Mary McAndrew

Many times I really want to share photos from our walks here in Northumberland England or from the Scottish Borders, where we’ve been driving to a lot this summer and autumn.  The problem is my posts have been infrequent due to time and when they get long it feels like it will just be too much. Also, I used to have more time while out to sit and do a watercolor study and then share that as a post. It seems we just have time to pop out for a walk and there’s no time for poor deprived me to do any artwork!

So I thought I’ll just do a separate post and just pop a bunch of nice photos on to share with you some of the beauty of this area, which truly inspires me as an artist and human being. I hope you enjoy them and maybe this could be something I do more often, what do you think?

SCOTTISH BORDERS – Langholm area

A beautiful view up the lane near Langholm.

So first I’ll share some photos from our drive up to the area around Langholm, Eskdalemuir in the Scottish Borders.

This was our view as we had lunch in the car.

We pulled up, well backed up into a gateway area and this was our view across the valley from us. It was pretty cold and misty outside but Gary made hot coffee on our little gas camp stove behind the car, it was so welcome!

This is a little closer view, just look at that hill on the left!

When I look at these hills, though they’re really pretty high, I feel I just want to start walking and get to the top! But that hill on the left is quite steep looking!

From inside the pine forest, how beautiful!

The above picture I shot when we had a pitstop for a ‘wee’, somewhere in the vast hills. It was so quiet and I love, especially at this time of year, there’s not many people around.

This was shot from the car window, that’s the town of Bentpath at the base of the hill.

We went through an area we explored a bit last year, the valley and hills of Eskdalemuir, NW of Langholm. The tiny town you see above is Bentpath. I love how it’s situated with the gorgeous hills behind it, such a tiny place along the river.

Coming over the moors, wide open and free.

I like that view of coming over the open moorland, no barriers. Sometimes you see sheep wandering around across roads like this up here.

Sunset on our way home, I just love the colors and those clouds!

And to finish a nice day, a beautiful sunset to send us home to Northumberland.

NORTHUMBERLAND

COQUETDALE – Rothbury + Thropton area

Two beautiful tups or rams, how bonny are they?

On this day we went for a walk between Rothbury and Thropton, we park on a back lane and walk up through fields and end up on a very ancient lane called Physic Lane. Many times they have rams in some of the fields we pass, so I was happy to see these two fellas above. I don’t know anything about why they are colored like that, it’s not natural color, so I’ll have to find that out.

One of my favorite kind of stiles to go over. built right into the wall.

Above, you see a very old type of style, it’s stone and built as part of the wall. I love it because it’s so permanent, though you do have to take care when you use it because they’re narrow and there’s usually nothing to hold onto. And yes, the stones go down the other side too!

A view down Physic Lane, just a grassy path now.

I love photos of gates in the countryside and would like to do more paintings of them. This gate is typical in style, a very practical farm gate to keep livestock in (or out). This is one part of the old Physic Lane, some parts you can see the old cobbles under the grass. Physic Lane dates back to the Medieval time, as there were two known hospitals in the area. It’s believed the monks who ran it would gather herbs along this lane and I know for a fact there is a great number of Elderberry trees along part of it, and this is a great healing plant with it’s berries and flowers being used. I know it’s a dull day for a photo but I love how the Bracken is changing color along the lane too, I just love it’s Autumn colors.

Though it’s a misty overcast day, it’s still a beautiful view of Coquetdale valley, one of my favorite places!

I just love Coquetdale, so named for the River Coquet that runs from up in the Scottish Borders down through this valley. It snakes it’s way along, added to by little streams that run down from the moors, clean and cold. Then it winds it’s way along and reaches the coast at Warkworth Castle. But on this walk we don’t see much of it, so maybe I’ll share photos of it in a future post. What you can see are the Simonside Hills across the valley, a very popular set of hills to hike up.

One part of the walk has huge boulders scattered on the hillside.

One part of the walk has huge boulders scattered on the hillside. I just love big boulders that form crags on many of the hills around our area. They are full of interesting layers from when they were formed and huge cracks where they split apart from years of freeze and thaw and general wear. They’re kind of like architectural elements sitting in the countryside!

My favorite mushroooms are these, Fly Agaric.

Fly Agaric mushrooms are my favorite kind, I can’t resist the bright red orange of their caps and the little white ‘bits’ that appear there too. I just loved how these appeared to line a path, like maybe they were magically put there by a fairy to decorate the way?

NORTHUMBERLAND – Above Eglingham

I’m a sucker for pictures of tracks through grassy fields!

Then on another day we went for a short walk that we did years ago, above Eglingham, but this time we went further up the fields. It’s very open there with far reaching views of moors, grasses, heather and distant hills.

We found a huge boulder sticking out on the hillside.

We found a huge boulder sticking out on the hillside, so naturally we were attracted to it. I guess others have been too because some nitwit carved a big heart into it and then names and a date. We don’t find this attractive at all or nostalgic, we just find it annoying and a disturbance to what we consider perfect as is, nature left alone. OK rant over!

We enjoyed sitting on said rock for quite awhile, just enjoying the view, talking about things going on in our life and because it was very windy and cold, keeping out scarves wrapped around our faces.

There were wonderful little mushrooms growing around the boulder.

There were nice little mushrooms growing all around the boulder, on all the different levels of rock, where ever there was soil and grass growing. What I liked about this boulder was there were so many flat parts to sit on, all on different levels. I’m certain this rock has been popular for sitting over many, many years!

Here’s a view from the boulder where we sat.

I included a photo to show you the marvelous view we had from the boulder top, it just keeps going on and on. I love the color in autumn of the bracken and heather, just wonderful browns with a hint of burgundy.

This is another photo of the view from the boulder.

And here’s a photo just showing the view in landscape format. I want to go back up there and see it in different seasons. Also as we sat and studied the land and hills before us, we try to see where tracks, gates and paths might be so we could explore further on another day. When I see land spreading out like this I get the feeling of just wanting to walk and walk to get to further hills. Getting back might be a problem when I’m all tuckered out!

Just to show you how chilly it was, there’s me bundled up!

Just to show you how chilly it was, there’s me bundled up! It was soo cold and windy, but sometimes that really gives you energy, as long as you don’t sit still too long. I had to crop Gary out as he does not like his photo shared! I like snapping some selfies from our walks, it really is nice to look back on later and gives that more personal feeling and memory of our day out.

I hope you enjoyed a glimpse of some of the wonderful views we’ve seen lately. I do have more to share so you may see some other posts like this, just to share some photos. Do you think this would be good?