Just the beginning!

We decided we walk in St Ives this morning whatever the weather, so we were pleased to see a milky sun across the village as we started up Keighley Road at 8.30 am.

The Keighley Road entrance has been closed for the last week or so so we knew the tree felling work had started in earnest but it is open at weekends so we wanted to take a look. 

Our usual Thursday Ladies path is closed off but we were able to cross to it later from the bridal path which was open. We had to cross huge rutted tracks made by heavy plant but this shot is taken over the low side of the path just below Lady Blantyre’s Rock. You can see there has been a good bit of felling but you can also see a lot of Rhododendrons in the background still to be removed. 
I liked this shot as the sun was coming through the patchy blue sky and you can see the view beyond the village. Lots of warning signs everywhere including a funny one (the back of one really) saying the roads would be closed for Remembrance Sunday!

We did go up past Lady Blantyre's Rock and the memorial there  (admittedly we went under the tapes closing it off) and the scene is true devastation. A vast area completely cleared. Wilsden Walker has posted a couple of shots of it but I found it a bit too dispiriting. 
- Being April Fool’s day some wag had posted on the local social media this morning that Skipton Properties had bought up the cleared land for building 5 bedroomed luxury properties!

We continued along the top of the golf course where we could see lots of earmarked trees - a luminous orange blob. So this is really just the beginning..

Of course we stopped off at the Ivy Kitchen for a coffee where we met a friend with her dog and then walked home after a brief look at the pond as you can’t get right the way around. Much of the machinery and piles of logs are being stored there.
We bumped into another couple we know on the way back l down to the  village. They had just been in the bottom wood as she hadn’t been able to bring herself to go up to the area where the work is taking place.

Silly Saturday? More like sorry Saturday. 
At least it was quite a nice morning, some sun, no wind, no rain and it’s April, what’s not to like!

As we reached home we got a couple of pictures on What’s app from s i l John. He’d taken Eda to the climbing wall with him this morning. She loved it! Extra