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To Cartmel and Howbarrow in the wake of the floods

15/12/2015

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PictureEwes en route for Howbarrow
​A morning without rain, hurray!  Good to be out, but no getting away from the floods.  Flood waters lie on either side of the road to Cartmel and the December morning is dark and gloomy,  a washed-out sun reflecting off floodwater the only light. A beautiful light if the floods were not so grim. We meet at Cartmel Race Course, glad to be out, companionable, looking for colour even if we have to search for it.  There are stories of cattle and sheep being drowned in the floods,  stranded  and swept into turbulent rivers.  Heading for Howbarrow, we’re on higher ground and there would be vistas on a clear day. 

​Vic and Eleanor have chosen a good route and  a brief section of mud and a flooded track is neither here nor there.  We can come home and clean our boots and gaiters and we know we’re lucky not to be struggling with the aftermath of storm Desmond.  
Mild, exceptionally mild weather. Exceptionally wet. There are rosy and cream wax-cap fungi in grassy pastures ,  perfect weather for fungi.  And multi-coloured ewes telling they’ve been tupped and paint-marked.
The morning is misty so from Howbarrow we look out across Cartmel Sands to Chapel Island, to the Levens railway viaduct and to Ulverston.  The Hoad monument is somewhere in the gloom, We talk of the floods and of what we did on Saturday 5th when storm Desmond hit Cumbria.  Indoors, hunkered down against a battering of winds and rain? Or on the waterproofs for a coastal walk into the wind. Too strong and you could turn your back on it and head for home – a day to remember. 
​Too misty and overcast for vistas, even when a watery sun appears briefly.  We pass a wood pile of sweet fragrance, fresh-cut wood oozing resin.
There’s a gorse bush oozing fungus,  beaded with yellow brain fungus.  Glistening lobes of jelly fungus  all along the underside of branches of gorse, to  brightens a late autumn day. 
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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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