They have been less evident in the garden although we have had two reports since April of sightings. So it was great to get an email today from Lee, who is staying at The Larches this week, attaching the photo here of a red squirrel on the breakfast terrace.

He writes: “Your letter arrived about 10 minutes before the red squirrel! This was our first sighting, hazel nuts have been opened each day and I was hoping it was red and not grey! I have attached a picture, it’s not great as it was a little rushed! It was taken from the upstairs bedroom window at 09.27.”

POSTSCRIPT
Shortly after posting this blog, we got another email from Lee, attaching this second great photo of the acrobatic squirrel at the feeding box and commenting:

The squirrel came back at around 12 o’clock …. It appeared to be hiding quite a lot of the nuts in the garden and eating one or two. It was a real treat to watch. I’m glad it was raining, if it wasn’t, we would have gone out and missed it!

These are the first photos we’ve had of the red squirrel for over a year, so thanks to Lee for sending them.

It may sound like a Gardeners’ Question Time but it was a real question – until today when I met up with the Brookmans who have given me a new lead. “Why not try a tepee of bamboo sticks and grow your green beans up them?”, said Ali. It looks a great solution to judge from the photo opposite of Anna as she picks some beans for our Sunday lunch.

Today’s blog post represents a bit of a milestone – it’s the 50th entry since we started! We’ve not quite met the deadline we set of a posting every week, but we haven’t been too far short.

Like everyone else in the blogosphere we’d like people to read our posts, whether or not they want to stay at The Larches or visit the Belvedere. We like feedback as it helps us respond and find out what people are interested in.

The blog is intended to provide local news and colour, help build awareness about the environment, provide practical advice on fellside gardening and link you to events and issues affecting other areas and countries.

If you are reading this blog now or have done before and have:
• Enjoyed hearing about news from Cumbria
• Learnt about green and sustainability issues
• Got good ideas of Lake District walks or activities
• Been interested in our History of Belvederes section
• Used the foreign newspapers section in our virtual café
• Had your own children find things of interest on the website
• Checked out our Rooftop Buildings of the World photo gallery
• Liked our recommendations given for cafés, restaurants & shops

…then you can help us! There are three simple things you can do:
1. Email the address of the blog and website to a friend
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3. Get put on our email list for whenever we post a blog – just email us with the words: “Subscribe lakelandbelvedere.com”

To join the select group of successful BGR completers, you have to cover on foot a journey of 66 miles involving 26,000 feet of ascent and of descent whilst climbing 42 Lakeland peaks in under 24 hours. It’s a tough test of endurance.

Yesterday I was out on the Langdale fells with our friend Raj and Ahmed, one of his support runners, fine tuning the route for Raj’s attempt on the BGR this coming weekend. Raj is raising money for the National Ankylosing Spondylitis Society, a charity supporting sufferers from this rare and debilitating disease. If you wish to support the charity you can donate by clicking here on the Just Giving site.

Apart from being super fit for the BGR, runners need to have the terrain and bearings hard wired into their brains. Smart route finding – cutting four or five minutes off each peak covered – can bring you three hours saved on your overall time.

We had a great scramble up via Gimmer Crag to Pike of Stickle (see photo above of Raj with the Pike on the right) and discovered a new line to Rossett Pike, saving 15 minutes on Raj’s last visit. This augurs well for the weekend and the 18 hours’ target time for the Round.

The pictures below catch the flavour of the day. On the left two possible routes are proposed and on the right the intrepid couple head off through the cloud with Ruby to climb Bow Fell.

POSTSCRIPT
Raj had an excellent day, but had to finish at Wasdale, about two-thirds of the full Bob Graham Round. By then he had covered 41 miles and climbed just under 18,000 feet. He’s learnt a lot from the experience and plans to make a second attempt on 4th June 2011.

Under 24 hour observation by RSPB volunteers, the nesting site in Dodd Wood, only a mile distant from us, is just visible from the Belvedere with a good pair of binoculars. There’s a good webcam too and much more on the award winning Osprey Watch site.

The ospreys are good news for local shops, hotels and small businesses as they attract visitors to the area, still recovering from last November’s floods. But they are not the only show in the valley.

There are other birds of prey which are fascinating to watch. Peregrines and sparrow hawks are frequently about and yesterday, walking with friends on Coledale Common below Barrow, I looked up to see 20 metre ahead of me, a kestrel hover in the wind, stoop down on a small vole and carry it off still squeaking to a nearby rock.

An hour later a buzzard was wheeling in huge circles high above Braithwaite Lodge and the nearby plantation, as we descended to the village. If you want some good bird watching, the Derwent valley and the northern lakes take a lot of beating.

They use it for building houses, for logs (always beautifully stacked as the photo shows), for seating, for furniture, for hides, for toys, for fencing, for carving and no doubt for much more. The forest’s wood is local, sustainable, readily available and easily transported.

Here in Cumbria there’s plenty of forest but there’s less woodland cut down for timber now by the Forestry Commission because cheap imported wood from the Baltic makes it is less economic to do so. This then is the first difference. In most areas of Austria the forest is controlled by the community, which has a use for the wood and arranges for the felling. Timber yards and stacks of drying boards are a common sight in the villages and on the roadside.

But there is another difference too, which you can tell from going into the large supermarket type ironmongers. They’re full of the widest possible range of tools and equipment of the highest quality – tools for building, for farming, for turning, for drilling, for cutting, for forestry, for home improvements; and most of them are made in Austria.

Only a country with a wide skill base – where people can use the tools and discriminate between the good and the indifferent tool – can support shops like these. And it can be hard to resist a purchase!

Last month I came across in Grobming the tool that half consciously I knew I needed but had never seen in existence – what I am calling a ‘bough-shave’ named after the spoke-shave, a tool we are more familiar with. It’s not one you would find at B&Q. If you know its proper name let me know!

We’re using local resources where we can at The Larches and have pressed the garden’s long holly branches that shoot skywards into service for the safety railings above the cottage. The bark needs removing as it will rot and scraping it off with a knife is tedious. My new two-handled bough-shave by contrast allows the task to be done with speed and provides a long-lasting hardwood barrier (See photos below of the bough shave in use and the final top barrier with the suspended tool).

We soon found the reason though. A pile of earth and slate chips (see foreground of the photos below) had been heaped up into the small herb garden – dug out from a hole, which dived deep under the newly created south lawn. It didn’t take long to find who was responsible as our Peter Rabbit was on shift duty all afternoon, collecting moss for a new comfortable burrow.

The pictures tell the story and now we are left with a problem. Rabbits and vegetable growing don’t go well together and planting is due to start this week in the new raised bed.

POSTSCRIPT – 17th March: The hole and the rabbit mystery deepens
Less than 24 hours after taking the photos above we returned today to the rabbit hole to discover that it had been completely filled in with a layer of moss placed on top covering the earth. Does anyone know what has happened here? It was not the work of any humans we are sure. We assume that yesterday was the work of a female rabbit – Petra not Peter! – creating a nest for her expected litter. Did she cover the hole in because the site was too busy or is she in the burrow, having been covered in by a mate? There is no obvious alternative exit that we can see. Let us have your answers and ideas on this.

It’s not been great for driving and hundreds have been treated after falls on icy pavements and roads. But for children the snow has been a treat as this picture opposite shows as a young girl and her mother race down Coledale Common on a Christmas Day toboggan.

The second picture shows Skiddaw on Christmas day with a fine cover of snow. We remember it last like this sixteen years ago (see below), with snow covering the road outside The Larches and a snowy background behind. Though the front hedge at The Larches looks a little different, not much else has changed in Seldom Seen. It’s still a quiet retreat away from it all with marvellous views of the distant fells.

According to a report in the News and Star (28 December 2009) 12,000 people have tackled the new 7½ km Quercus trail and 10,000 have done the longer 19 km Altura route.

Bikes for renting are available at the Centre and there are opportunities also for coaching. There are plenty of other biking routes in the vicinity too, both on bridleways and on local roads. Books in The Larches’ library provide good examples and there is room to store bikes securely in the garage.

Oh yes and there’s one further point we should add – The Larches is only about 200 meters off the C2C cross country bike route, if you want to try out some sections before doing the whole route!

The previous week though was something very different. Breakfast was on a sunny Belvedere terrace and over several days we had amazingly clear light, ideal for walks and photography. The three photos below show how the views from the Belvedere of Skiddaw and the marshes have changed so dramatically over the course of just 10 days – as sun was followed by continuous rain to create a new lake on the marshes!