Silver How 21 February 2019 Wet and windy is daily fare through summer and into autumn. The weather forecast told of rain. The clag was down, the horizon of fells blotted out. Ground saturated over recent weeks, an excursion to Silver How was off. I ponder my last visit there in February. And cosily at home, we consider clag and the water cycle. Who talks of clag and what does it signify?
'In Greenland, we could be clagged-in for days.' My friend told of camping in tents at a mining settlement where they were prospecting for minerals, gold and platinum. Canadian and Icelandic pilots flew small planes to collect samples and fly them out. ' Fully clagged,' nil visibility so no possibility of landing. They rolled the ground to make a landing strip. The settlement was coastal Greenland, near mountains, so orographic cloud- of mountain weather. Clag was the word in this community, a frequent experience. Clagged-in for days.
Her adventures have an allure about them. Exciting times. Clag is a stickiness in the air and in mud and slop underfoot so maybe the reality was harsher. Clag and the water-cycle= that endless transference of water between air, earth and ocean. I'd assumed clag was a dialect word, local. She's showing me it's far more widely in use.
Here in Cumbria rain, wind and clag make most walkers think twice before heading for the fells when bad weather has had a cumulative effect. The wind can make it dangerous, especially when the ground is super-saturated after a very wet August into September.
So, memories of Silver How on a February morning when rain persisted, becks in spate and overflowing, water streaming over grass. But early in the afternoon the rain eased and the first beams of sunlight pierced a moisture-laden atmosphere to make magic.
Her adventures have an allure about them. Exciting times. Clag is a stickiness in the air and in mud and slop underfoot so maybe the reality was harsher. Clag and the water-cycle= that endless transference of water between air, earth and ocean. I'd assumed clag was a dialect word, local. She's showing me it's far more widely in use.
Here in Cumbria rain, wind and clag make most walkers think twice before heading for the fells when bad weather has had a cumulative effect. The wind can make it dangerous, especially when the ground is super-saturated after a very wet August into September.
So, memories of Silver How on a February morning when rain persisted, becks in spate and overflowing, water streaming over grass. But early in the afternoon the rain eased and the first beams of sunlight pierced a moisture-laden atmosphere to make magic.
Above left, the moment when the rain is almost gone and a tentative sun comes forth. Then sunlight with moorland grasses and winter bracken.
RSS Feed