Franz Wacik (1833- 1938)

Franz Wacik was originally a student at the painting school Strehblow. Later on he studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule Wien with Alfred Roller . From 1902 to 1908 he studied painting with Christian Griepenkerl , Franz Rumpler and Heinrich Lefler at the Vienna Art Academy. Wacik devoted himself to book illustration, mainly in children's and youth books. He illustrated mostly in color, works by Hans Christian Andersen , fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm , stories by ETA Hoffmann , Hugo von Hofmannsthal , Clemens Brentano, and also the folk book by Till Eulenspiegel. For the series of books on Austria's Hall of Fame he took on the volumes on Franz Schubert and Franz Grillparzer, for the weekly magazine The Muskete he made hundreds of color illustrations, and also contributed to the Youth Red Cross. His works particularly stand out for the ambitious series Gerlach's Youth Library, again with Andersen's Fairy Tales and illustrations to Baron von Münchhausen.

Jose Gonzalez: With the Ink of a Ghost (2015)

With the Ink of a Ghost is the opening track of Swedish singer-songwriter Jose Gonzalez's 3rd studio album Vestiges & Claws. It was released on 17 February 2015 on Mute Records.

"These are incredibly moving songs full of bittersweet asides that strike you at first with their haiku-like simplicity, only to draw you deeper into González's iceberg of ideas. Ultimately, it's this ability to stop you in your tracks and hold you with the warmth of his voice as you contemplate your existence that makes Vestiges & Claws such an arresting, uplifting joy." (Matt Collar of AllMusic )

Got to agree!

Lytham St. Annes

This was one of those impromptu days where you end up going wherever your nose leads you, and it works out to the good. It started out with me playing taxi driver and chaperone to my mum, who had a hospital appointment in Liverpool. We drove from Stockport to Liverpool, and after the appointment, we decided it was too nice a day to just head home, so I suggested Lytham St. Annes. 

Like a complete dope, I thought Lytham was only just north of Southport, and indeed it is, but necessarily via Preston and over the Ribble, via the M55 and far & away. Hey ho. We got there in the end and found the parking on the seafront easy. Mum was feeling well enough to walk along the promenade, into the town where we had fish and chips al fresco, and then through some of the funky arcade novelty/antiques shops, and back again to walk along to the windmill. We spent some time lingering on a bench looking out across the Ribble, in the gentle lucency of the sun, cosseted by a warm tidal breeze. In all, it was a perfect unplanned visit to the seaside capped off with an obligatory ice cream. 

Although it was a good week before the equinox, there was a sense of harmony and balance in nature that day. The tide swelled and swallowed up the estuary and rickety jetty. The sun arced boldly across the sky, seeking its rest and extinguishment in the Irish sea. The journey back was uncomplicated. We had waited for rush hour to peter out before we set off, and the sky was illuminated by a scarlet sunset awash with magic and awe.

Fairfield Half-Horseshoe Fail from Grasmere

Always a bold move to place yourself in somebody else's hands when it comes to planning a walk. All the more bold when your guide is one of those sans-map, winging it kind of sporty types who believes they can just excavate their way out of any trouble with a bowie knife (avalanches, broken legs, earthquakes, difficult to open tupperware boxes, etc). Never trust a walker who doesn't wear socks: never trust anyone on the tops!   

So I can't say for certain the route I traversed, but I know we started in Grasmere, passed Alcock Tarn, and headed up the first half of the Fairfield Horseshoe at breakneck speed. I just wasn't fit enough and pegged out a couple of times on the way up, not that Buzz Lightyear was bothered, having trotted off ahead by a few furlongs. Although I had (literally) done the hard yards and managed to ascend Fairfield (the rest being ridge walking), I was just in shreds so we took a turn east and descended back to Grasmere along a reasonably pleasant path not pictured below (if only I had been in any fit state to enjoy it). By making the impromptu descent I think we carved about 8km (5 miles) off the intended walk for which I was existentially thankful. This is only the 2nd walk I have had to cut short in my life, but it does show you even experienced walkers are not invulnerable and emphasises several time-honoured rules:

1. Always look out for your buddy, tracking back if you have to

2. Always have a PLANNED off-ramp (escape route) off the mountains and don't be ashamed to use it.

3. Even if you are fit enough to accomplish a walk, be prepared for the unlikely event of becoming unwell or incapacitated. Even a twist of the ankle can quite radically change the calculus of a walk.

4. Tell somebody who is not on the walk where you are going and an approximate time of return.

5. Keep your mobile charged. 

Stay safe!

Brecon Beacons & Ross on Wye

We went glamping in the Brecon Beacons for the weekend, doing only a bit of lazy walking on the Saturday with a visit to Ross on Wye on the Sunday. One of the best things about the glamping unit was the presence of a log fired hot tub. With the flames, the water, the cool air and the stars above, its a very primal experience. I can see how the Scandinavians derive such ecstasy from it that they feel the need to beat themselves back to sensibility with birch branches and roll about in snow. One thing I learned was that there is a lag time of about 1 hour to 90 minutes with the heating of the log burner and the temperature of the tub, so you need to get started long before you intend to jump in. Also, when the water gets unbearably hot, the only way to cool it down is to use a hose of cold water to top up, so have one handy. Musing as I did over the capricious nature of the specific heat capacity of water, I forgot to take a picture of the apparatus, which was joyfully lit with different coloured LED lights a bit like a Christmas tree, so I have included a picture off the internet to show you what I am talking about. The others are random clips from the weekend. 

Astley Lake & Balance Reservoir

I went to visit a canalboat-dwelling friend who is moored at the Lemonroyd Waterside & Marina. It is not too far from Leeds, but as the Canal & River Trust say it is on the "River Aire [which] follows a twisting route through the hidden corners of Yorkshire." It really is watery country up there. The river Aire actually starts at Malham Tarn, and plunges underground about a mile or so before the famous Cove. In 1699 an act of Parliament was passed to make the Aire navigable South of Leeds, which led to the creation of the Aire & Calder Navigation, now connecting the Humber with Leeds over 34 miles and entailing 11 locks. The whole area is an interlocking matrix of Navigation, natural river, reservoirs and lakes which is a water wonderland ripe for exploration on foot, or by boat.

So, with blood up from a canalboat wood-stove roasted pork belly, helped along by an aromatic coffee from a local cafe, we took a suitably meandering walking route around these splendid water bodies. Some of the footpaths were flooded at this time of year, which made for some eerie misty feels.

Loch Katrine & Ben A'an

Among the first of the features of Scotland which visitors to the country express a wish to see are the island reaches of the " Queen of Scottish Lakes", and the bosky narrows and mountain pass at the eastern end of Loch Katrine, which are known as the Trossachs. During the Great War of 1914-8, when large numbers of convalescent soldiers from the dominions overseas streamed through Glasgow, so great was their demand to see these famous regions, that constant parties had to be organized to conduct them over the ground.

In character Loch Katrine is somewhat like the upper end of Loch Lomond, but is lonelier and wilder. There is no road along its southern shore, and that along the north is but little frequented. Some of the names of places along that shore are formidable enough. Among them, Strongalvaltrie, Edraleachdach, and Brenachoil offer something like dislocation to Sassenach jaws, and are only matched by the Gaelic spelling of the mountain which appears on the map and in poetry as Ben Venue, which is Beinnmheadhonaidh, and by the old Gaelic name of the Trossachs Hotel—Ard-cheanochrochan. The loch has an islet at each end, Eilean Dhu near Glengyle, and Eilean Molach, or Ellen's Isle, near the Trossachs. Both of these were doubtless used by the Macgregor clansmen as places of refuge for their women and children in times of extreme danger, though the loch shores were altogether so inaccessible in bygone times that they offered a very secure retreat. So steep are the mountain-sides at Glengyle, for instance, that a deer shot far up on the sky-line has been brought down to the door of the house almost entirely by its own weight; and the scores of streams that leap and foam down the wild corries are many of them indeed "white as the snowy charger's tail".

Eyre-Todd, George, 1920. Loch Lomond, Loch Katrine and the Trossachs. London and Glasgow: Blackie and Son.

The Roaches

To my eternal shame, I had never heard of the Roaches in Staffordshire, on the edge of the Peak District. Although it was a wee drive to get there, it was definitely worth the effort. The Roaches is part of a ridge system which connects Hen Cloud with Lud's Church, which I would like to do altogether as a 10 miler at some point in the future. The map below is of somebody else's anticlockwise walk, but we did the same walk clockwise (circa 8 miles).

Manchester Museum

In my A level years, I wrote out a classification tree for all living things on the back of a roll of old wallpaper. It was no easy task. Once you drill into just how and why one species or family is different from another, it demands some quite fearsome knowledge of comparative anatomy. If you are doing that for all living things (bacteria, protoctists, fungi, plants and animals), I am sure you can appreciate just what you are getting into. And at such a tender age too. I am glad it was a roll of wallpaper, because the thing just kept growing and growing until it was an unwieldy morass of scribblings. 

In later years, I trained to be a Biology teacher, and as part of a self-directed project, I decided to  turn a visit to Manchester Museum into a differentiated learning resource for kids of all ages and stages of the curriculum. It was a bit like a seek-and-find quiz which required some inside knowledge of the main taxonomic groups and their biology. Kids would get a laminated set of quiz questions, and follow the clues until they found the exhibit at the end of the trail. Bloody brilliant resource, but I quickly found that whichever school I worked at, a visit to the museum was always out of the question on account of budgetary constraints, too few staff, not having enough curriculum time, etc. Whatever it was, there was some excuse not to go. Perhaps I was destined for the plenteous life of well-funded public school teacher. 

Anyway, I got to reminisce my student days during a recent visit to Manchester Museum, which has got much more funky with apps and multi-media walk-throughs for Generation Z kids (so I can shred my clunky laminated fossil quizzes). We have moved on from rolls of wallpaper!

This last image looks like it should be a museum exhibit,

but actually it's an instrument from Johnny Roadhouse on Oxford Road.