I can often forget how beautiful the North of England is, from the little village where I grew up in Foolow in the Peak District, to the stunning industrial-come-green areas of my home city of Sheffield in Yorkshire. This year I want to make sure I really explore and appreciate everything I have around me, if I’m near to home or on a trip, I want to look and see and take in everything around me. I’m no photographer, but I have a nice camera and a lovely new lens from my last birthday, which I am trying to get to grips with.

This is my first little foray into capturing my world, a much loved family walk. There is a road leading away from the village which takes you up a very steep hill towards Bretton Edge, one of the most stunning view points in our area. Often this is our destination and we look lovingly over the land lying out below, and point out where everything is, marveling at how different it looks from above than when you drive between the villages. The path to this elevated view is a simple road which snakes up the hill side and its marked out by a few little points when now use as markers for ‘how far we feel like walking’. When particularly energetic we make it up to the farm, but the minimum distance seems to be denoted by one of two trees, very inventively named ‘First Tree’, closely followed by ‘Second Tree’. This was our marker for this cold February wander. I have snapped pictures of the out buildings we passed, the lichen on the stones and the branches of the trees we use to measure our journey. I hope you enjoy our little break from the studio as much as we did, fresh air fixes everything! (Will you just look at the colour of that lichen!)