No walking occurs on the weekend of 11-12th as there's a ice risk to deal with after the only significant snowfall of this persistently chilly winter coming at the end of the preceding week, and I value my ankles to much to be testing out some challenging going, and thus I can't be inspired to get going again until some actual sunshine arrives, to not be seen until the following Sunday, which means we are yet to get into a routine of Saturdays when starting from home, as we finally travel away from Morley to start from Cottingley station instead, as we need to make use for it now that notice for its formal closure has been posted. Get away ahead of 10.20pm, and pass over the footbridge to pass away from our local paths by taking the route across the Cottingley Hall estate, via the Dulverton Grove paths to pass north of the towers and over the Cottingley Drive orbital route to descend through Cottingley Cemetery as a path exists to take us past the crematorium and chapels before we dropped out at the point where the A6110 Ring Road Beeston and A643 entangle themselves, where we cross by the builders yard and cement plant to follow the latter as it leads up to, and under, the railway line to reveal the Planet Ice rink, which has finally opened after an extremely prolonged construction. We'll move toward the city, and our planned targets as we join Bobby Collins Way as it leads though the lots of the Elland Road Park & Ride, where the Covid vaccination centre loitered for most of 2021-2, taking us round the side of Leeds United's ground that regular traffic doesn't normally see, before we split under the M621 to the Lowfields industrial estate, and move with the footpath down to Junction 2 where all sorts of heavy engineering work is going on the remodel the traffic island, which looks certain to be ongoing for a while, before we shadow the A643 once more as it heads off to form the Leeds inner loop road.
Sunday, 19 March 2023
Cottingley to Burley Park 19/03/23
Monday, 6 March 2023
Rivington Park to Egerton 04/03/23
To me the most disruptive thing about the Pandemic years has been the social ties that have been loosened and severed by the months of enforced isolation, and none more telling of these has been the distance that was put between myself and My Sister's family, where I haven't visited for a walking occasion since the summer of 2019, and not on a solo excursion since the preceding April, meaning that paths in the West Pennines have gone unseen, while my Nieces have transitioned into almost growed-up girls without us seeing it happen up close, and if there's a time to do something about that absence, that time is now. Company also allows me to push myself a bit harder on the trail as we make a second attempt to launch my twelfth walking year, and My Sister approaches my need to exercise with some very well-considered planning, which means not rising early and heading out immediately, instead easing through the morning an heading out for lunchtime, allowing us to fuel up before we get to the business of walking, and by aiming back towards their house means that no mental stress will be had from heading away from home and getting anxious about the duration of a return trip. So we head out to Rivington Park to take lunch at Rivington Barn for the umpteenth time, and afterwards, My Sister and I can then aim ourselves to head back around Winter Hill as she acts as my person trainer, as we attempt to get into some sort of walking condition again, and as we depart eastwards at 1.10pm, we can immediately acknowledge that the first challenge of the day will be heading uphill, off the Rivington Lane and onto the dirt track that lead up though the park's array of bare trees, onto the main path that leads up through the Pinetum, and on to shadow the Ravine, one of the features of Lord Leverhulme's parkland that has recently be revealed by some extensive tree-felling. The hard work comes as we rise on through the Terraced Garden, zig-zagging uphill still as my wheeze starts to get distractingly loud, though not actually worse than any of my regular early-season apparent breathing difficulties despite My Sister's concerns, before we hit the more direct rise up past the ornamental pond and bowling green that both manage to open up large flat spaces on the steeply pitched rise of the former Lever Park as we rise to the high track of the moorland-skirting Belmont Road, where the local crowds head on towards Rivington Pike and its tower and we press more northerly, towards the Dovecote Tower, above the informal garden around the site of the Bungalow, the now lost pile at the park's northernmost corner.
Sunday, 26 February 2023
Rumination: Stumbling into Season 12
The Following is For Reference Only.
As we reach the last weekend of February, it's pretty clear to me that this walking year is not going to plan, even with the restrictions that the Post-Covid Experience has brought upon it, as there's nothing happening at present which is inspiring me to challenge my body against the chill of the Wintery temperatures that have persisted for the whole month, as my lack of energy can't seem to fire itself up when greyness persists, and when it is bright it's also freezing cold, and the desire to keep out of the cold that keeps us immobile through December and January persists when we should be feeling the need to be active. The bitter truth is that my internal motivation has completely collapsed, as my brain resolutely fails to focus on the idea of walking, as there's no will at all to start planning for where the year might lead me, 'To The East' being to sole generic sum of it at present, with only the last pair of walks planned for last year sitting on the slate at the moment, as I'm not of a mindset to get plotting again, having not been so for the entirety of the dark season, and that also extends to not being ready to get going at the start of any weekend, as I really need my Saturday morning lies-in after my regular working weeks. At least I do seem to have sufficient energy to get up as normal on weekdays, despite being in the grip of a sleep debt that seems to have worsened throughout the Dark Season (which seems like a rather counter-intuitive development), and I have enough drive to go through the morning routines when called on to do so, and to power myself across the LTH Trust sites as my managers decide which hospital I might be most useful, but I'm otherwise dead to the world once I get home, meaning that useful housework, and other fun projects can only be approached when energy levels allow for it, and that means the weekends. This has been the case for these last pair of days, with the gloom meaning I'll be not venturing any further than Morley Morrisons, and the laundry and kitchen work will be otherwise be keeping me busy for the duration, having previously expended energy on acquiring, assembling and fitting out a new Ikea cabinet to display my extensive collection of classic Space Lego (a passion of mine that I don't think I've ever mentioned here, but is out of the bag now), labours which extended from long week NIW and perhaps gave me the best indication of just how little stamina I seem to have left in me at present.
Sunday, 19 February 2023
Morley to Cottingley 19/02/23
Having spent my entire week of being NIW walking in circles from home, we need to actually travel somewhere as the month progresses, but not too far as the legs aren't feeling like jaunting too far from home, especially as a pervasive chill remains in the air and there's still going on occurring down by the railways even after the engineering possession has ended and the trains resumed, and thus we set out on the Sunday morning to recommence our strolling from Morley station, arriving at 9.45am to find no one at all on site after all that business before. We can descend to the platforms to take a gander up the line towards Leeds, and see that the rail-facing edges of the new platforms have been installed up to their apparent full length between the wire-retained rock face of the cutting and the site of the old town gasworks, and also wander back along the old site to regard the new electrical junction boxes that have been installed, as an initial measure before full scale electrification works start I'd assume, trying to not look like weirdo to the early morning travellers or the couple of security guards watching over the construction site. Our wander can then follow Valley Road down past the works that have encroached over the Valley Mills site with a lot of stored plant and aggregate, coming around to Gasworks crossing, where the first stopping train of the day can be observed departing for the city, with its six carriage length being measured against the new platforms from a reverse angle, illustrating that hey could indeed be long enough to accommodate lengthier trains, and that's a service improvement to ponder as we move on, along the dirt path towards the White Rose centre, where more new electrical workings can be seen, at the entrance to the cutting to its rear, by the lost foot-crossing site.
Sunday, 12 February 2023
Trails around Morley's New Developments 5-6-8-12/02/23
The first Long Week of being NIW arrives and we're going to get going in the locality, as the post-Covid walking experience starts to feel a lot like the Covid Lockdown period as we stay close to home among the fields and paths to the immediate east of Morley railway station, and that turns out to be not the worst of options as there's plenty going around abouts as we see new developments on the Trans Pennine rail route unfolding, as well as suburbanism creeping into the fields in a manner that I'd noted like it seemed inevitable three years ago. I'd like to think that I've usually got my ear to the ground when it comes to local happenings, and I've been kept fully up to date on the construction of the new White Rose station thanks to mail shots from Network Rail, but the very first new that I got of development happening at Morley was when three weekends and one week of total closure of the line between Dewsbury and Leeds was announced to commence in late January, one month on from a long engineering possession for track re-laying over the New Year weekend. This turns out to be due to Morley Station being completely relocated, along the line to the east, away from the portal of Morley tunnel and onto the section of track between the old goods yard and the former gasworks site, which we've been watched being cleared of vegetation and spoil since last summer, in reasonable anticipation of catenary being installed for electrification as part of the Trans Pennine Route Upgrade, rather than having a fully accessible station built with apparent access to improved car parking in the level plots around. Being NIW when there's a full line closure in place thus allows me to go and have a good record of what's going on, which we started over the preceding weekend in January, where we tested out the waterproofing of my lightweight boots as we toured around the station site, observing the relaying of track that didn't seem to straightening out the curve of the line going into the tunnel nearly as much as was advertised, while also giving illustration of the fact that in any heavy engineering scenario, there will always be far more men in high-vis clothing on site than seem to be actually doing anything, with clearly more observing than working.
Saturday, 4 February 2023
Rumination: The Longest Dark Season
As we lapse into February, we find ourselves at the conclusion of another Dark Season, easily the longest one we've experienced sine walking became our primary pastime, having effectively been sat down for 16 weeks since Covid knocked me off the trail in October 2022, having achieved 1,000km in the season but falling short of a mileage total that should have been the best that I could do, feeling that this bad quarter of the year has taken much longer than usual, and that my familiar slump in mood and energy levels has been so much worse, for hopefully obvious reasons. The usual down turn that comes through November and December has not been aided by the turn that the weather took, settling in with periods of persistent low temperature and gloom that have not inspired any sort of need for displays of energetic activity, almost ensuring that sitting tight as the brutal cold set in outside, which every one of us had more awareness of than before thanks to the surge in bulk energy prices that are sure to afflict our energy bills for some time to come. So the slump of the year towards the festive season was filled with warmth maintenance and energy saving schemes, which in my case meant ensuring that new thick curtains were purchased and kept drawn throughout my flat to keep the heat in, and attempting to regulate the temperature indoors with only one storage heater on, which turned out to be entirely plausible to keep the space at a consistent and comfortable 20C, and experience drops that barely got below 18C, and only needing to power up the halogen heater (which has been barely used since I got it more than a decade ago) on the chillest of days. Otherwise we did well to feed the curiosity of what gets sold at Decathlon, having needed additional gloves to add to the box, and finding that this is an excellent store to find all your cheap fleece needs, where layers and cover-alls can be acquired for a modest sum, which will add to your warming yourself rather than your living space needs, if you are willing to overlook the synthetic fibre nightmare that you are engaging in, and if we add a more sociably presentable Regatta fleece from TK Maxx to the pile, we ought to be set fare to retain warmth for a good few seasons into the future.
Saturday, 7 January 2023
The Conclusions of 2022
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| Wrapping the 2022 season (prematurely) at Dodworth railway station. |
The ten-plus weeks that have elapsed since a Covid infection knee-capped my walking year already feel like a bit of a miniature lifetime as we sit down to reflect on the passage of Season 11 of my on-going career of travelling on foot, feeling about as detached from regular walking activity as I ever have, while feeling hopeful that we might be able to power on again into 2023 after we've asked the variation of that question of ourselves that comes with the turn of every December, What Have We Learned in 2022? Most significantly, before Covid put me on the canvas and ended my year in a technical knockout, We could consider the 2022 season as my best yet, as we got out to a strong start and just kept on going, with the energy levels and enthusiasm remaining high as new routes stretched out to the south-east and into the lower Dearne and middle Don valleys, expanding my field of walking experience in quite the most pleasing of ways after expressing doubts about the viability of its continued expansion only 12 months prior. It had been planned out as a moderately level year after my stretches around the hills and valleys of Kirklees, Calderdale and Airedale over the last few years, but the modest undulations of South Yorkshire gave me plenty to get busy with as we racked up the miles, aided by shedding only two weekends and one holiday week across the entire year from the walkable schedule, while also maximizing use of both of the bonus bank holidays we got thanks to the Jubilee and Funeral of HMQE2, pushing my distance traveled beyond the 600 miles and 1,000km markers. Indeed, as of our last weekend, we had four trips to still plausibly drop into the 2022 schedule, which could have put another 40+ miles onto the season, giving us a final total for the year in excess of 670 miles that I honest could have regarded as absolutely the best that I could do in my nine-month window, which now looks like it might be impossible to replicate as I regard the pace that would have to maintained to get that close again, which I don't think could be done while I still work for a living, continue to age, and face the vicissitudes of the climate of West Yorkshire, which is a good reason to curse my Covid infection just that bit more.