Castlerigg

Cracking! I first visited way back in 1982, when I hitch-hiked ‘oop naarth’ with a friend and a tent and no money, and spent a whole day getting off on the place. (People don’t hitch hike anymore do they? Weird.) I remembered it as a solitary place, bleak and empty and yet charming. But last Saturday it was one bloody visitor after another, which pissed off my friend, Treaclechops, who is a photographer and was desperately trying to get a shot without people in, just as the light lifted.. She’d taken one in 1995 which I think is the finest photograph of the place I have ever seen, even better than all the wonderful shots already posted on this page. Upload your photo, Treaclechops!! I was trying to compare it in size to the Rollrights, but was entire unable to get a handle on the scale of it because of the sense of the amphitheatre in which she sits. The many people, including a bunch of overly-loud Spaniards, didn’t bother me as I sat on the damp grass sketching out my painting; I simply didn’t paint them in. Great groves of foxgloves added a touch of purple and the rolling green of Castlerigg’s stage completed the picture. Then it was off to Long Meg....