Day: December 2, 2020

Skelton Lake eBook

Skelton Lake e-book

I’m delighted that my latest book Skelton Lake is now available in 51 territories worldwide, available from Apple Books as a free download. It may just be 11 pages of ‘wild flowers, fungi and autumn photographed on a muddy walk’ around the lake but it looks good on an iPad or desktop, so I feel that I’ve got to grips with the process of designing and publishing and I can tackle something more ambitious.

You should be able to find it on the Apple Books Store by searching for ‘Skelton Lake’ or my name as author. Its Apple ID, the equivalent of the ISBN, is 1542460295.

Skelton Lake in the Apple Books store and - 'Common Puffball' page - as it appears when you open it in the Books app.

Skelton Lake in the Apple Books store and – ‘Common Puffball’ page – as it appears when you open it in the Books app.

Links

Skelton Lake eBook link

Skelton Lake eBook, PDF version (produced using Adobe InDesign)

Apple Books app for iPad and iPhone

Out of the Woods

birch bracket
Birch Polypore or Razorstrop Fungus, Piptoporus betulinus, on silver birch at the top end of Newmillerdam.

Last month’s lockdown and the new Tier 3 restrictions staring today mean we can’t go far, so we’ve been looking for walks closer to home: yesterday a woodland walk at the top end of Coxley valley, today a circuit of the lake at Newmillerdam.

goosanders

There are four female goosanders at the sleepy lagoon at the top end of the lake and hundreds of black-headed gulls (none with ‘black’ heads at this time of year) hanging around in the willowy backwaters of the western shore. All the regulars are here – mallards, tufted duck, coot, moorhen, heron, cormorant and great-crested grebe – but conspicuously absent are what are normally the noisiest birds on the lake, the Canada geese. I suspect that they’re still in the area, perhaps heading for larger lakes such as Anglers.

Black-headed gulls
Black-headed gulls

About fifteen years ago, one of Newmillerdam’s trees left me scarred for life: as I stooped under the leafy branch of a sycamore, I gouged my scalp on the sharp end of a trimmed back branch. This morning I should have been at Pinderfields having the small wart that has grown over the wound removed, but the Dermatology Department rang me at breakfast-time to say that because of a positive test for Covid at the hospital, my minor operation has been postponed.

We’re not out of the woods yet.