A Non-Family Human Does a Poo in Our Field

We had our first public day out in a while today at Sizergh Castle. It was strictly controlled in that you had to book a time slot. The café was closed but you could buy an ice cream as long as you donned your face mask and kept 2m apart from anyone else. There are benefits with this lockdown behaviour in that places like this are much quieter, which I prefer and plus it means Darwin gets more time on things like the woodland rope swings. But there are reports of places in the Lakes getting swamped by the ‘wrong types’.

I do believe that everywhere should be for everyone (Private land permitting!). Actually I have to veer off the path here to tell you about one of my recent favourite pastimes. At the end of our house we have a gate to allow the local farmer access to his field. It’s in our deeds and we don’t mind it. However when people get lost on the fell they sometimes come down and walk through our land and Pete has often stated that some people can be quite rude about it. Now that I’m working in the conservatory I’m easily alerted to people coming down the fells and inevitably they will be wanting access through our land, and so I capture them. I don’t mind it if people are apologetic and admit they’re lost, I instantly let them through, but I’m looking for the un-apologetic, the ‘Ramblers Rights’ and ‘We’ve always come this way’ folk, the entitled and rude, of which Pete has experienced but I haven’t. I nearly had one but he was with his mother who was looking very embarrassed:

Me – Hello, can I help you?

Trespasser – O, it’s alright Mike said we could come this way.

M – Who’s Mike?

T – It’s alright, he lives here.

M – He doesn’t live here Son.

<God knows what it is now. I used to hate calling people ‘Mate’ and ‘Son’ but I love it now. The guy I’m talking to is about 40!>

T – O’ it’s alright, we used to live here.

M – You keep telling me it’s alright but it’s not alright. This dog here (Mouse was going sick behind the other fence) wants to attack your throat and if he did he’d get the blame for it and would have to be killed because of your actions. So it’s not alright.

This was the climax of the conversation, his next response would be the decider, either I would let him through the gate or he and his mother would be taking a half mile detour back up the fell to find the official public right of way.

T – I’m sorry.

M – No problem mate, come through.

(A ‘mate’ and a ‘son’ in the same short conversation, result!)

Where was I? O yes, lots of reports of people wild camping in the Lakes leaving lots of litter and fire damaged ground, in fact sometimes leaving their tents! Did I tell you that a Human had a poo in our field, and they weren’t known to us!! “How did you know it was a Human poo?” you ask. Well Badgers don’t use toilet roll. I would have loved my trail cam to have caught that, it would have been right up on YouTube.

O yeah, Sizergh Castle, yeah we had a nice day!