Travel theme: Still
This morning we walked in a loop, west from Matfen village towards Burnside, West Moorhouses and Butcher Hill, conveniently passing Matfen Brewery at about half distance. It is the still time of year across the Northumbrian landscape. There is a stillness in the fields, along the lanes and in the trees.
Apart from the brewery, this was the only activity we saw all morning – the squire riding out to take the air (incidentally, a very helpful and obliging chap):
I am disappointed, there is still no snow, a statement I may live to regret.
(click on the images to enlarge)
northumbrian : light 
wonderful photos. following your blog now too. 🙂
Many thanks and likewise…..my wife is a vegetarian so this could be very helpful (I do all the cooking 🙂 )
Fine series; love the light!
Many thanks, it was a fabulous morning
I have yet to cross the path of a squire on my travels. That’s on my bucket list. 😉 Beautiful photos, as always, Robin.
Thanks Julie. You will have to visit Northumberland, we have a surfeit 🙂
Love the skeleton trees of the top two photographs. MM 🍀
We have had some very strong winds recently which has stripped the trees bare. I am hoping for some more to clear the garden 🙂
No wonder this speaks to me. It is the landscape of my Dixon ancestors. I think they lived at Ingoe Hall-not far from here.
That is a wonderful connection Candia. I see from Wiki that there is a fascinating connection between the Dixons at Ingoe Hall and border pipe music – the William Dixon manuscript.
Yes, William Dixon is an ancestor of mine and the m/s is in the Bell Archives in Perth. William Dixon, his son became a coalmaster in Glasgow and his grandson became Scotland’s foremost ironmaster. There was a third Wm.
My direct great-grandfather was John Dickson(sic) 1729-1814 and he married Elizabeth Dodds in Newburn, then Mary Pickering and then Jean Harle. He was a coalmaster and then owned the Dumbarton glassworks. Some say that he was Wm 2’s uncle and others say he was a cousin. I cannot discover who John’s father was as none of Wm Dixon, the piper’s sons seem to have had these dates. There are a couple who were married and could have been his father.
Maybe he was illegitimate? The records in Dumbarton claim that he was a brother of Wm1, but I can’t prove it, other than to quote records from the rest of the family calling his sons nephews of Wm2.
Anybody out there know anything???
Thanks for your interest.
They all had connections with the Groat Meeting House in Newcastle and my line baptised their sons there, travelling down from Scotland to do so!
Good to meet you, that’s a fine lineage. I am much less well-connected – I am a Mancunian 🙂
Gorgeous photographs x
Thanks Jo, very kind
like the perspective in #2
Thanks Graham – “the road goes on forever”
Great group of photographs. Wish I had a horse to ride down that long road …..
Or my Ducati 🙂
Absolutely beautiful!
Thanks Sarah, it was a nice route which I am sure we will do again, not least because of the brewery 🙂
lol 😉
Great take on the theme! Love your use of B&W
Thanks Sue – it was even shot in b&w with a virtual red filter rather than processed afterwards (not sure there is any technical advantage but you can see the results instantly)
Neat!
I hope you don’t live to regret it! I’m too close for comfort and I hate the stuff. (except on WP or for maximum 3 hours and then disappearing, as if by magic) Is that ok with you? 🙂
I love the snow, you wake up to an entirely different place with the volume of the world turned up – another one for my juvenile credentials 🙂
Wonderful trees and lovely photos! 🙂
Many thanks, I enjoyed getting them
Excellent set of images! Really great!
Many thanks Robyn, glad you liked them
I especially like the lane – the road goes ever on (is that from the Hobbit?). Anyway, very atmospheric shots. Besides, your screen is snowing.
It might be the Hobbit as well but I always think of the Allman Brothers compilation album, it has a very memorable abstract cover – it’s the aging hippy in me 🙂
I love the shot of the road!
Thanks, glad you liked it….a case of right place at the right time. The low sun was dead in line with the road – 10 or 15 minutes later it would have been quite different. Thanks for stopping by.
beautiful shots, the second one is my favourite!
Thanks Evi – I got lucky and arrived at the right time – see above 🙂
Wishing you a magical Christmas season and all the good things in 2014! 🙂
And all the best to you as well Geraldine, hoping you have a great Christmas and New Year.
Irresistibly beautiful images, very nice feeling in all of them … and of course, the trees … so human and bodily in their expressions.
Ps We don’t have any snow at all here now either… Green grass all over the place 😉
Many thanks Malin – don’t know if you noticed the tree on the left in the last picture – oddly symmetrical, an almost human form. All the best, R.
I agree with you about the tree, and yes… I noticed. Of course 😉 Trees are powerful. And they always have something to tell…