Great Hill from Higher House Lane

Camp on Hurst Hill

The last photo of 2013

Listening to the radio on Christmas day morning I was reminded of the World War I Christmas truce when unofficial ceasefires took place along the Western Front during Christmas 1914. German and British soldiers began to exchange seasonal greetings by venturing into "no man's land" to exchange food, souvenirs and even join in carol-singing. As I took an early Christmas morning walk through Whittle-le-Woods I took this photo of the Whittle and Clayton War memorial. I wondered if any of the Whittle and Clayton men who died took part in the short truce. In the sky, just to the left of the memorial cross is Jupiter, the largest planet in our Solar system. Above Jupiter are the bright stars of Castor and Pollux which are named after the twin heroes Castor and Pollux from classical mythology.
 

On Christmas Day afternoon I walked to Withnell Fold village. It was built in 1843/44 to house workers for the adjacent Paper Mill, which was built at the same time. The mill closed in 1967 and is mostly demolished but thankfully the village is still a thriving community.
The village war memorial was illuminated by the low winter sun as I walked by so I took this photo. It shows the names of 19 men who died in two World Wars. The full statistics are:

WW1, Enlisted 83, Killed 14.
WW2, Enlisted 66, Killed 5.

Low Rigg Farm interior. Seen while walking in Weardale, Co Durham.

Good news! The collapsed culvert on the Belmont to Rivington road is now repaired and the road open again. Now I can again indulge in one of my favourite cycle routes.

This morning I called at Clayton Green Library to check out the latest edition of Lancashire Life magazine, but it wasn’t there. I was told they didn’t get magazines any more because of budget cuts. Cycling through Waterhouse Green, Whittle-le-Woods I had a look at the recently converted redundant telephone box. It is now a community run ‘Book Swap’ where people can exchange books at will. We pay our rates for a Library service that is shrinking yet volunteers can create a new book service. There’s an interesting message here.

My plan was to climb Ben Hope, the northernmost Munro. Because of forecast high winds later in the day I had to leave early. I set off at 6:15am Sun 15 Dec in the dark and completed most of the 927 metre climb by the light of my head torch, reaching the top at 08:30. Because of the northern latitude the sunrise wasn’t till after 9am so I didn't get the chance to see it. Hanging around and risking being blown off wasn’t an option. I want to be an old climber not a bold climber.

A detail on the stone shows this archer and deer

On this detail, to the bottom right, is the date 162?

After a fascinating walk by the River Nent near Alston in Cumbria I was treated to this spectacular sky after driving over Hartside Pass on the A686.

At Astley Hall there was an extremely interesting and entertaining Magic Lantern show by Andrew Gill. He was using an 1880s projector which was almost the same as when made in Southport over 130 years ago. Originally it would have used limelight as a light source but has now been converted to electric light. The glass plate lantern slides were of extremely high quality giving very sharp images on the screen. Some dated back to the 1860s. The entertainment was pure Victorian which still works today.
 

I joined Chorley Sub-Aqua Club in 1969 and stayed for about 10 years. In the mid 1970 there was a competition for the design of a club emblem. It was won by Charlie Binns and here is his winning design. It was printed on stickers that adorned diving equipment and sometimes people’s cars.