Climate Walk - Foss Gill, Airton Meeting House and Farm Shop - 1 Feb 2024

Geoff, Jane, Philippa (Phil) and I set off for Calton near Airton.

We planned to visit Foss Gill, look at the Quaker Meeting House at Airton, and visit the town end Farm Shop which sells local products.

As arranged, we met Janathan who lives in Calton.

We parked in the hamlet next to the recycling/salt bin. On the wall opposite were lots of mosses, beautifully swollen with the damp left from yesterdays rain. Mosses: Syntrichia intermedia, (Intermediate Screw Moss) Hypnum cupressiforme, Homalothecium sericeum Lichens: Aspicilia calcarea, Caloplaca flavescens; 

We walked up the village. Jonathan showed us the olive tree that has born fruit and survived the frost earlier this month.

We carried on down to the wood. Interesting new bridge.

Near the wooden foot bridge we had just walked across to get there was lots of Cladonia pocillum and a black jelly lichen.

Here is some calcite. There are lots of geological faults in this valley. 

This link explains the geology a bit, but not much.

https://www.cucaera.co.uk/grp/?refs=SD9159&map=ordnance&vcs=true&graticule=true&nsgrids=false&zoom=13&lat=54.02989386366022&lon=-2.128834107932536&distinct=false&bedrock=true&superficial=false&sketches=

A fungus

I need to look this moss up. It was growing on an old retaining wall at ground level on the bank of the wood.

We stopped by the seat in the wood.

We used the sheet from Pray and Fast for the planet February 2024

We split up and each found a quiet spot and listened to hear what we could hear.  and see what we could see.

It was a good exercise - even if the white noise provided by the "white noising" of the stream drowned any rustling leaves.  No birds.  In the distance the shooting at Coniston Cold Range stopped, and then we heard a helicopter.  Ahh and maybe a crow.  I forced my self to stay awake - the stream sounded just like the App I had used last night in bed to try and get back to sleep.. I was the one who still had a good view up the beautiful gill -quite light since it is winter so it is not shaded by tree leaves. - and I enjoyed the view.

Time to go on. We thanked Jonathan for leading us.

I called in briefly to say hello to Alison and Robert Crisp

We continued to the Friends Meeting House. My original plan had been for Geoff to say a few words about the history of the Meeting House. But we had seen what we thought was an Art Exhibition advertised on the door.  When we turned up we discovered it was in fact an Art workshop which was just finishing. However Cindy the Warden at the Meeting House who had been leading the workshop welcomed us in and her remaining art person Sally and she gave us cusp of tea and showed us round.  They had been drawing a photo of a carving of a horse reckoned to be over 30,000 years old.

The meeting house had lovely wooden panelling. and woolly woven wool on the benches

Looking down from the upstairs gallery.

Then is was time to visit the Farm Shop at Airton. Late lunch at 2.50pm.

Demonstrating the chacuterie: made of best nape of pork and Yorkshire Dales Gin (from Bell Busk)

Brie cheese made a mile away.

Display of gin made at Bell Busk

Then it was time for home

Meg Munn becomes Honorary Ecumenical Lay Canon at Ripon Cathedral

There are NO PICTURES of LICHENS 
and no pictures of SETTLE in this post,

Bishop Nick of Leeds' talk on SPEAKING TRUTH and PROPHETS  (Sun 28th Jan 2024) is at the end. This was a relevant talk - to Meg's various jobs - and also to Extinction Rebellion's three principles:

1. TELL THE TRUTH    2. ACT NOW   3. DECIDE TOGETHER.

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When I am in Ripon I attend Allhallowgate Methodist Chapel. A few years ago I met Meg (Margaret) Munn who attends this church and soon after went to hear her give a talk to a women's group there. Meg used to be a Labour MP in Sheffield Heeley (2002-2015). (See Wikipedia for details - including now being chair of Peer Talk). Since then she has done many jobs including going and running some training sessions for new MPs and equivalent people in some newly developed / developing countries. It was a fascinating talk.

I was at Ripon and on Sun 28th Jan I heard that at Choral Evensong at 3.30pm she was going to be installed as Ecumenical Lay Canon at Ripon Cathedral.

So I trotted along at 3.25.

It was in the Choir Stalls. ..the same choir stalls that I had sat and sung in just 3 days earlier (Thurs) for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity Service when the preacher had been Bishop John Pritchard (who now lives in Richmond Yorkshire) .. He had told -repeated - a good account of how many Baptists / Catholics / Methodists etc it takes to change a light bulb.

There were at least three times as many of us here today.. PLUS the choir PLUS some canons and more clerics.

Let me describe the Choir stalls : To get to them you enter the main cathedral building at the Entrance and walk through it to the organ then walk underneath (or to the side of) the organ to the space beyond. The Choir stalls are the large area the other side of the organ to the main church.

On the east is the truly huge east window - really made up of lots of smaller windows - rising up to the distant arched wooden ceiling high, high above. Below them, brightly lit, is a row of gold painted figures- are they saints? Below the saints is the alter .

On each side of the room (N and S) are three long rows of chairs facing each other. With side rooms behind each side where extra people can sit.   There is a gangway /  open space between the facing rows of chairs.Then further along, westwards, also facing each other are the actual wooden choir stalls (dark brown or black) The choristers - the boys wear white and the girls magenta/Midland Railway colour, as do the clerics.  In the stalls near  to us are seated clerics, then beyond, nearer the organs, the choristers, who also sit below the organ.. There are bright lights shaped like  candles about the height of the choristers faces.  The choristers have a conductor, the choir master.

As I enter I walk through the first three rows of chairs, across the narrow open space to the rows of chairs opposite. I see Meg dressed in a smart black dress as I enter and I am glad she  sees me and we smile.

I am sitting in the second row of three rows of chairs, near to and with the alter on my left.  So the choir is a long way to the right, I have to look between the three rows of people to see it.

But during the service various people march up and down the narrow gangways from one end to the other.

/and being right at the front end near the alter I have a superb view of the (legal) signing ceremony and of Bishop Nick giving the sermon. 

Meg read the Old Testament Reading - the calling of Samuel

The service sheet was very useful. It had all the readings written out in full. So I am able to go over the readings now and indeed the bishop told us which page numbers to refer to. (So if we had been sleeping during the reading there is still a chance to see what he is taking about.

Bishop Nick gave the sermon.

He pointed out that Prophets were not just people who magically divined the future.

They were people who understood the politics and situation and science of the day - and could thus advise the leader what was likely to happen next as a result of this.

They were people who had to tell the truth to the leader.

He told us us that the story of Samuel is not just about a little boy being called by God at night 1 Samuel 3. 1 - 20 

Read verse -- To find out what message God had for Eli, Samuels master, the high priest. (God's message via Samuel to Eli was  I am about to punish his house for ever for the iniquity he knew and because his sons were...)

No wonder Samuel did not want to tell Eli this message.

The second reading was from 1 Corinthians 14 12-20 

Paul said ".. In church I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others also than ten thousand words in a tongue.... ..  do not be children in your thinking; rather be infants in evil, but in thinking be adults."

I had opportunity to chat to Bishop Nick and remind him of his first day in the Bradford Diocese 21 June 2011 when we climbed up Pen y Ghent in the Rain.

He did come back two years later when we went on a similar - but lowland walk  - when we walked from Austwick to Elaine's Tea rooms at Feizor

Newstead Abbey lichens at BLS 2024 AGM Nottingham field trip - Halecania viridescens

 First - two lichens new for me

Halecania viridescens - the green tiny one

Lecanora campestris subsp dolomitica

Two dozen of us met in the car park at Newstead Abbey
at 10.30am on Sunday 21 Jan 2024
SK541540

This sycamore has amazing spreading low boughs.
In the foreground on the branch is fruiting Candelaria concolor

Candelaria concolor

The group at the trunk are looking at Candelariella reflexa  and Opegrapha varia (now Alyxoria varia)

See discussion on Candelariella reflexa here

Alyxoria varia (see top part of picture)

View from equally long branch on the opposite side.

The low fence with diamond rail made and excellent home for lichens - Here fine specimens of Xanthoria calcicola and Lecanora muralis - the thalli could be seen from tens of metres away.

Finally we set off down towards the Abbey - (well Priory Rems of) and buildings.  See the History of the Priory here. 

Henry VIII gave it to Sir John Byron. A descendant the 6th Lord Byron was the famous poet 

The road from the car park is in the top right of the picture. The Priory is off the picture to the right
A small subgroup of us set off across the dam/ sluice gate/waterfall with Neil to explore the other side of the lake and get into an unrecorded monad

Arthonia spadicea (Tar spot lichen)

Arthonia spacidea was on the flakes of bark

Back with the main party now: Looking at the wall of the Abbey grounds

What is on the wall? (Still waiting to know)

I really wish I could have taken a photo myself of the gaping bill lunging towards me - as the swan stretched up to take my offering - but fearing for my fingers - I lost my nerve and put the bread morsel on the ground

  

I set off to explore the garden ...

This creature is a satyr (I looked it up on the internet afterwards 
I think this one is a lady satyr. The Greeks called them satyrs. the Romans called them fauns.

This is the seat from which the view of the house (more or less) was taken and on the gravel path beyond the seat was the lichen in the next picture

Steve and Paul were able to tell me it is  tenax var ceranoides 
formerly Collema, now Enchylium tenax var. ceranoides
From LGBI3: compacted or loosely tufted thalli of simple or often branched, digitate, erect, cylindrical lobes up to 1.5cm tall and 1-2mm diam, rarely fertile; on unstable sandy,basic,soils,particularly in the middle of country roads, widespread

More Enchylium tenax  var ceranoides

There is only one way in and out of the garden and eventually I found the way back out again and at 1.30p went to the meeting point, the café

After lunch we went out to look at the Lecanora campestris var dolomitica on the walls. 

This area is near the south end of the Magnesian limestone band of rock which goes all the way up to County Durham.

Lecanora campestris subsp dolomitica

There is more Lecanora campestris subsp dolomitica 
on the wall here too.
In the distance you can see
the waterfall coming out of the lake.

After lunch Maggie took us to see a rare Microlejeunia (Liverwort, and very micro) growing on Yew.

Microlejeunea in centre. You can get the scale by seeing the Metzgeria furcata to the bottom left.

Photographing the Microlejeunea

The forecasted rain still had not arrived so John, Maxine Sylvia and I pressed on, along the path beside the next lake downstream.

We stopped at an unknown species of tree- My guess is an ornamental cherry of some sort.. but it did have a few thorns -- so I could be completely wrong. The main bark had in flaky scales. but the side branches had horizontal bands like some cherry trunks do have.

SK 54261 53541 ish.

Melanohalia elegantula

Halecania viridescens

Halecania viridescens

Lecanora barkmaniana - might have been on a different tree.

The Urn.

 

 

Amazing what a bit of sunshine from behind the photographer
can do to improve a picture.

Caloplaca limonia this is what Sylvia in the blue had was looking at

It was now gone 3.30pm and really threatening rain.. And they close the gates at 4pm so we set off home. Back past the sycamore tree.. seemed along time since this morning.

Thanks to all who organised this. And to all who came and shared in lichen hunting.

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Here are a few pictures from the conference itself, on the Saturday, and the Talk and Dinner on the  Friday night:

BLS President (for one more day) Neil Sanderson introduces Ben Averis to give a talk on the Friday evening on "Stuff you get where the weather is wet" -  Picture by April Windle

Meal at the Jubilee Hotel
(Little did we know that his time the following evening we would be sitting in the adjacent room in the romantic lighting provided by emergency lights due to a protracted power cut. - But it all added to the interest)

For lunch at the conference we explored different university venues
- The group I was with discovered the Japanese eating place about the Student Union.
I chose Chicken Katsu - my first time of eating it. (Katsu=breaded cutlet; with rice and curry sauce)
(So when I came home I sought out Chicken Katsu in the supermarket.  That makes a change from the Macaroni Pies I became addicted to on previous BLS trips to Scotland)

Jiri