The gardening can wait. It’s hot and stuffy and my hay fever is irritating. Time to escape to higher ground not to far away. A quick lunch and I’m parked on Jeffrey Hill. It’s not rained for days and the ground is looking parched. What is usually a boggy path is now bone dry and trainers are all I need. There is a welcome breeze, and I’m soon ‘walking on sunshine’ with the familiar panoramic Bowland Fells stretching out above the vale of Chipping. Newly cut meadows adding to the patchwork. Yorkshire’s three peaks are in the far haze.
All very idyllic you will think, but I also choose to do a litter pick at the same time. I thought there was less rubbish than usual on the path to start with, but by the time I’d completed my 3-mile circuit my sac was full. Dog poo bags, tissues, empty water bottles, cans and strangely a pair of underpants. I declare the fell litter free – but for how long?
As an afterthought on the way home I called into our local bouldering Craig Y Longridge to check out any litter there. I’m pleased to say there were only a couple of bottles to remove and these had probably been thrown from the road above. Well done climbers for looking after their own environment. By now the crag was in the shade and I enjoyed a bit of exercise on some of the easier problems.
Back to the garden and those weeds. 
***
My hay fever has flared up again this year after laying dormant since my youth. Weeding. That’s an endless job. I keep telling myself it’s good for the soul.
Getting higher into the fells is better for the soul and for the hay fever.
That’s true.
We are fed up picking up litter and hay fever drives me up the wall.
I must admit our fell is a lot better litter wise since I started ‘picking’ a couple of years ago. I suspect someone else may be covering the same stretch.
Much of our litter around us is clearly dropped by local motorists. We pick up bags in one mile of lane off the tourist trail.
Yes the verges around here are a right mess.
I’ve just paid a young couple good money to sort my back garden after neglecting it for the whole of last year, so that I could go up to Crosby Ravensworth and do a good walk* and then to spend time on other things which give me enjoyment of which gardening is not included. I like the alliteration in your title.
*post WIP.
I wish I could find a reliable gardener.
CR – a part of the country I don’t know well.
I don’t understand why people throw their litter in the nature. It is so annoying. I also try to pick as much as I can when walking.
I find it best to do a specific ‘litter pick walk’ with the tools of the trade. I should carry a spare plastic bag on other walks for collecting.
Well done for making the fell litter free. I struggle to understand the mentality that thinks it’s OK to drop it. They’ve made the effort to get out there, presumably because they know it’s a beautiful place. Why wouldn’t you want to leave it that way?
Are the hot spots in the Lakes littered?
It really annoys me when I’m on a country walk with the dogs and I see places blighted with litter which has been blown there or randomly thrown/deliberately left by various lazy and uncaring visitors/walkers. Another bugbear is countryside car parks where people have obviously opened their car doors and dumped their McDonalds/KFC detritus on the ground when there’s a bin nearby. As someone taught from a very early age to ”take my litter home” I just don’t understand how the minds of these people work.
As for gardening, my back garden is now so overgrown there’s every possibility of a tribe of African natives living down there. I’d arranged for someone to come on Monday to sort it out but he didn’t turn up so it looks like I’ll have to find someone else as it’s too much for me to tackle.
Wild gardens are good for the wildlife.
Well done BC. Our local towpath walks are pleasantly litter free, thanks to a number of people who can be seen collecting litter most days. They receive no accolades, it’s just what they do. I now feel guilty about only very rarely joining in.
Get your self a litter grabber and use it on your regular walks,
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