19th March 2019 - A night off

I'd been wanting to try taking pictures of pitches for a while and as it's very, very wet at the moment (have a search for pictures of the current state of Hull Pot) and our options were limited, I thought this would be a good opportunity.

When I explained to Tony what I wanted to do, there was almost relief in his voice, "a night off!", he declared.

It's not often we cave on a Tuesday and on arriving at Bull Pot farm we realised why. The place was mobbed.  Everyone else was planning a trip from Lancaster to Wretched Rabbit, so we offered the use of our ropes to make life easier for them and headed to rig the pitch.

Tony set off rigging and in almost perfect timing I set off down as the hoards poured over the hill.  Rather than seriously disrupting proceedings trying to photograph the pitch, we headed down into Bridge Hall as the others descended.

As I tried to set up the shot Tony was suffering. Trying to get my ageing flash guns to work with my poorly described instructions, all while trying to remain firmly on the bridge. From the pictures it looks quite big, but it's a bit of a chossy mess and actually quite narrow at the top and instructions to "move a bit to the right", weren't greated too enthusiastically. 

With the others past us and on their way to Wretched Rabbit, we returned to the pitch and tried to find somewhere out of the "rain" to set up the camera.  Tony then once again was in the unenviable position of trying to follow while my instructions as the rope conspired to twist him in the direction he didn't want to go.

Every day's a learning day and I definitely learnt a lot (I need to give my flash guns some TLC for starters), but I'm well aware this came at Tony's discomfort, so huge thanks are due.

The return over the moor and the drive to Barbon was made more hazardous than usual by the need to avoid the hundreds of amorous amphibians (we're not sure whether they were frogs or toads because we can only tell the difference when they either walk or hop and walking/hopping was definitely not what they were doing).

As ever, there was a fantastic fire going in the Barbon inn, the warmth of which was also present in the welcome you receive. It's a grand pub that serves a great pint.