I got back to find two small serrations opposite each other on a large panel of the flysheet - and a dead rabbit. The tent slits are as individual as signatures and these were made by the autistic farmlad, not six weeks after he received a police caution for exactly the same thing. A couple of days later another dead rabbit showed up - no doubt he must have returned at night to check out his alleged handiwork. He has a rabbit 'death pit' in the field below this one - at least I've buried them.

These winges of complaint may seem off topic but consider: Greenhaugh Allotment is owned by this man and his dad. This fifty acre pasture, which is centred on 54N50 59.9" 2W32 1.1", contains several burial cairns - it's the larger part of an ancient burial ground - and yet is almost entirely under their management. DEFRA grant an ESA allowance for it, although there's a spectacular patch of classic riverbank erosion, directly attributable to overgrazing. There's a listed lime kiln in the field, which shows up well by aerial image, and is collapsing. But how safe are these ancient monuments in the hands of these farmers? They don't know what they've got, of course, but the cairns, particularly the three Butter Well cairns, can be spotted fairly easily on GoogleEarth, or similar. (The gap, I'm building into LINE!!, this next week, is at 54N50 50.4" 2W31 27.3" - follow the wall SW to reach David's Cairns).

This is conservation 'at the sharp end'. DEFRA claim the environmental schemes conserve the archaeological features and help to protect the landscape but, of course, don't. The farmer gets paid for letting the grass infest with rushes. I've never seen so few birds of prey and so many Red grouse. (The grouse is a lovely bird and curious). The skylarks have returned refreshed from their weeks annual holiday (but to where?). The Golden plover are going south. Torrential rain is forecast for the pm of the glorious 12th. The heather is in flower. In the Upper South Tyne there can be few fields that don't have some prehistoric stone(s) or other. It must have been a metropolis in the Copper and Bronze Ages - no doubt because of the metal ore in the quartz seams.