On the edge

I was back in Kendal today and had a dental appointment at lunchtime. Before Christmas I was chewing a gingernut biscuit, and I cracked a large filling in one of my molars. Over the next week it disintegrated bit by bit, leaving a cavernous hole in my tooth. What's more, a week ago I was eating a Pontefract Cake, when the crown off one of my molars on the other side was sucked out by the licquorice, leaving another gaping void.

So today, John the dentist sorted out the first of them and will deal with the other tomorrow.

To clear my head afterwards, I went for a walk on Scout Scar before going back to work. The weather forecast promised a mirky day, and mirky it was, with the cloud layer hovering around the top of the Scar. The photo shows the cliff edge above the Lyth Valley.

The edge is the best place to be if you are a botanist. Among the specialties here is the hoary rockrose (Helianthemum canum), which grows in a narrow band of thin soil at the very edge. Strangely, just behind me where this picture was taken, it disappears and does not reappear on Cunswick the next scar northwards. This is a rare plant of the limestones, found at a handful of sites in England and Wales, always preferring the thinner, drier shallow soils and being replaced by its commoner cousin where the soil gets a little deeper and less droughted. I shall come back in the spring to blip the hoary rockrose with its little cushions of grey-green leaves and sulphury flowers.

At last a new bird for 2011, tawny owl (hooting in the woods just beyond our house). Total for 2011: 77 species.

Having been away, I have backblipped for Tuesday and Wednesday.