We have been pretty much basking in warm sunshine back at home this week. It's hard to believe that two weeks ago today we were just starting our week's holiday in The Yorkshire Dales, staying in the warm and cosy Woodside Cottage.
The weather forecast for the Saturday was spot on ... 100% chance of rain according to the BBC and that is what we had ... from the minute we woke up to the minute we went to bed.
After having a leisurely lie in listening to the rain we got ourselves up and spent a good while looking out of the back bedroom window ... just watching the weather and the babbling Malham Beck become more of a raging torrent ...
The village was pretty quiet, though we did see the odd dog walker braving the rains and a few intrepid ramblers, all waterproofed up and striding out purposefully.
Our plans for the day were sausage sandwiches, then a drive out to Settle, where we hoped to find a garden centre for a bit of an indoor mooch.
We drove across the moors to Settle, passing Malham Cove on the way and having a bit of a detour to find the car park for Malham Tarn, two walks we had on the cards for later in the week once the weather had improved.
As we were coming down off the moors and through Langcliffe into Settle we could see the River Ribble flowing across the valley floor. It was running pretty swiftly and looking fairly high.
As we actually came alongside the river on the main road we just had to stop and take some photos and video clips, it was looking pretty fierce and wasn’t far off bursting it’s banks.
We managed to find our garden centre, which was tiny but did have some lovely bits and pieces. We picked up a few bumble bees which we were sure we would be able to find homes for in the garden back home ...
From the garden centre we headed into the town centre and decided it definitely looked worth a return visit for a bit of a mooch later on in our stay.
For now we headed back the way we’d come, calling in at The Watershed Mill craft centre, which sat right on the banks of the Ribble. As the river was so high the car park wall was in danger of being breached so they were shutting up early.
It was then back up and over the hills with frequent photo stops, starting with this impromptu waterfall over the dry stone wall where the run off of the rain had found its own way ...
We passed pretty stone bridges ...
The water had certainly risen since we’d made our way out earlier on ...
We did manage a few pull ins for pictures of Malham Cove in the distance, through squeeze stone stiles ...
... and field gates ...
It was a pretty impressive site, though I am hoping we will manage to get to see it again with some blue skies and sunshine ... that's not to say the weather was deterring visitors ...
As we made our way back into Malham we noticed that Malham Beck had risen considerably and the first of the three clapper bridges was suffering the consequences ... it may look like a weir but, trust me, it is most definitely a bridge ...
We made a quick visit to the cafe in the village for chip butties before making our way back to Woodside cottage to cosy up for the rest of the afternoon and evening ...
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