Sunday 19 September 2010

Swaledale

We have over 200 holiday pics, so don't come avisiting in the near future as you will not escape easily.

The cottage was gorgeous, seventeenth century with television and stone steps that twisted up and down to each room.

The garden ended suddenly in what they called a ha-ha, in effect an unfenced 8' drop into the sheep field below and the River Swale beyond.

We were anxious that Hattie would walk into thin air,[and land on thistles] but instead, the next day,she fell off this walkers' bank, above the river,fortunately on the sheep side.
We panicked but the sheep ignored her and she broke no bones.
Swaledale is just so lovely, the richest green I have ever seen, miles of intricate dry stone walling and wet becks and waterfalls.

This is purportedly the highest single drop in England,

this isn't.
All the rain that keeps the grass so green, runs down the hills into the myriad of tributaries over the rocks and into the Swale, which we were told with glee can rise 3 metres in 3 hours in the winter. Fortunately we only had 2 days of rain and we had a jigsaw.