Let me take this slightly belated opportunity to thank all regular and occasional visitors to this website for calling by during 2009 and wish you a positive and fullfilling year ahead. My own year ahead promises great things, with at least one new major exciting development in train - oh for 48-hour days! I have held fire on my audio editing as the primary push just has to be to get The Western Fells volume of Lakeland Fellranger delivered by March. There are a lot of readers frustrated by the apparent slowness of the series. I can assure them that I am doing all I can to complete the work. There is no room for haste, thoroughness essential.

The intensely icy weather has confined me to base with no far flung forays to the high fells since early December. As should be the case my attention has focussed first and foremost on my family. My son travelling from mid-Wales and my daughter's family from west London. Fun and quality time enjoyed all round, especially by 'the grandparents', with little Rory very much the centre of attention. One foray was made early last week onto Cold Fell from which came the glorious summit image shown here, taken by my son Dan with his Lumix compact camera.

Today Terra Madre communities and Slow Food members around the globe were hosting a diverse array of convivial events to mark Slow Food's Twentieth Anniversary and to celebrate eating locally. The UK Network is incredibly well-represented, with over 20 events organised nationwide. I joined a small group of Slow Food Cumbria members at Bowland Bridge in the Lyth Valley, sometimes known as the Damson Valley - owing to the concentration of age-old orchards growing this wonderfully flavoursome traditional fruit. In the 1930s and 40s 300 tonnes of Westmorland damsons went to Lancashire every year to satisfy the jam-making industry. Now barely 20 tonnes of this delious fruit is produced annually. Slow Food Cumbria aim to help local damson growers and producers in the new year with a project to study the fruit's origins and evolution - and to raise the profile of Westmorland damsons nationally and internationally.

We ate a lovely lunch at the Mason's Arms, featuring Pork & Damson Sausage and Cumberland Rum Nicky. To my mind, and many others it would seem, Slow Food very much represents the future of food sourcing and appreciation, taking a caring view back on our heritage of food growing, rearing, production and cooking, while also nurturing positive food choices for the future, re-connecting society with the land and its people. The image shows the group chuckling at the perfect link to Slow Food and Terra Madre Day en route. During the course of the afternoon I recorded Steve Dickinson, organiser of Farmers' Markets around the county and a keen historian and archaeologist, clips from this will feature as a Soundscape conversation shortly within InYourStride.

Though I must get back to writing that book... The Western Fells!

Visitors to this website awaiting the first audio material must wonder when to expect the first clip. Well I have had some trouble obtaining the correct edit software which has hampered progress mightily. Nonetheless, I have had a few interesting outings with my recorder, a splendid little machine which performs beautifully. The Olympus Linear PCM Recorder LS-10 has stereo mics and a huge memory capacity at broadcast standard.

Last Wednesday I had the great pleasure of sharing the main part of the day out and about recording the lively dialogue of Richard Fox, the Lake District National Park Authority's Fix the Fells Project officer. The purpose of the day in the Buttermere valley was to get a grasp of the present state of the Fix the Fells Project, with several other interested people connected to the Tourism & Conservation Partnership. Richard gave an entertaining and very thorough over-view of the current work. When edited this will feature in the InYourStride section of this website.

It was made plain that while the project was achieving all its stated aims there was a problem looming. The work has no time limit, but funding has, with the Heritage Lottery Fund support closing its coffers in 2011.

This led me to suggest that there needs to be a natural culture of giving towards the fell environment from a broad church of fell-walkers. There presently is no specific mechanism and in a bid to kick-start the culture I have suggested that through the Tourism & Conservation Partnership and others we establish the basis for a supportive scheme open to all fell-lovers. I have proposed the name Fell Champions and will be pursuing the basis of this idea in the near future - every culture has a start point and my hope is that this important concept can be traced back to this point!

If you, as a regular visitor to this site, have an opinion on this idea, then please email me back.

A friend who attended the Remembrance Day service on Great Gable this last Sunday noted that it seems to have turned into a fashion parade, mass-consumerism eroding its way into all aspects of life. If people spent as much money on fell preservation as they did on the paraphernalia they buy to go walking, there would not be a problem.

The picture above shows Baysoar Slack on Kirk Fell, a wild aspect of Wild Ennerdale seldom seen by walkers who tread the common ways to their detriment.