Throughout this pandemic, it had been a small point of pride to me that I had managed to not be unwell through it's first 11 months, but that long streak came to end this week as I somehow got afflicted with a head cold, despite all the personal precautions that have been taken, which blighted my working Thursday and knocked me out of Friday completely due fierce sneezing and a persistently running nose, leaving me feeling rather flat but not showing up any symptoms that could be a harbinger of something worse once the weekend rocked up. So I might be only feeling about 80% charged on Saturday morning, and the impetus to rise with the lark isn't there either, but we need to get some oxygen back in the blood for a few hours and thus we start out a bit late, hopeful that the afternoon will bring the sunshine that isn't apparent as we descend down to Morley station for the 10.40am jump-off on my next parks circuit, targeting the major pair in South Leeds, with our route starting us off out of the valley and up the steps flight to Albert Road. From there, we immediately we start our track eastwards, through the small industrial zone that has grown on the site of Morley Main colliery, and then on among the houses that have recently been developed over the sites of the old spoil tips and alongside the estate that arrives as we merge in with the end of Peel Street, turning with the lane corner to meet a local pavement that oddly hasn't landed below my feet before, down to Wide Lane between the nursery in the former Low Common End farm and the recently rebuilt Newlands Primary school. Meeting the B6123 by the Gardener's Arms, we're on to the red route out of town soon enough, between the Newlands and Owlers estates, and into the fields that development hasn't claimed just yet as we run on to meet the Mcdonalds by the roundabout on the A653 Dewsbury Road, which we have to cross to get onto the track of West Wood Road as it descends among the fields to pass over Mill Shaw beck before rising to meet the railway bridges, both contemporary and former. We split from the track here to take the rough path up through West Wood, which feels more familiar now after last year's visits, rising though the tree cover and getting a better look at the lost GNR line thanks to the lack of foliage before we emerge out into the pasture on the western fringe of the Middleton estate, where no horses seem to be grazing today, which at least opens it up for the locals for some free dog running, as trace our way around its perimeter, tracking north until one of the few formal paths into the estate appears to send us eastwards again.
Sunday 28 February 2021
Middleton & Cross Flatts Parks Circuit 27/02/21
Sunday 21 February 2021
Morley Roads: North-West Circuit 20/02/21
The climate has returned to something approaching its February norm as our walking year gets back onto it's regular sequence of filling in the Saturdays that follow my walking weeks, with the glumness remaining, but the bitter cold being replaced by a more tolerable temperature, so we're free of snow and the bleaching effect of so much gritting as we alight on the second of my pair of obvious road circuits around the town, but starting out as late as possible to let the morning's inclemency pass, getting to my starting line at 11am. To match my last trip, we this time start out from Morley station, to pound the uphill pavement of Station Road and its pitch that gets more noticeable the older I get, noting that someone has recently been planting trees in the middle of the recreation ground's slope, as if someone wants to render this parkland even wilder than it was before, and then rising up to Morley Bottoms to see yet another empty property getting a makeover to join the local bar culture, drawing these three commercial blocks to as close to full occupancy as I've seen since first moving here, nearly 14 years ago. Then on, around Victoria Mills/Court along Brunswick Street to start the road loop proper at Morley Hole, joining the side of the A653 as it heads towards the city, rising from the primary school past the Ingles Estate and following Victoria Road as it heads past the Springfield Mills roads, St Peter's church and is its pubs on the junction corners, and on to the long downhill stretch, easing us past the villas of the Victorian town above Laneside farm, and the mills sites across the way with the own impressively scaled houses. Walking a north-easterly trajectory on hugely familiar road means there's not a whole mass to describe as new as we run into Churwell, still distinct beyond the open fields to one side of the road, heading down Elland Road on its absurdly steep stretch between the many former churches and chapels, and its enduring pair of pubs, passing the community hall and the memorial gardens before angling to pass down below the bulk of Churwell viaduct, still obscured from view by all the trees despite the seasonal lack of foliage, and over Farnley Wood Beck as it emerges from below the various railway lines that hide it away.
Sunday 14 February 2021
Morley Roads: South-East Circuit 13/02/21
Arriving at the concluding weekend of my week off, the need to start the proper push on the walking year comes along with it, but as we look to longer mileages, the sunshine that shone through the previous days has been lost, and is replaced with glumness, while the penetrating sub-zero temperatures remain, and coupled to the enforced local trails, there's little impetus to try to do anything toe exciting, and to instead to look to some raw mileage on the local main roads, as there is a pair of local circuits that advertise themselves obviously. The challenge they present is no more complicated than picking where to start out on their circular routes, and so we commence out from Morley Hole at 10am, to initially draw a line across my earlier parks circuit, down the groove that divides the town in half, traversing Brunswick Street to Morley Bottoms and on down Station Road along the hidden and culverted route of Cotton Mills Beck down to the railway station, where last year's Social Distancing Circuit can be met and traversed for old times sake. This leads us down Valley Road, to the town'd gasworks site, and the Valley Mills, which we move around on the footpath, where the cold weather has caused the natural spring that regularly moistens this path to turn into an ice sheet that turns the descent down to the footbridge into a slippery slope par excellence, ahead of us striking east on the muddy paths to the south of the railway which have frozen into hard and uneven going, as the absence of trains along the way is noted thanks to the reduced lockdown timetable. We are thus lead to the edge of the White Rose Centre's site, where the southern portion of its woodland walk need to be approached for the first time, as it meanders its way downhill alongside the circuit road, matching the boundary of the sewage works site that it now occupies before we are dropped out by the overflow car parks, and our way is made out onto the Dewsbury Road, right by where Morley's concealed stream emerges, flowing under the A653 towards Millshaw Beck. Join the footway alongside the dual carriageway as the road circuit proper starts off southbound, rising steadily up this small valley, which West Wood on the Middleton fringe looms over as we pace on along one of those sections of roads that I have very little reason to encounter, on foot or otherwise, as we head up towards the Wide Lane roundabout, the familiar transit point out here, where my instinct from last year to the Harvester's seemingly imminent demise proves to have been correct, as it's been replaced by a Macdonalds, which doesn't really feel like a massive social upgrade in my eyes.
Friday 12 February 2021
Morley Parks Circuit 11/02/21
My original walking season plans for 2021 hadn't intended us to get off to the rapid starts that have featured in previous years, but the renewed lockdown has me thinking that the Nine Day Weekend (which is what we can regard weeks of annual leave as if we are unable to travel away) might be put to getting down multiple days of local mileage, but no such luck as my start-off Saturday, the 6th, is lost due to constant rainfall, and the subsequent four days are blighted by repeated snowfalls and persistent sub-zero temperatures as the third storm that I can recall being named 'The Beast from the East' passes over. So it's not until Thursday that the risk of further snow has passed, and the climate has settled into one of generally cloudless skies and arse-freezing-ness, and 2021's walking year has to be kicked off before I start to succumb to the risk of going stir crazy, donning all my thermals and leaving my flat to see if all the local walking from last year has left enough of an impression in my mind to tour around all of Morley's notable parks and green spaces without the need of a map, hopeful that the constant coldness won't have blighted the town with sheet ice literally everywhere. So it's to Morley station we head to start our circuit, departing at 10.30am, and full of intent to get around without stopping, heading off southbound and clockwise as we depart Valley Road and head up the non-treacherous flight of steps up to Albert Road, arriving between the Miners Arms and Fisheries and pacing on along Ackroyd Street to the old Co-op and chapel, and then on to the terraces of Cross Peel Street and to Peel Street itself, carrying on up its pavement to the City Mill and former Board School, where we take a left onto South Parade. He we can detour into our first green space, Lewisham Park, which was laid out with the building of the Middleton Road estates, and now offers a dog-exercising and perambulation space behind the semis, as well as frozen playing fields and a pavilion complex that aren't seeing much business as of now, as we traverse our way along the northern perimeter path, which leads us east over its long axis to the exit onto Clough Street, where we renew our wandery trajectory southbound, directly into the low sunshine along the estate's snow-dusted pavements that are doing their absolute best to melt off in the radiant heat of the sun.