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Scout Scar- seizing the day

23/2/2020

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PictureSunlit crag and the hanging wood below Scout Scar escarpment
A crag on the limestone cliff of Scout Scar escarpment illuminates against an indigo sky.  I watch the sun striving to break free of clouds, see the amethyst of birch trees in the hanging wood,  see a white-washed farmhouse glimmer ghostly out of the darkness.  The fells are hidden under dark skies and storm-clouds gathering in the north.
Quickly to The Mushroom Shelter before another pelting squall of hail.   When it;s over the sun comes out and we step forth to see the fells gleaming under snow- the grand reveal.  

Deep mud and a blustery wind.  Snipe rise from tussocky ground.  Fieldfare call in flight. Flood-waters in the Lyth valley.
​ A fast-paced drama of weather that thrills those who venture forth.  A sensational day: visual, as you see, a loud and  icy wind that tries to topple you, hail-bearing cloud gathering and sweeping the landscape, darkness and light.   
On Scout Scar the wind is strong, ferocious on the fells and it's only at mid-day that the hail-bearing clouds sweep south and the sun illuminates a horizon of snow-clad fells.
Outcropping limestone rims the steepest crag on Scout Scar escarpment.   From this vantage point, looking north,  a deep dark sky.  We live poised between darkness and light, like the sunlit farmhouse not quite engulfed in darkness, not yet. 
As hail-bearing clouds head south toward Morecambe Bay  we step forth from the Mushroom Shelter -in awe at the grand reveal-  the fells gleaming with snow.  Looking south, into the sun, the ground wet with hail, the limestone clitter gleams a stream of light.   Pellets of hail melt on my camera lens- the transition of darkness into light, ice into sunlight.
Monday 24th February.  A sledge-load of snow on a skylight window.  Rain before dawn.  Disruptive snow, on the Shap Road with school closures across SW Cumbria. ​
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    Jan Wiltshire is a nature writer living in Cumbria. She also explores islands and coast and the wildlife experience. (See Home and My Books.)

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