Never friendless

"Thorns may hurt you, men desert you, sunlight turn to fog.

But your never friendless ever, if you have a dog"

Douglas Mallock

 It was lovely to be welcomed by our friends but the most enthusiastic welcome was probably from my sisters dog Bonnie, we went around to collect her for a walk on the moors accompanied by our friend Brian and his new dog "Reggie"

Two collies, a sunny ( if chilly ) day, what`s not to like?

The Pike in the distance, Brian making snowballs.

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The moors above Rivington on Winter Hill look splendid with a light covering of snow hiding in the tussocks. Bonnie is particularly fond of rolling over in snow and we introduced Reggie to catching snowballs in mid air, he seemed to enjoy it!

There is now a seat on the summit of the Pike, all we need now is a working toilet and it will be perfect! Reggie finds a bike tyre to sniff.......

We walked down through Lord Leverhulmes Bungalow grounds towards the Barns and tea and cake.

One of the many views of Rivington Brian has pictured, he is a very talented artist.

Brian's new dog Reggie.

The lower Barn.

Lynne with Bonnie

We continued our walk down by the resevoir, where collies being collies they dived in the water after bits of wood, Reggie was particularly enthusiastic!

We also took advantage of the brief spell of nice weather to go walking about with Bonnie, we visited the pike again just to see if it got any easier to climb, ( sea legs not used to many hills! )

There were a few days when it almost seemed that summer was on its way.

We had a great English breakfast in the wee cafe at Rivington village, this is in an old chapel. I can thoroughly recommend it.

Of which Rivington has two and a church, of course we had to have a look around the chapel, my home is, or was a hotbed of religious non-conformity. I think this is a Unitarian chapel.

The local church which is just across the green from the chapel had a vicar in the 19th century whose name was rev. Jackson, he was a keen climber and did some early routes in the Lake District. Having objected one day to the price quoted to replace the lead on the steeple he decided to do it himself and climbed up said steeple to finish the work.Henceforth he was known as "steeple Jackson" and thus the word steeplejack came into popular use.