Some days the Yorkshire Dales beckon like strongest bait with their silver cliffs and limestone faces. Pen-y-Ghent dominates the silhouette, slightly ominous, like a dormant giant, perpetually on the brink of leaping into action.
The rocks and trees form the very skeleton of the dales, with the occasional broken bone sticking from the slowly disintegrating landscape.
A silver-hued tree graces the slopes, sentinel and keeper of a few seasons’ worth of memories.
In the steep fens and valleys, the scenery changes from dramatic to domestic. Swalesdale lambs play and explore, cats sit on mossy stone-walls and a collie keeps its keen eyes on suspicious visitors, protecting his flock.
The connectivity between humans and land is the livestock. The rough terrain of the high planes gives the sheep shelter, but the wind still manages to sweep through every nook and cranny on rock-face, gnarling trees and eroding soil and paint alike.
The villages cluster along roads above which the sweeping branches of trees show a crown of buds in mid April.
The barns on the hills stand as beacons against weather and time.
And from the western cliffs, the view reaches from the slow rolling terrain of Jurassic formations to Morecambe Bay, shimmering in mid-morning sun like a strip of mother-of-pearl.
The road to Settle takes one back to lower abodes, closer to the ground, farther from sky-borne legends.