I spend half of one day each week at Lyme Park, volunteering as a Park Ranger. My role is to be out and about in the Park, looking for problems which will require maintenance (unsafe trees, styles which are damaged etc) as well as keeping the park tidy and helping out with the many visitors to Lyme Park.

The holiday periods see a big spike in numbers, and especially after a wet Christmas and Boxing Day, today saw the masses descend in their droves.

For a change, I was one of those visitors, taking my family around the Park. We’ve been there as a family a few years ago, but back then I was unfamiliar with the locations and so we undertook something of a random walk, sticking to the main paths.

Of course now, knowing the Park that much better allowed me to take them a little further from the thronging masses in the car park and heading up to the Cage and whilst it was damp underfoot, the weather was as clear as I’ve seen it in a good while. And having my trusty camera with me I took a few more landscape pictures today, rather than specifically of wildlife.

What is interesting is the vast array of colours in the park at this time of year, especially as thus far we’ve not had anything of a major frost.