Day 335 - Skipton Castle Woods

The weather was pretty good today, it was forecast to be the best day of the weekend and I had planned a long walk somewhere else, but it wasn't to be.

I'm struggling with my knees at the moment (I have no idea what I've done but I've been in a fair bit of pain and limping quite often for three weeks now!) and today they were the worst they've ever been. Not to be defeated, I changed the plan to a short walk hobble around the Skipton Castle Woods - pleasant but painful - then spent the rest of the day with my feet up!

As you can see on the map, it's not a long walk but it took up a good chunk of my afternoon as I was pretty slow with my knees that felt 90 years old!

I've never seen so many grey wagtails in one short stretch as I did here.

There's plenty of wild garlic here!

There were a few short showers

but mostly, the sun was shining

Across the water the bluebells are appearing in the woods

and there were lots of flies out today

I looked over a wall and spotted a curlew on the horizon

There were carpets of wood anemones in many places in the wood

I saw a couple of mistle thrushes too

Although I'm a fairly regular visitor to this area, this was the first time I'd walked in the woods behind the castle - I didn't actually know they existed until a few days ago! This is somewhere I'll wander again though, hopefully with fully recovered knees by then!