A recommendation for UK folk (27/365)

[white_hart]

I turned on the TV just before 9pm yesterday, having just finished work (I had a break for dinner but went back for another hour when T's online pub quiz started) and saw that BBC4 had a programme about Helvellyn about to start. A landscape documentary seemed like just the thing to soothe my frazzled brain, so I thought I'd give it a try, and it was absolutely delightful - a beautifully shot film showing the fells and wildlife throughout four seasons, interspersed with contributions from people who work, live and undertake leisure activities on and around the mountain. It turns out to be part of a series (and to have been first broadcast in 2015, but I certainly wasn't aware of it then), and I'd recommend it to anyone who has access to iPlayer and wants something gorgeous and relaxing to sit in front of. Though it did make me a little sad that I'm not sure there's much chance of my getting to see mountains - or even moderately sized hills, really - for quite some time yet.

Comments

[nineveh_uk]

It's also repeated tonight! A good thing as it turns out my aerial plug had fallen out yesterday so it didn't record.

[white_hart]

I hope you enjoy it!

[cmcmck]

We are lucky to live right under a moderately sized hill.

[white_hart]

Sadly in Oxfordshire (or this part of it, at least) we only have quite small hills :-(

[norfolkian]

That sounds like a really nice programme; your description reminds me a bit of why I like watching Mortimer and Whitehouse Gone Fishing.

[white_hart]

It's just nice, gentle TV. Which is definitely what I need these days!

[lexin]

One of the lovely things about where I live now is that I have a view of mountains from my living room window. It's sublime.

[white_hart]

Oh, how wonderful! I am generally more of a big skies and windswept salt marshes person, but I like to see mountains for a bit of variety, too. (Also, Oxfordshire is distinctly lacking in windswept salt marshes, though I can find reasonably sized skies.)

[antisoppist]

I caught the end. And now I have whizzier broadband for homeschooling purposes, I can watch iplayer without it constantly buffering. It didn't do it all the time, but enough, especially with a teenager on youtube at the same time, that I mostly couldn't be bothered to click the streamed telly in case it was a day when it was unhappy.

[white_hart]

Yay for whizzier broadband and iPlayer on demand! My parents had an upgrade about six months ago and I think being able to access streaming services has been an absolute godsend to them in lockdown.

[antisoppist]

I hadn't thought I couldn't access streaming services (and I pay for Netflix) but now that it does work properly I realise how many times I didn't bother factoring them into my viewing choices and always preferred to record things because of the frustration of watching the rotating thing and it taking three goes to connect and then disappear again while those of us in the living room yelled upstairs "What are you doing on the internet?" It was happier if you plugged a laptop into the telly and watched via that but that was also Effort.

[serriadh]

They're not available on iplayer at the moment, but something similar to look out for is Julia Bradbury's Lake District walks (she may well have done other places too). Very general, beautiful aerial photography, a bit of chat about Wainwright and meeting up with a local. Looks a bit more 'lowbrow' in tone than the Year on Hellvelyn programme but very good for a gentle half hour with a frazzled brain. (I have them on DVD.)

I'll check out the Hellvelyn one - thanks for the rec.

[white_hart]

I've watched a few Julia Bradbury walk programmes in the past and generally enjoyed them a great deal. (I enjoy most walking programmes, really. Channel 5 seem to have quite a lot of them these days, too.)

[jinty]

I like the tv genre which consists of ‘competent people creating or fixing things’ ie pottery throwdown, repair shop, and recently Money For Nothing (find things that were going to be chucked away and fix/upcycle them). Some horrors do result from that but it’s still quite interesting to see.