west coast of England.

Cockersands Abbey dates back to 1180 and there is information on the Internet if you want to delve. 

 I have a couple of previous visits here on this blog. Here is a an extract from February 2020 about a memorable walk of mighty wind, waterlogged terrain, and some exhilaration after one of our now frequent violent storms.  I was inspired to a bit of what one may (or may not) call blank verse:

The abbey of Cockersand more bedraggled than I.

 How long I ask has it here endured?

A modest red stone cube tortured by nine hundred years

Of violent storm. The camera is too unsteady in the gale.

There is a kind of thrill, but this is no place to linger

As I turn to complete this rebellious forbidden day,

And reflect on those of stronger heart who here spent harder days

And many harder months and years.

Turning back inland the rest of this walk was on boring tarmac which did not inspire me to any further comment, and perhaps thankfully for my readers more "verse."

Glasson dock from the car park.

This lock gives access to the sea and Morecambe Bay from the Glasson canal. A bit dodgy in a flat bottomed narrow boat I think?

The toposcope on Tithe Barn Hill.
 A bit presumptuous to give this prominence of only 17.5m. above sea level the title of hill?

They should be dressed in hoodies

Jason Pool on its way to the sea, and just beyond...

...any guesses?

Crook Farm. The way to the coast path just up left of the house - next photo.

I think this is Lighthouse Cottage. Interesting stonework and the angled window for viewing out to sea

Plover Scar Lightouse. I think it is accessible on foot at low tide

This derelict farmhouse just fifty yards behind Cockersands Abbey adds to the atmosphere of desolation here

It had been too hazy from the start to see the distant Bowland Hills but now skies had cleared just enough

Boring!

Looking down Glasson Canal on its way to join the Lancaster Canal.

Anticlockwise from Glasson