The Conclusions of 2019

Wrapping the 2019 walking season
at Berry Brow station.

My eighth walking year concludes, and we thus settle into another Dark Season to contemplate the passage of another year into history, and this time around, at the end of 2019, I have to change my familiar declaration, as this time around, we didn't all make it and we aren't all here to see the start of the third decade of the 21st century. So again we ponder what we have learned in the last twelve months, and the main truth has been that 2019 has been a rough year that I do not care to see a repeat of, as it has brought me personal upheaval the like of which I haven't experienced in decades, maybe a whole lifetime, if we're being honest with ourselves. I've pretty much said I that needs to be publicly stated on the subject of bereavement, as after eleven months, the passing of My Dad still stings, as 77 doesn't seem to be an old age to be dying in the modern age, especially after having endured three years of aggressive degeneration of the brain beforehand, and I still lament the loss of the father that I had in the years before his mental and physical capacities drained away. His demise having come when it did in late January at least gave me the opportunity to use the whole year to work out my grief and come around to the reality of losing one of the few constant presences in my life, and the amount of practically used alone time, and the number of socially offered shoulders sent my way have both been invaluable through the year, but honestly, I'd still going to miss Dad immensely as his absence is still being acutely felt in my family life. Upheaval also came in my working life, after 20+ years of service in the Medical Records Library at Leeds General Infirmary, the storage facility was run down through the opening half of the year, reducing the core business down to a distribution hub, and my role being switched over to the library at St James's Hospital in June, where the labour was familiar but fitting into the routine of the much larger staff proved to be quite a challenge. It's not in my nature to complain about work in a public forum, for obvious reasons, but the change or work rate and culture, with me frequently being on my feet for all seven worked hours of the day proved hard to adapt to, so when the opportunity came to take up a new role on the LGI site came along in October, I grasped it firmly, to the ultimate benefit of my mental and physical well being.

The Goole Docks Water Tower,
hiding beyond the Upton Water Tower
and Walton Wood Microwave Tower,
35 miles from Royd Moor, near Penistone.

So against this backdrop of personal upheaval and aching limbs, it might be a surprise that 2019 provided perhaps the most satisfying walking season so far as all the targets set down at the start of the year were achieved, with no days at all being lost to exhaustion or loss of focus, along with a new annual mileage total that I hadn't seemed as plausible when the season opened out. The achievements of the year are really worth recapping when a 100% success rate has been made, having kept to my plans of burning fresh trails in the southern quarter of West Yorkshire, across Wakefield and Kirklees districts, right down to the Dark Peak fringes of South Yorkshire and Derbyshire, as well as scheduling in the 100+ miles trip cross country to Leicester to tie all the walked lands Down Country, both contemporary and historic, to my field of experience in the North Country. I also successfully fitted in all of the circular trails that I'd aimed at, experiencing the Colne valley and Holme valley circuits at the extremes of the weather that this past Summer threw our way, as well as finally getting the albatross that was the Witton Weavers Way off the the schedule, where it has plausibly sat every year since 2013, even if it proved to be way longer and more challenging than had been anticipated. Measure in the high points and distant tracks across the Pennines and it really expanded the mind, looking across the flatlands to the east to see as far as Goole and the Yorkshire Wolds fringe from the hills around Penistone, and hitting the tops of Black Hill and West Nab to get the high country and moorland views across West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester, to see many future excursions over the top to the western side of the North Country. Ending the year with only three planned excursion days un-walked, all lost to poor weather or choosing shorter routes, really shows up the benefit of keeping my focus as tight as possible, and this will carry on into the coming season, as a breakdown of the remaining under-explored corners of the county suggest that there's another five years worth of territory to explore around the fringes, which ought to set me fare on the walk to 5,000 Miles before I'm 50 (a target that seems almost ridiculously attainable after the mileages that have been put down since walking became my sole focus for personal entertainment).

Witness the abusage that my 16 year
old E288 has taken over the seasons!

But even with all the good that's come out of the year, I nonetheless get the feeling that I'm going to need my good mental health as much as ever in 2020, as even with all the breaks and relief that the walking year has given me, the world that we endure in is surely going to pose as many challenges as we might ever have faced, both personally and in a much broader sense. For instance, my change of roles at work has landed me in a mostly sit-down job for the first time in my career at the hospital, which is fine for now, but could easily become a rather solitary role, which might have me getting immobile and gaining weight again (which largely stayed within an acceptable range for the year, for what it's worth), while I also need to factor in the need to provide cover for the Medical record distribution hub, a role I've been compelled to take on after one of the designated staff served their notice before Christmas, albeit being the one position that I had striven to avoid with the re-planning of MRL services. So their could be additional physical challenges to come, with me being potentially both more and less active that I had intended, which is sure to run up against the fact that this last year is the first one I've had where I've actually started to feel the aging process telling on me, with issues with my elbows and wrists showing up the wear and tear that they've experienced over the years, while a resurgence of issues with stiffness in my neck, caused by poor sleeping posture has not aided my need for many comfortable nights of necessary sleep. Then consider the continuing onset of tinnitus, which blights all my quiet times, and eyes that seem to have lost focus after less than two years with my new specs, as well as having trouble with my close proximity reading, and I start to feel every one of my 45 years, and the less said about one of my now-former colleagues (who was actually young enough to be my own daughter, and who adopted me as surrogate Weird Uncle) starting a family, the better, as that has done much to make me feel old as additional generations of the population emerge below my own.

So, yeah, despite all the good, we've had a lot to take on board as well, and the recent events in this country, granting us our departure from the EU and five more years of a government that I personally wouldn't have wished upon anyone, has me facing the future with a great deal of trepidation, pessimism and even existential dread, leaving my already excessively solitary nature feeling even more removed than it had done before, and I can only look forward to that which I'm going to enjoy, as my will to personally engage with so much else has now gone, completely. Not the brightest way to end the year really, or to start the next one, which at less than a week in has hardly gotten off to the most auspicious of starts, and so we'll get the focus together as we set a course out of the dark season, and play you out with a tune from one of my favorite musicians, whom we also lost along the course of 2019, encapsulating so many of my feelings on what I've experienced over the last twelve months:

Such A Shame.