Spotting the miraculous on your doorstep

I WAS talking to a gentleman in Cumbria a while ago about the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition and he was bemoaning that you need to live in some obscure far-flung part of the world to stand a chance of winning. I pointed out that to a photographer in the rainforests of Borneo, a lonning on Britain’s north-west coast is about as remote as you can get. It’s just harder to see the unusual, miraculous or the exotic when you live beside it everyday. To me, walking down Seacross Lonning, near Cockermouth, on a spring morning with Sale Fell in the distance, a tunnel of hazel ahead of you, stitchwort and harebells on the bank and for a lamb to then come trotting down the lonning towards you is about as miraculous as it gets.