Alan's RamblingsFriends

Stephen, I wonder if you recognise this?

Sat, 22 May 2010 18:39:00 GMT

I was reminiscing with Stephen about work yesterday, It's very faded after much use, but I wonder if he'll recognise the hat :-)

Jenny Pope: Missing in Ecuador

Mon, 27 Feb 2006 14:21:13 GMT

I was driving to band practice tonight and an item came on Radio Four about Jenny Pope, a lady from Mossley who has gone missing in Ecuador. She was last heard from while she was in Banos, Quito on 9th January and shortly afterwards her bank account was systematically emptied. I don't know her personally but a lot of my friends in the Manchester drumming community do, and we had a big busk in Manchester a couple of weeks ago to try to help raise awareness (and money!). We managed to bring in £300 in a couple of hours, thanks to the kindness of the people of Manchester. The Manchester police were on the radio this evening saying that they were sending a couple of officers out to Ecuador to help in the search for her. Fingers crossed that they manage to make some progress, everyone who knows the family is obviously very concerned about her.

Bob and Len's Dark Peak letter box

Sat, 07 May 2005 08:38:01 GMT

Ages ago, Bob asked me to put some information on my blog about his and Len's letterbox and I've been very laggardly in doing so - sorry Bob! By letterbox I don't mean one of these or even one of these! For those of you who are now thoroughly confused, letterboxing started on Dartmoor in 1854, and involves hiding a box containing a logbook somewhere (moderately!) accessible and challenging people to find it. There's a far newer form of this activity called geocaching that gives you a GPS coordinate to walk to, which is quite a bit easier to do, whereas letterboxing requires a fair degree of navigational expertise.

Bob's letterbox is on Mount Skip in the Dark Peak, and I've reproduced his map below:

And here are his instructions:

Map: The Peak District Outdoor Leisure Map No. 1. Scale: 1:25000.
Bearings: All bearings are magnetic.
Area: Rough moorland and should only be attempted by experienced hill walkers.
Letter Box: Maintained by Bob and Len. Please leave the box covered as in photo, thank you.
Clue: A small isolated peat hag.

The photos referred to above are these ones below:

And if you are wondering what Bob and Len look like, you'll have to visit their letterbox to find out, there's a photo of the dodgy duo inside ;-)

And now we return to our scheduled programming...

Sun, 06 Jun 2004 11:20:30 GMT

After wittering on about work and/or IT related stuff for the last few posts, I thought I'd better put something up about the Peak District, lest my enormous regular readership decided to go elsewhere, so here you are :-)

A couple of weeks ago Gary, Simon and myself went for a walk to see the Meteor wrecks on Sliddens Moss that I've previously written about - they'd seen the post and wanted to go see for themselves. After a slightly inauspicious start (Gary couldn't find the car park at Crowden) the weather gods were kind, unlike my previous walk with Gary. We walked up Crowden Little Brook to the waterfall at Meadow Clough, then up to the wrecks. We saw a common lizard on the way up, despite the name they aren't all that common on the moors. After visiting the wreck we wandered over to Crowden Castles for lunch, then down the Pennine Way to Laddow, across to Chew Reservoir before crossing over Mount Skip to Lads Leap, and thence back to the car park at Crowden.


Gary in front of various bits of one of the engines, including the turbine. I suspect these bits have been moved - people have been coming up and carting bits away for years.	It's pretty astonishing just how far the wreckage spread, and there's still a huge gouge in the moor where they hit, even though it is 50 years on. In the grough you can see part of one of the engine cowlings.	Simon with what is left of the tailplane. I believe that years ago this was far more complete, but people still come up and cut hunks off as souvenirs. Holme Moss radio mast is in the background, 740 ft high.

The view down Great Crowden Brook from Crowden Castles - despite the name an entirely natural feature. In the middle distance are Laddow Rocks, the Pennine Way passes over the top and then drops down into Crowden.

Kernel engineers in the great outdoors.

Wed, 05 May 2004 10:26:31 GMT

Last Wednesday Gary and myself went for a walk to see the aircraft wreck at Higher Shelf Stones - he'd seen the earlier writeup on my blog and wanted to go and see it. The weather was a bit iffy - visibility down to 20m once we got up to the top of Crooked Clough, with a very strong wind. We found the trig point at Higher Shelf Stones, and took the obligatory photos to prove we'd been there.

The wreck is a few hundred metres north of the trig, so we wandered over to have a look - Gary has some photos over here in his blog. The rest of the walk across to Dowstone Clough, Dog Rock, Torside Castles then off over Glossop Low was all in the clag, which was a pity for Gary as we got to see bugger all. For me it was a good navigation exercise :-) As we were walking over towards Glossop Low a grouse shot out from under Gary's feet, half a second later and he'd have trodden on it. It had built it's nest right on the line of the path, and was sitting on a clutch of about a dozen eggs. Just proves what incredibly stupid birds they are. We didn't take a photo as it was pretty cold and windy and we didn't want the eggs to get chilled. See how environmentally sensitive we are :-)