A walk onto the canal and by the toffee factory

A quick walk up onto the canal today to play with my new Lumix Z70 camera again. It was a busy day on the canal - the dredger was out, and it looks like some development going to happen canal-side.

Walked by the marina. I love canal barges. I used to want to live on a barge when I was a child. That or a static caravan.

That last shot has got Swizzels in the background, the local sweet factory. Here are some more shots of Swizzels: I caught my pike outside here the other week. Yesterday I saw someone in town, another angler, and I was telling him about this pike and he told me there were some big pike in there, pike as big as your leg. Mine barely made a shin. Maybe next time.

Swizzels is such a landmark in the area. It announces its presence via your nose as much as anything, as a succession of smells can take you back through your whole childhood in a single day. The factory is there suddenly on you then it trickles out into woodland and open country again, like the town itself.

I'm happy with this Lumix camera though - it is a lot of photography to pack in your pocket.

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A last visit to Bakewell Fly Fishing Shop

Christmas 2021 marks the closing of one of England's fly fishing institutions: Bakewell Fly Fishing Shop. A few photos here to mark its closing and the partial retirement of owner and well-known Derbyshire angler, Peter Arfield. I say 'partial retirement' because Pete will still be offering guiding and tuition on Derbysire rivers. The shop will be sadly missed by fly fishers though as it had genuine, iconic status - a renowned hub for anglers everywhere. Here are a few photos from what will be my last visit to the shop: Pete Arfield presides over the organised chaos of Bakewell Fly Fishing Shop Pete Arfield - portrait Hebden Court, Bakewell Stone steps leading to Bakewell Fly Fishing Shop Gone fishing One door closes, another opens. It is the end of an era though, that's for sure.

Life is cheap when you’re a fish

I would like you to consider two stories. First, 100,000 litres of slurry leaks into a tributary stream of the River Coly in the Axe catchment which flows through Devon in the south west of England. That is one hundred tonnes of cow shit from the dairy farms which border the rivers in the region gone into the river. Talking to Shaun Leonard, Director of river conservation charity the Wild Trout Trust , he tells me that slurry pretty much suffocates a river. “It can happen incredibly quickly,” he says. “It moves as a slug. It will kill just about everything in the river. Not just fish, but everything which needs oxygen. So bugs, invertebrates, it will wipe all them out too. It can quite possibly do this overnight, it is a pretty instantaneous effect.” The second story concerns the shooting of a Red Kite in North Yorkshire one month before. I chose this one but it could have been any of a number of killings of birds of prey over the years, from eagles in Scotland, to that lightning rod

A walk over Lantern Pike and then over to the shooting cabin on Kinder

A beautiful day today, warm in the sun, frost still on the ground and less than a week to go before Christmas day. I took Flo and walked up over Lantern Pike from New Mills, then over to the shooting cabin in the foothills of Kinder, then down to Hayfield and back to New Mills along the Sett Valley Trail. It is one of my favourite walks and today the light was breathtaking, so I took plenty of photographs. Here are a few. Moorland, somebody pointing at Kinder Hollingworth Clough - upstream Hollingworth Clough - downstream Hollingworth Clough Hollingworth Clough Hollingworth Clough Heading for the shooting cabin Moorland Flo - portrait An amazing light on Kinder today Cairn, Kinder Sunset and aeroplanes, from Kinder Shooting cabin, Kinder Trees through mist, above Hayfield

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