This afternoon I have to drive 80 miles ready for my two day course at Blencathra Field Centre near Keswick. It is on "Grasses Sedges and Rushes".
( To put this blogpost into context I am pleased to running a course there. I am sad that Malham Field Centre FSC has now been closed since last September 2022 My course at Malham last August 2022 was cancelled and their lease with the National Trust finishes this August 2023. Some of the A level courses that went to Malham now go to Blencathra)
1. Finding the boxes of handouts and books in my house. I have run week long courses just on Grasses at Kindrogan in the past, and a week on Grasses, Sedges and Rushes at Malham. Plus lots of shorter courses (Both these centres are now closed. Very sad.) So I have several boxes of handouts and visual aids and bright ideas for these three separate topics. Plus books scattered around the house.
2. Tidying the house.
3. Finishing off urgent jobs that should have been done before.
So what do I do outside today?
1. Take the vegetable peelings outside round to the garden to the composts heap.
2. Does driving count?
a) Drive to Settle to buy some extra "little notebooks" for some students to stick their grasses in, and some sticky back plastic in case the Field Centre does not have any. and get some spare newspaper for pressing plants.
b) Drive up the A65, past Clapham Common (aka Newby Moor) and Ingleborough and the drumlins beyond Kirkby Lonsdale to the Motorway - M6 - then up through the Howgills, past Shap, and down to Penrith, then along the A whatever past turnoffs to places I have visited in the past -Tarn, and Eycott and Mungrisedale to Threlkeld and up to the Field Centre. I could split these into a hundred places I know so well.
Isn't it amazing what the mind can hold?
I visit my room W1.3 with two beds which, when I open the roof window a little has view across the handkerchief box/jigsaw puzzle picture view of this Part of the Lake District.
I start to unload some of my boxes to the lab.
Richard the senior tutor arrives to give me a minibus test/ run. The centre minibuses are new and even bigger than previous ones so I welcome the chance for the practice drive down to the village and back. He points out that they do have very good wing mirrors (each one is three mirrors together) and electronic sensing equipment an image on a screen for reversing.
I enquire and discover the new minibuses are too big to be driven up to bendy road to Watendlath. (I am not planning to go there - but I remember it was a challenge driving there even with the old smaller minibuses 20 years ago.)
I have the evening meal at 6.30pm. There is a big group Carlisle Rugby Club- "Lads and Dads" - Teenage players and their dads - or is it Players and their teenage sons? There is also a girls school from London studying geography A level.
I meet a participant-Robert - who has attended my courses elsewhere and is coming on my course and a participant Susan who is here for the Introduction to Botany course. The main meal is Cumberland sausage mixed veg and sautéed potatoes plus a huge selection of salads which I really enjoy.
I go for a walk round the grounds (actually I did this early Saturday morning - but I'll record it here.
I do not go down into the field below the centre with the newly planted trees and the rushes and Oval Sedge (Carex leporina) - that I explored last year. It has rained hard overnight and the grass is long. and very wet. But I discover more footpaths and patches of vegetation amongst the buildings and holiday cottages of the complex. (The Field Centre was built at a TB hospital)
Agrostis capillaris
Agrostis stolonifera
Alopecurus pratensis
Anthoxanthum odoratum
Arrhenatherum elatius
Cynosurus cristatus
Dactylis glomerata
Descahmpsia cespitosa (In the woodland lower down)
Deschampsia flexuosa (in some mature beech wood)
Elymus repens (As expected, in the beautiful flower garden at the front of the house)
Festucata ovina - a medium size dense tuft of it on the tarmac beyond the toilets, near the beech wood.
Festuca rubra
Holcus lanatus
Holcus mollis
Lolium perenne
Phleum pratense
Poa annua
Poa pratensis
Poa trivialis
19 species!
.. And some Carex pendula in the the woodland path lower down) This is a native species -- I will be interested to see if this increases over the years.
I notice a fancy alder tree with cut leaved leaves (need to look this up)
On the slate wall, holding up the Beech woodland slope at the back I notice patches of a bright orange Caloplaca lichen - not many Caloplacas grow on acid rock. - I must ask April Windle who runs lichen courses here what it might be. - In this photo it is rather wet:
Photos to be added.
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