Well winter is upon us. We’ve had a few clear frosty days, some snow, and an almighty storm;  so the leaves have fallen and the ground vegetation has died back. Which makes it a fantastic time to reveal the skeleton of our landscape, whether it’s the underlying geology or our prehistoric and medieval archaeology. To whet your appetite all of our webinars are still available to view on our website; we will shortly have a new series of three geo-trail leaflets to follow from Kirkby Stephen, Orton and Smardale; there’s Debbie North’s film to inspire you; or why not take on the Northern Viaduct Trust’s 14 Peaks for 14 Arches challenge. We’re also planning an ice age webinar and walk for February; more details to follow.

There’s plenty happening on the ground too with the Eden Rivers Trust’s completion of the natural flood management work at Crake Trees, the Crosby Ravensworth and newly established Asby parish tree groups gearing up for planting, and the apprentice team out and about doing a whole range of projects. We’re also pleased to welcome Rebekah Booth to the team as our cultural heritage trainee who’ll be involved with a number of our projects. There are lots of opportunities for you to contribute too including through our oral history project Our Common Heritage or commenting on interpretive themes for the villages. Or why not put your thinking caps on and come up with an idea for a Love Your Landscape grant application?

Finally a big thank to everyone who’s contributed to what has been another challenging year including the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust (one of our other key funders) , our partners, volunteers, participants and supporters. We can look forward with a bit more confidence to 2022 with new projects kicking off and the return of annual events like the Westmorland Dales Day in July. Fingers crossed and season's greetings from us all.