There is a certain tension in this composition, that I like. The RH slightly skewed chair perhaps.

Beautiful Italian cameos. What an attractive little church.

What a great idea for a series. Great captures. I feel exhausted just looking at them.

Nice to see these in a photograph rather than real life. They look the sort of thing that would make my eyes itch.
Pretty tones.

Nice to sit there with a beer and a good friend.
I can never remember the names of those chairs.
Adironddack? Adi..no, I give up.

Just one "d" - Adirondack.

Potentially a very nice photo but ok as is.

If the decking was altered to be parallel with the horizon and cropped for "balance" imo it would be a much more compelling image.

Reference your other post -

dprevived.com/t/wednesday-cc-no-theme-thread-854-revived-074-on-2024-08-28/6186/post/84016/

The Pictures That Put Me In Hospital

Three weeks ago, I took a trip up to The Lake District. Feeling emboldened by my recent hikes over the fells around Haweswater, I felt like trying a few of my favourite walks on the fells around Ullswater and planned a hike from Patterdale to St. Sunday Crag, a walk I really enjoyed in the pre heart condition days. In terms of distance and altitude, it didn't look more challenging than the High Street hike I did a couple of weeks earlier, so I set off, relatively confident I could get up there without too much trouble, as long as I took my time that is.

I arrived in Patterdale around noon, probably not the best time to begin a strenuous hike and particularly not on one of the hottest days of the year, but I set off anyway.

From the outset I knew this was going to be a mistake as the heat made it really hard going, but I plodded on anyway, confident that I could just give up and turn back if I felt it was getting a bit too much for me.

Birks

There wasn't much to see at the start of the walk, with most of the interesting views behind me, but as I left the built up parts of Patterdale, Birks, my first planned summit of the day, came into view. Kind of appropriate that this was the first fell really, considering I was being a bit of berk going out on such a hot day.

Place Fell

Looking to my rear, the view was largely dominated by Place Fell.

Ullswater

But as I gained altitude, Ullswater revealed itself, looking particularly inviting on such a hot day.

Grisedale

As I (painfully slowly) ascended Birks, the view across Grisedale opened out. In this shot, you can just see the pointy peak of Catstyecam in the middle of the picture, poking above the side of the valley wall. The rockier looking section on the left of the ridge is Nethermost Cove, where, although you can't see it from this angle, the infamous Striding Edge leads up to Helvellyn. You can just make out the start of it where the slowly ascending (right to left) ridge line peaks before sharply dropping at the beginning of the cove.

Arnison Crag

This is looking in the opposite direction across Arnison Crag. The dark peak on the left of the image is Angle Tarn Pikes and the dark ridge line in the distance on the right of the image is Rampsgill Head.

The Final Frontier

By the time I reached this point, I'd been hiking for 90 minutes. I'd covered 1.5 miles and about 1,000ft of ascent. The last few hundred feet had been really hard for me and the walk up to the next (false) summit was beginning to look unachievable, so at this point I decided to turn back.

For reference, here's the opening picture again, but this time showing the point I reached, Thornhow End, which is about half the way up in terms of altitude from the start point.

Place Fell From Thornhow End

The views from Thornhow End were pretty good, so I sat there for a while eating my packed lunch and enjoying the view.

The Return Leg

Coming back down from Thornhow End seemed to take forever, largely because I'd come close to overexerting myself and was now finding the descent to be moderately hard work.

Still, I managed to stop and take a couple of studies of interesting looking trees I passed along the way, although by this point my heart wasn't really in it and I just wanted to get back to the car.

Sheffield Pike

The heather was really beginning to come into its own when I took this trip, the best example of this being Sheffield Pike which was developing a nicely coloured coating of the stuff. I reckon another week later and it would have really popped.

Cottage and Colour

I snapped this at the entrance (or exit as it was for me) of the Patterdale Hotel car park. The cottage just stood out against Place Fell in the distance and the tub of flowers added a splash of colour. I could have done without the railings as they undermine the composition and I didn't have the energy to faff about trying different things. In retrospect, getting really close to the flowers and shooting over the top of them with a wide aperture may have been interesting, but as I said earlier, I just wanted to get back to the car.

Did I Mention Something About A Hospital?

So you're probably wondering about that title then. Clearly I didn't fall off a cliff, fracture anything, have heart issues or collapse along the route, so just how did I end up in hospital?

Well, having made it back to the car, I sat for a while drinking copious amounts of water and eating the spare pie I'd left in the car, before setting off home. I had a pleasant drive along the lanes around Ullswater, with the window open and the breeze on my face, before finally reaching the motorway for the long and boring slog back down to Lancashire. As I got onto the motorway, I shut the window, despite the fact that my aircon was out of action. It didn't feel too hot compared to how the walk had been and so I drove along for about an hour, not realising the temperature was slowly creeping up.

As I approached Preston, the last 10 miles of motorway, my eyesight suddenly developed double vision. I managed to pull over onto the hard shoulder (thank god this wasn't on a Smart Motorway with the tiny emergency bays) and sat for a few minutes until my eyesight returned to normal. I gave it another 10 minutes and then set off again. Barely a mile later my hands and legs went tingly and I had to pull over again. The tingling grew in intensity and spread throughout my body and I showed no sign of stopping. As I'd been hiking I had my Garmin on and my heartrate was sitting around 130BPM rather than the usual 60-70ish. I felt like I was going to pass out and called the emergency services. Eventually an ambulance came and shipped me off to hospital.

The consultant thought I'd had a TIA, basically a mini stroke which had caused the double vision. He also suggested the tingling was a panic attack, my first in 57 years and not something I want to experience again, so I was discharged within a couple of hours. The NHS did a sterling job of getting me booked in for an MRI scan two days later to verify if a stroke had occurred and thankfully there's no indication of one at all. To quote the consultant as he showed me the scan, "this is a perfectly normal brain". Long time readers of my posts may beg to differ on this and I was rather surprised (although very relieved) myself.

Unfortunately I have had three weeks of subsequent symptoms including visual disturbances, dizziness, head pressure and the feeling I'm about to pass out, symptoms that I'm still getting even now as I type this. The GP suspects I'm having a long lived migraine, but there's no solid conclusion or treatment that I've had so far. My other co-morbidities prevent me from using most of the migraine medications that might stop it, if that's the case, so I'm somewhat stuck with it for now.

I think the heat was the trigger for all of this, the temperature during the day and particularly in the car hit 32C, which is a bit too hot for my tastes and I probably let myself get dehydrated.

So there you have it, the photos that put me in hospital and worst of all, they're not even that good.

Normal service will be resumed eventually. I hope.

Maybe bit too dark but I think all the relevant detail is there. Interesting pool with great view. And sky complements this nicely.

Gosh, I'd been wondering where you'd got to. It all sounds very worrying, and I really hope it sorts itself out.

That would have been the weekend we travelled down the M6, my husband driving while I struck a deal over the phone to purchase a house... Quite a stressful afternoon for all concerned! Possibly passed you on the hard shoulder!

nice example how different perspective affects view.

Wow, that's quite a story. Probably best to rest up for a while now. And when you do resume, make sure people know where you are.

similar plants grow here, I have tried to photograph them but nothing good came out of it, these are very well executed.

Ouch. Overheating and dehydration is not a joke. I just read from local newpaper how one 30+ year person took 10 km race on hot day and woke up in hospital due to overheating and dehydration. He felt good and went home but next day was very sick and could not eat anything, so day after he was back in hospital where he was diagnosed with liver failure and looking for liver transplant... Fortunately for him liver started to function again so he got away with warning. I've been quite careless with dehydration and thought that that's nothing serious but this makes me thinking otherwise...

Sorry to hear about your misadventure. I hope you get back to normal hiking duties soon. If it was 32, then dehydration probably played a big part. I sometimes get a migrane if I get dehydrated after a hike on a sunny day. I can take a pill that sorts it petty rapidly. In summer I always want to do the big assent at 6 or 7 in the morning. In the Apennines in summer, at 2000m we might have 17° but the sun really dehydrates you. I try to carry a lot of water, know where the springs that I can drink from are. Sometimes we know we are taking a risk, usually it turns out fine.

It has a sinister feeling.