Allerton Bywater to Pontefract 27/02/22

 5.6 miles, via Allerton Ings, Castleford (Bridge), Glass Houghton, Pontefract Park, 

  and Tanshelf station. 

When you nab yourself a long weekend, your mind immediately thinks that your day off work has to be the one to use for any outdoor exploits, but when the situation presents a Monday that looks like hot garbage, it makes much more sense to move this to the Sunday, especially when there's only a relatively brief catch-up to be had and the weather is looking massively superior, and although the transport options are much more limited, it's going to be a 90 minute trip to the starting line regardless of the day, via the TPE to Leeds and the long ramble of the #168 bus. We thus alight at the Blands Avenue bus stop at 11.50am, at the end of the Wood End estate and across from the riverside ponds so that we might replicate the walk along Leeds Road through Allerton Bywater, past the primary school, the terraced triangle and the parish church of St Mary the Less, this time under a wash of bright sunshine, before Station Road leads us past the colliery memorial, unseen last time, and on past the splurge of suburbia on the brownfields to the north and on past the Railway Terraces and Letchmire Pasturees to the A656. We strike south here, with the Roman Road taking us across the apron of level fields that form Allerton Ings, with dampness still apparent all around, in the marshlands and arable fields, with the former gravel pits and workings to the east having filled with the floodwaters of the preceding weeks, ahead of the road kink that takes us over the Aire & Calder Navigation's Castleford Cut, past the enclave of terraces and industry on Lock Lane and over the mighty Aire, flowing with the force of two rivers as it heads eastwards beneath Castleford Bridge. Avoiding the town centre to the west, we'll continue south with Bridge Street as it leads us under the wide railway bridge and sticking with the A656 Pontefract Road as it rises up past St Joseph's RC church and school, past the ends of the mining vintage terraces that array to the south of the town and uphill beyond the The Magnet inn, between the playing fields of Castleford Academy and the urban wild park around Smawthorne Marsh as we crest our way over the ridge that the town has grown over during the last century, well away from the flooding risks posed by the river to the north. 

Allerton Bywater in the Sunshine.

The Ledstone station terraces, Allerton Bywater.

The flooded fields and pits of Allerton Ings.

Castleford Bridge on the Aire.

Pontefract Road amid the mining terraces.

Pontefract Road heads uphill to Glass Houghton.

At the top, we meet the red brick church of St Paul the Apostle, the parish church of Glass Houghton (two words, it seems) with Front Street descending us down to an entanglement with the A6539 along what was once the village's main street, now lacking a clear identity, below the suburbia on the hillside above, and overlooking the industrial park that grew around the vast colliery site, now occupied by Xscape and the Junction 32 retail park, which we'll track alongside as the A656 Park Road takes us down its western edge to meet the A639 as it passes south of it. Peer east to see the towers of Ferrybridge power station, still in the landscape before we find our way under the M62 as it surges over the Junction 32 interchange, bringing us to the northern edges of the Prince of Wales Colliery site, which is undergoing extensive reclamation above the railway line, where passage over the access road of De Lacy Way marks where we hit 5,000 solo miles, on literally the last trip before my 10 year anniversary, while beyond lies Pontefract Park which shows just how not level its 'flat' race course really is. Rise towards Pontefract, pondering doing a circuit of the park with the perambulating locals, and see just how much development has gone on around the pithead since we we last here, having dropped commercial, industrial and residential sites over the last 6 years, before we decide that we don't need to push today much further, arriving at Tanshelf station as intended, and descend the long walkway to its platform, without a train to catch as the 90 minute window of viability was always going to be a bit too tight for a 5 mile burn, and thus we'll have to get our ride elsewhere. It's only 10 minutes walk away, up the hill on which Pontefract also dwells, passing below the Haribo factory, and above the leisure centre and cemetery as Stuart Lane and Head;lands lane direct us to pass between the Morrisons superstore and the old gaol gatehouse before passing over Northgate and entering Pontefract bus station from the rear, done at 1.50pm and appropriate sort of time to finish, as the rides homeward are going to take over 2 hours, but having a bounce along in the #141 bus back to Leeds is a fine way to use a sunny Sunday afternoon (especially when I have another walking achievement under my belt and no need to get up early for work on Monday!).

Front Street, Glass Houghton.

Xscape, and company, Glasshoughton.

Colliery Reclamation and De Lacy Way.
5,000 Solo Miles achieved here!

Park Road and Pontefract Park.

The Pince of Wales Colliery Memorial.

Tanshelf Station (20 mins too late, or 100 mins early, for my train!)

The Haribo factory (authentic home of the Pontefract Cake).

The Pontefract Gaol gatehouse.

5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 5332.2 miles

2022 Total: 48.5 miles

Up Country Total: 4870.2 miles

Solo Total: 5001.6 miles

5,000 in my 40s Total: 3927 miles

Next Up: NIW again, and accidentally celebrating my '10 Years of Walking' Anniversary!

~~~

Pandemic Thoughts: February 2022

So what do we have to say for February, at the very least, as it certainly didn't bring on the resignation of the Prime Minister as might have been expected at its start, with no further action coming after the extensive revelations of the industrial scale partying going on in Downing Street during the 2020-21 lockdowns, despite his having been subjected to police questioning and it looking like a lot of fixed penalty notices could well be issued to the No. 10 staff in the future, once the Met's investigation is completed, a matter that I'm pretty sure that HM Government would like to go away. The coming Cost of Living crisis also gets its mention before being swiftly forgotten about as the announcement of the increase in domestic gas bills, and the lack of immediate action in terms of relief for those in the direst need, appears at the start of the month, though I'm not sure how the increase in bulk gas prices causes a relative increase in electricity prices when our suppliers are so bold as to trumpet the UK's success in shifting its energy to production to biomass and wind power in significant percentages. Indeed, those who would govern us seem most interested in trying to put an end to Pandemic conditions in this country, regardless of what the ongoing risks of Covid actually are, as if shoring up parliamentary support and throwing a sop to the general public are more important than the ongoing management of a major health crisis, making Great Britain the first nation in the world to formally end all Pandemic restrictions, at a time when the infection rate has only just returned to where it was before the Omicron wave started at the end of November. It's also been identified as the third leading cause of death in this country across the winter months, superseding many of the familiar seasonal killers, which fits neatly with a projection that I made last year, and with a good month of winter weather to traverse still, there will be no limitations of any kind to restrict people's interactions, foreign travel or workplace safety, which provided something of a contrast to Australia where their borders are finally being reopened, having been sealed in an attempt to keep the continent Covid free for almost two years, with preventative measures being retained in the name of public health.

I cannot figure out why there's such a need to regard Covid as becoming an Endemic disease at this time, it's almost as if they've all become bored of dealing with the pandemic and too many people have been pointing out just how expensive it's become, and thus ending the need to self isolate after a positive Covid test result looks more like the removal of guaranteed sick leave and pay for those who would not otherwise receive it, and an expense saving measure for those who would be compelled to pay for it, rather than a secure disease prevention measure. Similarly, the ending of free testing effectively removes a considerable expense to the exchequer and a burden for those who were contractually compelled to provide them, while also guaranteeing a drop in infection numbers as people who would have tested before decline to do so at their own expense, and this extends to NHS workers, most of whom are still under hospital site restrictions and protocols, running the risk of more infections of the clincally vulnerable in a healthcare environment, a risk that's still real as several wards and an ICU remain 'hot' where I'm working. Indeed, regardless of what might be said about the decreasing severity of Covid infections since the Omicron wave came on, it's still absolutely no joke, as I've witnessed many friends share news of infections on social media after remaining clean and keeping out of general circulation for so long, and in the wake of the Festive Season wave of infections in my workplace, at least four people who got ill or tested positive in he office, are still to return as of the end of February, which means they've not had an illness that's been anything like a bout of something seasonal. I guess this is why it's been one of the busiest months that I've experienced in the hospitals in Leeds, as my veteran status has led me to being trained on a batch of new tasks, as the thinness of our staff cover has been exposed, which has meant learning the collection rounds on the St James's site, where I'm a true novice, happier to approach interacting with wards on a regular basis now that we've gotten a grip on what the pandemic conditions mean in a healthcare environment, and still feeling safe due to ongoing management of the crisis in the hospital service.

Of course the much heralded arrival of what HM Government would claim as 'Freedom Day' on February 24th is somewhat overshadowed by the fact that is coincides with the day that Russia decides to invade Ukraine, turning a weeks long diplomatic crisis (and an unresolved 8 year border and territorial confrontation) into an actual shooting war in Europe, which we might have thought we'd seen the last of with the resolution of the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s, bringing the horror that has engulfed Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen over the last decade that bit closer to home. It reveals, at the very least, the hand that the Russian president was willing to play, against the doubts of many who wouldn't have expected such direct action, as he decides it time to go full Bush Doctrine on his neighbour, though it remains to be seen if this is going to turn into his own personal Iraq or transpire to be the equivalent for this century of Sarajevo 1914 as a wider and deadlier conflict grows out of it (of course, if it does the likelihood of me being still here to write about it would be minimal). The chorus of international condemnation is at least heartening, and with direct intervention against a nuclear power obviously off the table, it really looks like a matter of targeting economic sanctions against Russia for maximum effect in strangulating its economy, and taking measures to manage the refugee crisis that is certain to unfold over the coming weeks, responses that don't look immediately adequate at the distance of only a couple of days, as we can only look on to see what unfolds as the Russian armies launch offensive towards Kyiv and Kharkiv. You wouldn't have through that we could go straight from Plague to War, but here we are, only slightly joking if we wonder if Famine and Death by wild beasts are on our future horizon, and after all these months of writing about the Covid Pandemic, I've no desire to directly confront this conflict, almost regardless of how it unfolds, and thus I can't say if my thoughts on the national and international developments are going to continue in the light of this, all that I can report is that the walking and working will go on, before I look to break two years of social isolation by actually attending concerts again, come the month of April.