Photos: Padley Gorge, Grindleford.

A beautiful woodland on the outskirts of Sheffield with a wonderful little stream flowing through the gorge.

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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

Every environmentalist has got a secret

(5 minute read) The soot splattered on the stone gable end where it had been fired, its umbra like a hole through my neighbour’s wall. Then it scattered, losing its intensity as the thick black particulate gave way again to stone, but it was that dark centre, that black heart, which foretold its promise. This was the productive diesel cough of my Land Rover, the satisfying tarry-taste of an old man’s phlegm after a night of beer and filterless cigarettes. Simple pleasures, the Land Rover. Every morning I’d leave the house and note the black daub on that wall. I came to view it fondly, like the worn handle of a favourite tool, that patina, that wooden hoist-up over a stile that had smoothed into a dome under pulling hands, or the cobbles bowed by boots below. It was a mark of work done, of being here, a brusque story of utility and the comforting grind of routine. Backed in carefully, parked, then the next morning hoist up into that cab, prime it, turn the key (almost any key would do)

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