Dark Skies Festival dates

 There is no better place to see the Milky Way on a clearish night than The Shippen!

Exmoor National Park has announced that the Dark Skies festival this autum will last for two weeks, marking its tenth anniversary. That's from October 16th to November 1st. We will be only using the cottage for a few days during this time - so get your booking in!

Here are details: https://www.exmoor-nationalpark.gov.uk/exmoor-for-everyone/stargazing-and-dark-skies/exmoor-dark-skies-festival

The Tarr Steps walk

A confession: Yesterday was the first time I completed the round trip walk to Tarr Steps, returning via Varle Hill. The total walk took about 2.5 hours and was not as difficult as I feared on a mild evening. Here is a rainbow over Varle Hill, painted with bluebells.

WiFi!

The WiFI has now been fixed and should be more reliable! A new washing machine arrives today.

Easter!

 Easter was a mixed weekend, you may remember, starting with storms and ending with a heatwave. It was no different at the Shippen - and a chance to see Exmoor "four seasons in a weekend". The wildflowers are out, we went to a sunrise gathering on Anstey Common on Easter Day and a Sunday afternoon walk on Winsford Hill - and, of course, there was time for a chat with the local Exmoor ponies.

After the rain

 Even on a wet weekend, as we just experienced, the changes of weather create wonderful patterns of light on our mountainsides. The above panoramic picture was taken on Winsford Hill whilst I managed to capture some of the following photos outside the cottage:

And the free range chickens are out and about. Here they are in a not very well focused zoom shot at the top of the road. The flowers are snowdrops.

Above the clouds!

 I thought Saturday was amazing - but then we woke up this morning and this is what we saw:

I took a walk down Draydon Lane and soon descended into the fog. 

The lane undulates around the hillside descending steadily into the fold of the hills where you find the Ashwick ponds. Still, I was able to have a chat with some of our neighbours (and I was entertained by a dance by a murmuration of starlings):

Returning, as I emerged from the fog the sunlight on the clouds hanging in the Barle Valley was even more amazing. Here is a view across to Anstey Common and the utterly surreal image of the trees emerging from the clouds. 

Amazing midwinter views

It's two years since we fell in love with The Shippen. We've been part of this community for generations but here was a remarkable corner of the edge of Exmoor that we did not know. As if on time, this morning has been amazing with more midwinter atmospheric effects - clouds floating low in the valley over Dulverton, the sun shimmering brightly up the valley. 

Last night as we arrived, the dark sky was just as amazing. Dulverton itself, the Exe Valley and most of the west country was shrouded in rain but we broke through the clouds and found the stars brighter than a planetarium, with the Milky Way itself hanging over the top of the cottage. Here is a photo we took a few weeks ago with an iPhone (which can capture stars):