A very mini localised blizzard (March 18th 2007)

We went to Hairy's mum's house for a visit. On the Saturday he made a startling discovery, the Nag's Head's owners were moving! Shock Horror! No more meat and tatie pie or liver and onions! Well, not to fret, as they say, they've only moved about two miles down the road to the Plough at Low Bradfield. Panic over! Bradfield Ales will be going with them.

In order to celebrate, H took us on the walk we did when we found a wasps' nest. We did that in the summer of 2004. Just before the two of them went to Australia for two months and left us in doggy prison! That was the fourth time they've done that to me! (The same number as happened to Great Aunt Gaia!) But I digress.
This is the other pub in High Bradfield it's the Old Horns and does great food and beer too! It was too early for beer when we got moving. The dynamic duo are leading the way. Well, I am - it looks like Io's off on a wander.

It was really sunny when we set off, but no sooner had we left the safety and shelter of High Bradfield church that it started snowing! Yes, I did say snowing. Cute, fluffy, little flakes that spiralled down delicately onto Io's nose. Where she ate them! It stopped after a bit.

That is, after a bit of standing inside a holly bush so we wouldn't get wet. (He'd not brought his waterproofs! The loony!) As we walked under Rocher Edge, you could have believed we'd made the whole think up. Unless you looked across to the Strines Inn. Or rather, to where the Strines Inn should have been, as a huge (nay ginormous) grey cloud full of snow was edging its way along the two reservoirs, heading for Agden (the one next to High and Low Bradfield).

Crossing stiles in a single bound is just one of my many acomplishments... Look, it's sunny again! I don't believe it!
Hairy put a spurt on then and we zoomed across the grassy paddocks under Rocher Edge, then along the old farm tracks by the ruined buildings, crossing the main Bradfield to Bolsterstone road and eventually we arrived at the moorland area of Agdenside. Here, the snow hit us. Just as we were stranded in no man's land with no cover or shelter anywhere.

Now, you remember the madness mentioned in an earlier entry? Well, I don't know if it was that kicking in, or just the plain desire to stay dry, but hairy took off like Io with her bum on fire. He was running over the moorland path, leaping heather and tussock grass. Dodging millstone grit boulders. Until we made the edge of Agdenside wood, in next to no time. Here, we went through the gate, and in the lea of the wood under an overhanging pine tree branch, alongside a drystone wall, we sat down and waited for the snow to stop.

It was just like that horizontal rain on Sail Fell in Cumbria, except here it was horizontal snow. It didn't last very long, (about 15 minutes) but it left everything white over and for the fifteen minutes of Arctic weather you couldn't see the wall at the far side of the field! We were snug bug ruggly under the tree branch, next to the wall, in the lea of the wood but I wouldn't have liked to have been out in it!
This is the wondeful sheltering spot. It kept us dry for 15 minutes, so here's its fifteen minutes of fame! Hairy sat on the sticky-out stone to the left of the post. (That's too much detail, really, isn't it?)

Once the humungous cloud had moved over, heading towards Damflask and Sheffield, the sun came back out again, and apart from the obvious scattering of white stuff everywhere, you'd never have known it had been snowing. Even more so by the fact that after about half an hour only the snow that wasn't in the sun was left, all the rest had vanished!

Even weirder, in Oughtibridge, on the other side of the hill, there'd been no snow at all. Not a sausage! The Screature didn't believe old Hairyface until he showed her the pictures!



Here's a picture taken after Hairyface gave his head a good scratching!

The H.ster surprised me with his running. I didn't think he was up to it, or fit enough - to be honest. I guess it must be climbing all them bumps with us that does it. Certainly you could tell he knew what he was doing, but then he does claim to have run a couple of marathons in his youth. I guess that means we're the ones who are responsible for his health and fitness. A pair of doggy fitness instructors, that's us! [NO. I said Doggy, not Dodgy!]