Goodbye Goaty:

Y’know I often wish that I had taken the time to design myself a nice little goat motif or logo for this site. I did try drawing one once, but it was dreadful, I did try trawling Google images for something to pilfer…but there was nothing suitable. So, with regret the Fat Goat became just a literal representation, a string of letters without a body or a form…And now I’m putting him out to pasture and as you may have noticed…the name of the site has changed too!

Introducing “West Pennines Wanderer” – that’s me, from here on in, as much as I might have liked to have gone for Pendle Plodder, I’m trying to get away from giving myself somewhat juvenile and self-demeaning call-signs and personas. The West Pennines area is the one in which I have spent most rural walking over the last ten years, it truly is my home from home, no matter how much I may crave Pendle and reside at Southport, my origins are steadfastly West Pennine in nature, I’m Bolton at heart – hence the “Wanderer” and that’s the heart of the West Pennines. Maybe when I’ve lived more of my life in Southport than I have in the West Pennines then I may transform again … the Sauntering Sand grounder perhaps? Maybe not.

For now let’s visualise that Fat Goat in his field, a quiet field near the top of Stang Top Moor feasting on the view of the majestic Pendle Hill, calm at last, no longer lost, he chews the grass whilst surrounded by his bovine field-mates and occasionally bleats at passers-by.