The first weekend of October drops us our next long weekend, thanks to extra days of leave purchased from work, falling neatly between my late Summer and end of season breaks, which had been intended to be a few days to relax and stroll a bit, but turned into a four day spell of activity when I found a steam rail tour for the Thursday, the last of the West Coast Railways season, which travelled up the Settle & Carlisle line and neatly dovetailed with the occasion of my Mum's 81st birthday, which allowed me to fulfil a promise that I made the previous year to take her out for a steam train ride for her 80th, so I've got her company for the period, with us taking each other out to celebrate our birthdays. Riding out from Wakefield Westgate, it's not needing a early start despite the descent of Autumn, though our travel window does tighten somewhat thanks to the service running out of York some 45 minutes late, at 10.25am bringing us our rake of vintage BR Mark 1 coaches and topped 'n' tailed diesels that will take us to Leeds for a reversal and then a merry pound up the Aire Valley to gain our steam traction from Hellifield to take us non-stop over the watershed and up the Long Drag of Northern England's premier scenic line, which we haven't seen in far too long, up the Ribble Valley and among the Three Peaks, to Dentdale, over Ais Gill summit and on down the Eden Valley. Somehow, all the time lost early is regained as we reach Carlisle, at 2.15pm, where we can find that it's been the line-appropriate LMS Jubilee 45627 Sierra Leone hauling us (actually 45699 Galatea in disguise, and oddly wearing the number of 45662 Alberta on its cab sides), and there's locomotive manoeuvres to be watched at both ends of the break, which is otherwise only long enough for a stroll from the Citadel to Tullie House museum and back, where we can have brews and cake, and purchase that Hadrian's Wall Path t-shirt that I've been promising myself since failing to find one in 2014. Departing at 4.30pm, with the daylight still strong and the changeable and rather poor weather not really spoiling the trip we re-ride the path homewards, breaking for water and photographs at Appleby before lamenting the lack of audible chuffing from the locomotive and clickety-clacking of the rails as we ascend to Ais Gill again, gradually losing the landscape in the gloom as we come down the Ribble valley and finally finding ourselves in darkness as engines are swapped again at Hellifield, a long break that coincides usefully with teatime, before we run back to homewards in a surprisingly familiar 1980s train fashion, with the jaunt concluding at 9.15pm, a round trip of nearly 11 hours that we both enjoyed immensely, thankfully.
Sunday, 8 October 2023
Morley to Bretton Park 07/10/23
Sunday, 1 October 2023
Morley to Harewood 30/09/23
The first weekend of Autumn is spent away from the trail, as we've got a reunion to do celebrating (almost) 30 years since we first came to Leeds to attend University, reuniting five of the original ten members of our first student residence, seven (7!) years after our last meetup and feeling a lot more like a reunion of old guys this time around, as we ate and drank an afternoon and evening together, also presenting pretty nice day for it as well as we trolled ourselves from town to Hyde Park and back along the way of it, and experience that I'll probably have more to say about at the year's summation, but for now it's just good to take a break and catch up with some old heads before we resume another push into the Late Season. When that does come around, the weather hasn't travelled and we've got both a tight window ahead of rain and a total lack of trains to play with as our route chooses itself, having intended to approach if for much f the Summer, and as we descend to Morley Station for our 9am jump off, noting proper construction finally having started around the lift towers at the new station, we find our early going is all very familiar, down Valley Road past the old gasworks and mills, and onto the muddy avoiding path and thence down the railway-side, mostly undercover of overgrown foliage as we travel towards the White Rose Centre and its own woodland walk. This leads us out to the Dewsury Roads, amidst the tangling of the main road with the access way and the petrol stations, crossing over by the island in sight of the culverting Millshaw Beck and hitting the surprisingly long drag uphill on the A653 Dewsbury Road towards the greater city, with the railway bridge at the urban edge, beyond Stank Hall always being further along than expected, and running into Beeston Park Side, you become very much aware that we've already set two tracks in this direction, as we merge in with Ring Road Middleton, past the old St David's church and up to the Tommy Wass junction. The Dewsbury Road will be our obvious red route into the city, taking the left-side pavements along the dual carriageway to mix things up from our last trek this way in 2014, passing the long stretches of terraced ends of South Beeston around the shopping parade, across from the suburban semis that run down to the Broadway Inn and the Harrison Sparks plant, before we touch base with Cross Flatts Park, astonishingly less than an hour away from home, and pass the Dewsbury Road social club and the corner where we dwelled very briefly back in 1998, carrying on as industry bumps up to the lane, as the terraces return to the roadside, displaying a fine ghost sign before we pass the former cinema (and 'health club') on the Parkside Lane corner.
Sunday, 17 September 2023
Morley to Baildon 16/09/23
The warm week away that we had already feels like a distant memory as gloom and chill return to the atmosphere of West Yorkshire for the last weekend of the Summer, ensuring that there will be no long pushes across the county as we get into the Late Season, with the impetus that we gained already feeling squandered as we start pulling up the shorter treks that we had in mind for the dwindling days of the year, not that I feeling in anything like the condition that would be needed for tilting at a trail in excess of 14 miles now, as getting back into work and the midst of a physical task that we we all seem to feel the need to get to the end of as quickly as possible has burnt off a whole bunch of energy. So the modest treks from home will start as we aim at the Aire valley again, meeting the start line at Morley station at 9.20am, with our north-westerly path rising above the station site to observe the completion(?) of the drainage works that had left a deep, flooded hole in the car park, and passing on into the empire of bungalows again, passing over Daisy Hill and up King George Avenue to trail out to the A643 Victoria Road to observe that the Laneside housing development is coming on at a pace as houses spread out over the once green fields to the south, already looking like some might be plausibly liveable by the end of the year. Across the main road, we enter the suburban hinterland of Morley and Churwell, keeping things green as we drop down among the urban woods along Westwood Side before we join the track that leads into Daffil Woods and wander on among the local nature preserve before joining the field path that leads us under the M621 and on to the view towards Leeds that casts it in a dense pall, before arriving on the track that services the farmsteads of Rooms, before we come down to pass under the old bridge on the New Leeds Line and emerge beyond onto the A62 between the trailer park and the Jewish Cemeteries. Over Gelderd Road and we rise again, up the track to and onto the field paths around Spring End farm, elevating ourselves onto the Farnley Wood hillside, to join the high path across its top, still admirable for its lack of suburban growth, and also being the namesake of the (unsuccessful) 1663 plot against the Restoration government of Charles II which I learned about on one of my many wiki-crawls, getting little of a projected horizon abounds due to the low cloud, before we meet the path that leads us over to New Farnley, over the hillcrest and away from the flocks of gulls and crows that are supervising the ploughing, and tracking downhill to the yard of the house with a concrete alligator in it.
Sunday, 10 September 2023
Morley to Guiseley 09/09/23
After an immensely satisfying week away, our long week off, and holiday, continues as we return to West Yorkshire, bringing the bright and warm spell with us, which guarantees I'll be getting our for another trek despite still having Mum around the place, as she stays on for a Sunday dinner date, but as she's in the position of having some writing of her own to catch up that she didn't get done whilst away, it gives me freedom to get back into the business of Shuffling the Tiers by pulling up the first trail that I'd slated for this scheme, plotted quite a while back when I though there really weren't all that many original trajectories left to walk away from Morley, somewhat naively, it would seem. We start at Morley station, at 9.20am in the already gathering warmth of a late Summer morning, to observe the works at the new station where they've gotten very good at assembling scaffolding around the lift towers without actually building anything, before we set off up the steps to King George Croft and New Bank Street to find another original path through this town, this time tracing a pavement through the empire of bungalows on the Croft House estate, negotiating multiple corners to emerge onto Church Street and to cut a corner to cross the A643 Victoria Road and renew the theme by pacing the pavements of Springfield Road and Avenue through the suburban estate east of the Ingles, with its namesake house concealed within. Also note that The Arkle inn didn't survive the pandemic era closure before the way is found out via Woodland Drive and Horsfall Street to land us on the very familiar side of Asquith Avenue to bet onto our north-westerly trajectory, passing through Dean Wood and rising to the A62 by the Gildersome Arms to cross into the village and deliberately shift onto the right-side pavement to vary things up as we descend Branch End Road to pass the Old Griffin Head and come down Harthill Parade to the Green and the War Memorial, ahead of passing the Village hall and Library and the curious wood carved sculptures that grace the sides of Town Street.
Friday, 8 September 2023
Rumination: Summer Jollies (with Trains, Birds & the Night Skies)
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| Esk View cottage might be the best letting we've scored so far! |
Thursday, 7 September 2023
Rosedale Railways #2: Rosedale Circular 06/09/23
Two warm and pleasant days off from the trail are spent, filled with activity before we get back to the business of the walking plan for this round of Summer Jollies, and we did not expect moorland mist to be on our menu in the midst of our warm spell, as it hangs in the air for the full duration of our 23+ mile ride out onto the moorland top, during which Mum demonstrates an amount of fearlessness in her motoring that belies her years as we tool our way up to the crest of Blakey Ridge again, to resume our exploration of the railway and ironworking that took place in the moorland edges of Rosedale, which falls away to the west and south of the road we ride the high road. We alight at 9.45am at Blakey Junction, with a 5 hour trip in our sights as we descend beside the infilled cutting that passed under the ridge road, down to the site of the Little Blakey hamlet that stood by the division of the railway lines around both sides of Rosedale, of which nought but feint foundation remnants remain in the landscape, and we'll head south from here, down the western branch, for reasons that will become apparent as we start our circular tour, with the mist already burning off as we pass through the gate by the end of the long switchback siding, with mist still obscuring views to the east, and the kiln complexes at the end of the eastern branch, which will get much of the day's attention. It's a steady contour-hugging walk to enjoy as we progress south, at about 360m with only the slightest of declines as we trot away on a decent cinder track surface, with sleeper markings still present underfoot as we look over the valley of Rosedale, trying to get some context of the landscape below as move on among the banks of purple heather that illuminate in the sunshine behind us, settling into the shallow cuttings that run atop the edge of the Glead Holes edge, and looking down across the long rib of Middle Ridge, where it looks like a huge piece of the valley side sloughed its way downhill in antiquity, leaving a scarred and wild landscape in its wake, one not caused by human mining or quarrying activity, with our surroundings becoming more steadily apparent as we track south.
Monday, 4 September 2023
Rosedale Railways #1: Battersby to Blakey Junction 03/09/23
Late Summer Jollies arrive, not a moment too soon, and we're off to stay in Ruswarp, a stone's throw up the Esk Valley from Whitby to operate as our base as Mum and I get in a week of relaxation and I can target some walking on the North York Moors, having trailed the coastal railway path and dropped feet on my OL27 plate for the first time in the Spring, it's time to get onto the OL26 map for the first time as the 20 miles of the Rosedale Railways on the remote High Moors, demand my attention as a complete change of scenery from all my day tripping from home, and not least because I've had them on my walking target list for longer than I can immediately recall. They're not especially local to where we're staying of course, and instead of using the Parental Taxi privileges to get to the start line, we'll catch a train up the Esk Valley line instead, starting out relatively late due to the scheduling of the Sunday services, and already in the grip of warm Summer conditions that we haven't seen the like of in two months, having snared a cheap ride for only £3 and travelling along a line I've seen in part before, having ridden the NYMR section to Grosmont in 2016, and as far as Danby back in 1985 in order to visit the National Park centre (Oh Hi, School Trip Memories!) and thence it's a dawdle into the unknown, beyond the head of the valley and into the catchment of the Tees where we can alight at Battersby, that odd junction station where all services have to reverse, in the apparent middle of nowhere. We'll depart here at 11.25am, away from the station complex and the long terraces of railway cottages shadowing the start of the branch line as it split off towards the moors, looming large on the southern horizon, a wholly industrial line constructed by the NER in 1858 to service the distant ironstone mines in Rosedale, creating a significant freight interchange in this landscape where the only immediate remnant to see is the crossing house on Stone Stoup Hill, from whence we have to follow the turns of the local lanes with the trackbed inaccessible through the fields, allowing attention to wander to scoping our surroundings, placing the Captain Cook monument on Easby Moor, and the anvil peak of Roseberry Topping behind us to the north, while a trio of prominent moorland tops rise like knuckles on the edge of the Cleveland Hills to the southwest of us.
Wednesday, 30 August 2023
Morley to Wakefield (Westgate) 28/08/23
If August Bank Holiday Weekend had failed to provide a walkable weekend, we might have rioted, but we are pared the consequences of that, despite the fact of both Saturday and Sunday presenting better weather than forecast, though with a few intense downpours in amongst, while Monday, when we did choose to leave the house gave us gloomier coverage than projected, albeit with no rain, so altogether a mixed bag of a Long Weekend, where the additional days of inactivity at the start felt like a bit of a bonus, having had a rough week at work, delving into the latest project that will certainly wear us out, physically moving half of the hospital libraries files around in order to condense our workspace. I'm recovered enough to go once our mandated extra day off comes along, with four more orphaned destinations in our locality targeted as we arrive at Morley Station at 9.55am, having a fresh-ish route to the south figured out as we rise up the steps from Valley Road to Albert Road and trot out past the old Morley Main colliery site to the merger with Peel Street, in order to find the ginnel that sneaks its way between the houses on Denshaw Drive and Crescent and across to Wide Lane opposite the Gillroyd terrace, before another passage leads us into the site of Gillroyd Mill, and the pavements of Millside Walk and Millbeck Approach can lead us down to Magpie Lane. Rise beyond along Peacock Green into the suburban knot on Burn Knolls where every road has a bird's name, with this lane seeming to set off with purpose before petering out by the playing fields that are home to Morley Town FC, which are crossed to meet Ingleborough Drive, which in turn leads us to the secret passage into the back of the Topcliffe Grove close, itself built on the site of Glen Mills, through which we pass to meet Topcliffe Lane, ending our novel trek in sight of the enduring mills on this hillside as we join the old railway path that leads over to Capitol business park, between to West Ardley Colliery site and the Ardsley railway triangle, hone now to the yards of AvailableCar.com and the Tradeteam distribution depot.
Sunday, 20 August 2023
Morley to Oakenshaw 19/08/23
The first pair of weekends in August are lost to poor weather, not catastrophically wet but fundamentally uninspiring when energy levels are low, having endured two busy weeks at work in the LGI, launching a new collection routine after finally closing down our mostly empty library in the Clarendon Wing and concentrating service into a single office, which would have proved hard work for me come the weekends regardless of our current conditions, which has me feeling that the 2020-esque second half of the season which we might have hoped for is most likely going to be replaced by a 2021 styled Summer of disappointment and junked plans. Honestly, though, the inertia de to reduced stamina is more troubling to this August than the weather has been so far, as both weekends promoted activity that I could have engaged in, but didn't, with engineering possessions on the railway prompting the belief that the new footbridge spans at White Rose station were finally due to be installed, and the BBC Proms bringing a concert, albeit one of chamber music, to Dewsbury Town Hall, about as ever as we'll get to home, but the lack of trains to use on a Sunday, coupled to the busing shenanigans that would have been otherwise necessary to get there, meant that it might as well have been on the Moon for how accessible it would have been for me. So August is well on its way, and almost on its way out once we can get to our first trip of the month, pulling up the shortest available on on the slate to get busy with the other season specific trend for 2023, as Shuffling the Tiers has also revealed a whole bunch of Tier 2 destinations, now abandoned far from its outer perimeter and now looking lost among the extensive reaches of the trails of Tier 1, where to my tidy mind feels they ought to be, and that's why we will be 'Gathering The Orphans' in Season 12 as well, and we've got three of them to aim for today, scattered across North Kirklees, and in the Spen Valley.
Sunday, 30 July 2023
Morley to Apperley Bridge 29/07/23
It transpires that hurrying back Up Country after my jaunt down to Leicestershire proved to be a complete waste if time as the fourth week of July got lost under an almost constant dousing of rain, keeping me at home to settle into domestic tasks and characteristic bursts of lethargy, as I pondered how we could be experiencing so much gloom, wetness and air temperatures that rarely breach 20C in the UK, when southern Europe is baking, and indeed burning, as a heatwave in excess of 40C has settled in, with us sat protected by the jet stream ensuring that we have the apparently miserable summer while Spain, Italy and especially Greece suffer something much, much worse. July's fifth weekend thus presents us with the first opportunity to drop feet in West Yorkshire for the first time in a literal month, while an almost nice day of weather settles in on Saturday morning as we drop in at Morley station for a 9.30am launch, noting that the new development below has moved on a bit in the last week, gaining steel frame towers to accommodate the new lifts, after building work went rather quiet after the soft opening of a month ago, and the route forward sends us up Station Road again, where the re-roofing of Dartmouth Mill continues at a snails pace still, and the factory-mill opposite the rec seems to have new foundations laid where the demolished lean-to annex once stood. Travel proper gets underway past Morley Bottoms as we rise from Brunswick Street sharply up Bank Street for bit of route variation to find that Victoria Road work is up, opposite the primary school, for some roadworks which are sure to cause come bus shenanigans in the coming days, before we keep things varied with a trot up Nepshaw Lane, the old road that leads to the new suburban enclave at Farm Hill Road, which leads us back to the trail of Asquith Avenue, our unavoidable route over the M621 and through Dean Wood before we shift onto Gilhusum Road to pass again through the industrial estate dominated by the Sainsbury's-Argos depot and Johnson's Hotel Laundry complex.
Thursday, 20 July 2023
Syston to Humberstone 19/07/23
After our Three Day Weekend, we immediately shift over into our Nine Day Weekend, or early Summer break, which I'm spending Down Country with the intent of getting into the gradual tidy-up and clear-out at Mum's house, which has now entered its fifth year and continues its minimal progress as me get into more yard work than planned, as there are hedges and trees to be trimmed, a lawn to be mown and a lot of weeding and pruning to be done, all of which turn out to be major tasks when we both have only about 90 minutes of active stamina to be working with, and she at least has the excuse of being north of 80, while I'm still trying to toil through the post-Covid experience. The legs can still go though, as seemingly the most enduring power source in my body, and when Mum has a day of church synod business in Nottingham, I have the opportunity to walk in the Old Country again, getting dropped off somewhere that's convenient for her whilst en route, and that transpires to be at The Gate Hangs Well inn, on the old Fosse Way to the north of Syston village on the banks of the river Wreake, where we won't be tilting any further up the Roman Road and up the ridge towards Six Hills among the traffic on the A46, but will instead take a bit of a tour around the other major river valley in Leicestershire before tilting for home, to see how greater Leicester is swelling outwards, far beyond the city's boundaries. So we alight at 9.30, at the northernmost extremity of Syston's parish, and set off north, immediately crossing the river Wreake via Lewin's bridge, and strike into the riverside meadows, where the local cattle are only too happy to usher me on my way away from them, over a drainage ditch and under the A607 via the flood relief passages and into the fields beyond, where big birds in the raptor fashion are disturbed and the ridged and furrowed fields make for some heavy going as we press on to re-join the riverbank, passing below the wooded tumulus of Shipley Hill as we push south of the Soar - Wreake watershed ridge. Heading upstream, we enter the woods along the tightening riverside, which gets us into some dense vegetation and undergrowth as the walkable space diminishes, which gets out boots and trews dampened up nicely while the route finding starts to get a bit speculative, having us feeling rather lost when a fallen tree blocks the path, despite being directly across the reedy channel from Beedles Lake golf course, and it's a fight to get back on track before we find the ROW pulling us away from the river and alongside a concealed farmstead as we are drawn on to Broome Lane, ending our off-roading exploits a step or two away from Ratcliffe corn mill, its cottages and phantom canal bridge.
Monday, 10 July 2023
July's Three Day Weekend 07-09/07/23
Alighting on the second weekend of July, we find that it's a long one, with an extra day booked off so that I might be able to have a weekend at My Sister's place without having to run the gauntlet of Friday commuter traffic, but as they have a situation with My Elder Niece having finished her GCSEs and My Younger Niece having a strike day which coincides with one of the warmest and brightest days in a short while, the opportunity is there for a whole family day out, giving them a plan to travel out from Bolton to Brimham Rocks in their new van, with me meeting them midway along by hopping the train to Skipton as the most practical and least time-consuming of the meet up options. It's relatively shocking to realise than almost 6 years have elapsed since I was last out here on the high north side of Nidderdale, though the landscape abounding on the upper limit of my Field of Walking Experience still seem totally familiar as My Sis ad I take a rather languid stroll around the rock formations and among the wild semi-moorland, while Dr G and the Girls get on with some bouldering in the sunshine, which could barely be counted as a proper walk as we amble about for the better part of three hours, wandering well past the limits of the National Trust site and regularly finding places in the shade to sit and contemplate the landscape and our place in it. I think we might be both feeling our age, as I continue to toil with my Post-Covid Experience and the struggles of balancing it with working life, while she contemplates her daughters on the cusp on actual adulthood and reflects on where she was at a similar time in her life, aided by the rediscovery of her old journals and diaries of the period and her desire to revisit the music and style choices of the very late 1980s, which carries us on a nostalgic wave as we wander and then travel away in the late afternoon, back over the Pennines via the East Lancs valley, at least while we're not trying to talk around the problems of the world that have expanded over the last 7 years. This weekend could easily be counted as an extension of the hiatus in my walking year when Saturday's plans fall apart thanks to a rum turn in the weather, with much more cloud and rain, and much less heat, passing over to prevent our planned jaunt down the green path of the Irwell valley coming to naught, so our travel to the city has four of us travelling to the Manchester Museum instead (without Younger Niece who's already becoming a social firefly), and I'm always going to be game for some natural history presented in an interesting way to fill my afternoon, before we pass another evening with takeout Mexican food, beers and a session in fron of the TV, catching up on the Tour de France and watching 'This is Spinal Tap' and 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' (and if you wish to see me act like a total normie, just observe my reactions to the latter of those, because What is Going On in that Movie!?).
Sunday, 2 July 2023
Rumination: Morley Gets A New Station
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| New Station means Selfies! at Morley 'New' Station. |
After a rough start to the year, we finally managed to get a good turn on the walking year as passed through May and June, but as the midway point on the year arrives, we need to have a rest from the regular weekends on the trail, as we already feel like we've been spreading ourselves rather thin with the efforts of keeping myself going through working and walking in the midst of the post-covid experience and having put a decent wad of miles downs so far, a rest feels overdue, before we refocus ourselves on the task in hand, namely getting a whole 300 (Three Hundred!) miles down on the year, a triumphant sounding amount that's still less than half of what I achieved in 2022. It doesn't mean that we don't have things to talk about though, as there's not been a shortage of things going on locally, even if we're going to have to cast our minds back a bit, which shouldn't be too much of problem considering the usual condition of this blog, to two weekends ago, when the engineering possession through Morley station was only on its second day, and I decided to stay in to dedicate myself to writing and housework on Sunday 18th June, with full anticipation that redevelopment progress was going to be slow and the main activity of the long week would be tidily spread out and thus easily observable on the casual. This turned out to be a poor choice, as when I rose on the early morning on the Monday and progressed down to the station to await the rail replacement bus, we found that a lot of activity had gone on since my passing by on Saturday morning, with the footbridge span removed and the 'up' platform completely dug out, with the rails and ballast on the Manchester-bound side also removed and the alignment partially flooded, (due to rain or the spill out from the concealed stream below) with drainage being apparently installed, which pretty definitively drops the curtain on the old L&NWR Morley Low station after almost 175 years, marking my arrival there on the Friday as the last of the in excess of 6,000 journeys that I must have made via it since arriving in town in 2007.
Sunday, 25 June 2023
Morley to Deighton 24/06/23
This past week certainly has been a busy one, with no trains to ride on my working days due to the engineering possession, and all my comings and goings to three hospital sites across the cities having to be on a variety of buses, with the potentially unlimited strike by Firstbus drivers only lasting two days in amongst to keep things manageable, which allowed me plenty of oppotrubites to stroll locally after work to see exaxtly what was going on at Morley station, and at the ongoing development at White Rose, tales which will probably ned to be recounted at another time as all that chatter could easliy derail the account of wandering for this weekend otherwise. We're hardly feeling full of beans as Summer arrives, rising late and strolling to our start line rather casually, turning our back on the developments at the station before we start out at 9.55am, with our eyes on the trail to the Colne valley that we imagined into existence after our failure of two weeks ago, heading west along station road, by Dartmouth Mill and the Rec, and noting that the factory redevelopment on the south side is indeed becoming residential as dormer windows emerge from its roof, ahead of the roll up to Morley Bottoms, where the closed off stub of Queen Street has been reopened to wreak havoc on the block paving, where we rise up to Scatcherd Park, passing below the Cenotaph and through Hopkins gardens to our way away up Queensway. It's all familiar going beyond too, past Morrisons and the Leisure centre, and up to the civic complex of fire station, police station and health centre on Corporation Street, which is passed as we join Scatcherd Lane, to take us past the Cricket and Rugby Union clubs and on to Dartmouth Park, which is shadowed as St Andrew Avenue leads up to its eponymous church and the A650 Bruntcliffe Road, which is crossed to finally make a new path, into the Lego house estate of St Andrews View, where Perry Way leads us over the crest to the reveal of the views to Emley Moor mast and the Calder catchment, ahead of the footbridge over the M62 and our winter astronomy spot.
Sunday, 18 June 2023
Morley to Low Moor 17/06/23
Another 9-day engineering possession lands on the railway line through Morley as we arrive at the weekend bracketing the Top of the Year (already!), not that it will have that much impact on our plans, as we’re going to be walking from home for most of this year, and the difficulties will only become apparent on our return legs if we were to pick route that needed a pathway back via Leeds, Huddersfield or Calderdale, which we’re not up for today as energy levels are low while the days are at their longest, and we’ll be pulling the shortest possible trip up from our slate of plans. We might be planning to head west for today, but we need to linger at Morley station when we arrive, just ahead of 9am as there’s a whole lot to observe going on here, not least the fact that the line closure hasn’t been a factor in the installation of the new station footbridge which has had its support stanchions and deck installed while the line was still open last week, and removal of the old footbridge is going to be a primary objective over the next week, as well as track re-laying, as rails and sleepers are being removed on the ‘Up’ side toward Manchester, apparently only a few months after they were renewed. We’ll also visit our other vantage point while we are here, below the green space off Seven Hills Way, where the new station can be over-viewed, at least on the ‘Up’ side where it’s all fully surfaced, edged and fenced, with signage installed too and looking almost complete aside from the fact that it’s inaccessible due to a lack of steps on the footbridge, and no exits apparently existing to the Valley Road side, and it’s altogether difficult getting the looks that we had some months back from up here, as Spring growth of the vegetation atop the bank has gotten so thick and tall as to pose quite the obstacle to a short-arse like myself.
Sunday, 11 June 2023
Morley to Mirfield 10/06/23
We seem to have arrived on the first hot spell of the year, in mid June, as we reach the end of my first worked five day week in a while, and there's no telling if the energy levels are going to keep up for regular walking days as we attempt to push on towards the Summer, as my body has gotten used to working shorter weeks through May, though we're not getting too ambitious with our planning yet as there are at least 14 destinations around West Yorkshire that could be plausibly walked from home and added to the local Tier of Relative Proximity, and we've sights set on three of them for today as we set out, aiming ourselves towards Kirklees district for the first time in a while. There's no morning chill to be had as we arrive at our start line, at Morley station naturally, at 9.05am, and thus attempts to stay ahead of the swell of warmth count for nought, despite getting out an hour earlier than usual, and I can already feel like I'm getting a work out as we set off away up Station Road, noting Dartmouth Mills getting reconstructive works after suffering a fire last year, and rise up the angled path that leads up to Albert Road, where we join Troy Road and pass over Troy Hill by the still derelict St Mary in the Wood, around to Commercial Street, which we quit via Little Lane by the library and the the unity hall, down the ginnel that leads to Queen Street and the looming presence of the Town Hall. Pass behind that pile via Wellington Street and up through the Windsor Court shopping centre and on through Morrisons car park up to the civic complex on Corporation Street, where we hang a left past St Francis of Assisi RC church and the Fountain centre, as well as the WMC and the GNR goods shed, to join Fountain Street to lead us off to the southwest, pacing the sunny side of the street for a change in an attempt to get a different perspective on a local landscape that we've observed up close a good many times already as we track a way down from the Morley Academy to the Fountain Primary school, with all the terraced fronts and ends lying between, down to the former chapels on the A650 corner.
Sunday, 4 June 2023
Morley to Normanton 03/06/23
We were very fortunate through the whole month of May to have not worked a single five day week across the whole width of it, and as we find ourselves at the first weekend of June, that five week run comes to an end, and thus we'll have to start worrying if the stamina is going to hold up after a very testing four day burst in the hospital libraries, followed by no scheduled time off until mid-July, so hopefully a return to sunny days will give me a mental lift to propel me on through the High Season, rather than proving physically draining as my body has yet to get itself into the early Spring mindset, as we veer dangerously close to your actual Summer. So, sunshine abounds as we head out, from Morley station once again, at 10am, and setting a course to the southeast as our quest to add new destinations to the local tiers, and to shuffle the routes beyond continues, rising from Valley Road up the long step flight again and feeling like we're soon going to be at a total loss for new routes away from this town as we join Clough Street again, ahead of visiting Denshaw Drive and Grove in our ongoing attempt to Watchperson every pavement hereabouts on our way towards Newlands Academy and the Gardeners Arms, where Wide Lane is joined to push us east, beyond the suburban reach and into the fields of Owlers. Meet and cross Dewsbury Road, and join the West Wood Road track for the n-th time as it drops down beyond the A653, passing over Millshaw Beck and rising under the railway lines current and former, before meeting West Wood and the intermittent shade that comes with paths along the periphery of the Middleton hillside, a route which I'm really glad that I haven't tired of having seen so much of it in recent years, and one which we surprisingly have to ourselves as the heat starts to bear down already, especially on the exposed stretch uphill to meet Sissons Wood, where the views back west across Morley, and northwest to Rombalds Moor, always entertain my brain, despite their familiarity to me.
Monday, 29 May 2023
Morley to Sandal 28/05/23
Three rest days later, and after some extra fortification thanks to a whole family get together lunch at the Booth Wood inn on the Ripponden & Oldham Road (which looks like it could become a regular tradition), we ought to be ready to go again as we find ourselves back at home on the middle day of the Spring Bank Holiday weekend, with the prospect of a filled slate for the month for the first time this year, and the marker of 100 miles on the year finally falling into view, which prompts us to Sunday walking despite the gloom gathering once again, to reveal that all those bright days still haven't heated the aits all that much. Left to my own devices once more, there's no impetus to get going at a hurry, as we return to the business of finding new trajectories out of Morley towards every railway station within reasonable walking distance, not getting going until we've seen what's happening at our own local development, where work continues on the new platforms and footbridge, with new lampposts being added to the mix, before our trail starts, southbound for a change at 10.30am, rising up the steps flight to Albert Road, noting that some recent tree felling has revealed a new angle on the Miners Arms that hadn't been seen previously, before we strike off, along Clough Street, between terraces and semis down to Middleton Terrace. We seek the path among the local green spaces among the developments on the Gilroyd Mills site and among the closes around Magpie Lane, passing in leafy seclusion across Peacock Green and down to Topcliffe Beck before we start the sharp rise up Topcliffe Lane, towards Topcliffe farm, where much heavy agricultural machinery is arriving, and on around the West Ardsley colliery site, with its tramway embankments still visible, before we pass through the Capitol Park office complex again, dropping down to meet the A653 Dewsbury Road which is crossed by the Highway Agency maintenance depot and the site of the lost Tingley station.
Saturday, 27 May 2023
Rumination: Spring Jollies & Planet Spotting
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| Blogging with a View, in Scarborough. |
Thursday, 25 May 2023
The Cinder Track #2 - Ravenscar to Whitby 24/05/23
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| Long Distance Trail Means Selfies! #2 at Ravenscar |
Monday, 22 May 2023
The Cinder Track #1 - Scarborough to Ravenscar 21/05/23
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| Long Distance Trail means Selfies! #1 at Scarborough |
Sunday, 14 May 2023
Morley to Horsforth 13/05/23
It's not really related to what we're doing today, as we already lack trains going through Morley due to another engineering possession and there's another train strike happening this weekend too, but on 11th May it was announced that Trans Pennine Express were not getting their franchise renewed, which is a rare bit of good news for us travellers to hear after many months (and years?) of their failure to maintain services and self induced industrial strife, which means we might have a competent operator taking on the North Country's premier express services once the mainline upgrade is finally completed in the 2036-41 window. Anyway, the good start to May continues as we rise to another Saturday trail, hopeful that the early gloom will shift before too long as we target a new trail from home to my local Old Country and beyond, starting out from Morley station at 10.15 am and heading down the Valley Road path with only the most cursory of glances being given to the deliveries of aggregate as I'm actually growing bored of spotting local freight trains now, heading on down by the Gasworks and Valley Mills site to strike for the fields beyond, rising over the false ridge and equestrian fields that have Cotton Mill beck concealed beneath it, and down again on the Millshaw Beck side. Land by the gas plant and exposed stream ahead of the staff car park at the south end of the White Rose centre, where we pass across the access road, and the A6110 Ring Road carefully, to progress up the side of Dewbury Road as to comes down the hill, rising up towards the railway bridge and the path to Stank Hall farm, passing up by the side of the former GNR Hunslet Goods line and soon enough find ourselves in the exact same part of Beeston Park Side that we visited last weekend, by old St David's and coming up to the Tommy Wass corner, where we'll swap sides to progress north rather than east (or in reality, South).
Monday, 8 May 2023
Morley to Woodlesford 07/05/23
The long Coronation bonus bank holiday weekend is a most welcome arrival, not that I'm at all engaged with the on-going shenanigans for KC3, aside from the Musicks, but more so that it gives me an extra day to rest up and get busy housework-wise, before we get back to the business of walking on Sunday, having had three whole weeks off the trail since last my last venture, and it's just as well that my scheming for the next phase of season 12 is to feature walking from home on previously unseen trajectories, as we've got two whole weekends of engineering possessions on the Leeds - Huddersfield line, which means there's no quick way to get out of (or back to) Morley, even if I wanted one. So we start from Morley station in a familiar fashion, departing at 10.15am and rising with the path above the cliff above the carpark to observe how the platforms have been built up on the new station site and to see that the support columns for the new footbridge have been installed, sure to arrive during the line closure in June, I'd figure, while there's more aggregate being delivered by rail which does get you wondering where it's all going, and this all needs to be observed from the green space on Seven Hills Way too, just to get the reverse angles from the rock cliff above the new station. We get going properly by rising up to Daisy Hill and setting off to the northwest, to find that a new rough track has been gouged out beside the path from the A643 down to Gasworks Crossing, though its not apparent of this is for railway work or future suburban development reaching down from Laneside, but the feeling is we'll have to enjoy the fields of Broad Oaks while they still endure, heading up through the farm to observe the growth at White Rose station on the other side of the hill, where the lift shaft tower on the south side has started to be assembled, to be seen from the footbridge path as a Kestrel buzzes the local wildlife.
Monday, 1 May 2023
Rumination: Returning to the Support Bubble
The Following is For Reference Only.
One year ago, on the very same weekend at the end of April, I made the second of my trips to Manchester with My Good Friends from Calderdale, for beers, food and the music of RVW, which marked the final collapsing of the public social interaction bubble which had been forcibly imposed in March 2020 and which I chose to maintain for more than three years, and at the remove of 12 months I find myself at an entirely different philosophical place than I did when the passing of the Covid Pandemic seemed to have happened, almost entirely due to the lingering after effects of my own infection, six months ago. This time around, I'm ripping it up to Mytholmroyd and Manchester again on Saturday afternoon to enjoy a long weekend in the company of my still enduring Support Bubble, even though the wider climates have completely moved on, as a sociable weekend with them is good reason to take time out from the walking year and get in some proper R'n'R after the third stalling of my walking year, not that there will be too much activity going on as it's been a tiring few months for all, and friendly ears will be leant as we chat about enduring the effects of a post-Covid syndrome and living with CFS (which I really hope isn't the path I'm on). Chatter over food and wine, and whatever sports are on the TV, is all very well, but we also need additional entertainments, and the Sunday os the focus for these, as my visit manages to coincide with the Cragg Vale festival which sees the Cragg Road being closed for the morning as many local runners and cyclists take the opportunity to run and ride the length (or at least part of) the longest continuous road ascent in England, and back again, and these energetic feats need to be observed as we stroll up the valley as far as Lower Clough Fold before we get to the real meat of the May Day weekend. This sends us in the direction of the Bridgewater Hall, where an afternoon concert brings us the Poulenc Organ Concerto and Saint-Saens Symphony #3 (avec Orgue) as performed by the Halle Orchestra for one of the loudest, and busiest shows, that we've seen in a long while, where the opportunity is also presented for beer and food at Society, where Vocation Brewery still having a thriving business with a surprisingly diverse clientele, where three pints of their finest ales and pilseners can be consumed, along with Chicken Katsu Curry that literally hits all of the spots that it needs to.
Sunday, 23 April 2023
Rumination: The Tiers of Relative Proximity
Sunday, 16 April 2023
Headingley to Menston 15/04/23
Having had three rest days over the Easter weekend, and only worked four days of the following week, we feel good enough to go again as the next weekend rolls around, giving us a seemingly rare occasion for a bit of Saturday walking, not that we seem to have schemed out 2023 yet, aside from having an idea of targeting a number of railway station that haven't been used as destinations over the last 11 years, and maybe threading all my trails for the season into a single continuous line that reaches all over Leeds district, an idea that's as fanciful as it is ridiculous, one that would be sure to tie me in mental knots. Regardless, we ride out to Headingley on this gloomy morning, alighting at 10.05am and feeling none of the warmth in the air that we might be anticipating this year as we target a long stretch of road that we haven't approached in full along the days of our walking trails, to be found down the drop of Kirkstall Lane and beyond the Morris Lane crossing, where new development emerge on our left on the way down to Kirkstall Lights, where we take a right turn by the leisure centre to immediately join our trajectory for the day, north-westerly on the A65 where Abbey Road has had it Beatles connection noted as it leads us on between the Abbey Mills and West End Inn, and below the drop of the terrace ends. Just around the corner lies Kirkstall Abbey, the most enduring historical pile in the city which we haven't seen from the main road side on the course of my travels on foot, so a different aspect is presented as we go by its north face, passing the crowds that have already gathered in it parkland and progressing on pat the Abbey House museum and the fields of Burley RUFC on the way on past the Vesper Gate inn and on along the roadside to the Kirkstall Forge milestone marker and the observation that hardly any further development has occurred on the forge site itself since we first passed this way in 2017, judging by what we can see over the high perimeter wall that we pass around.
Saturday, 8 April 2023
Burley Park to Headingley via the Meanwood Valley 07/04/23
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| My N-th pair of Boots is ready to hit the trail! |
Friday, 31 March 2023
Rumination: The End (?) of Winter...
The Following is For Reference Only.
As we find ourselves five days into British Summer Time and a whole ten days into the flourishing of Spring, there seems to be no indication in the air that would suggest a change of seasons, and once again we find ourselves stymied in our walking ambitions at the end of our late March week of being NIW, and chilly climate and a pressing need to rest up prevent any action on Saturday, and after that the plan is to be Down Country at My Mum's place, where only one day presents itself as being even vaguely pleasant, which was Monday, but also presented itself as intensely cold meaning the most activity we had out of the house was touring around Sainsbury's. It's pretty clear from my point of view that all is still not well, and though I'm still not wholly willing to tag myself as having Long Covid, the physical indications all seem to be pointing that way, as my internal motivation seems to have no power to overcome my almost constant lethargy and to face down the lingering chill of winter that has now persisted unbroken for all of the first three months of the year, feeling significantly colder than the regularly snowy start of 2018, and offering little of the warm sunshine that overcame the late season icy blast that landed in 2013. My fatigue and stamina issues have also not aided me in having time for most of my creative endeavours, as paid work and regular chores have used up most of the energy that I have before we get them, and even in this week, where we find ourselves entering the fourth year of clearing the accumulated debris of personal history in Mum's house in the wake of My Dad's passing, getting busy proves to be beyond me as a burst of yard work, one trip around the loft and a final book raid from the shelves has me tuckered out by mid-afternoon and not much use for anything else. At the start of the month, My Sister sagely observed that I was probably struggling just as much mentally as I was physically, and at a few weeks remove I am now in complete agreement with her assessment as I've clearly settled into a depressed funk that is doing nothing to get me motivated when faced by a body that needs more mental stimuli than it ever did before, especially as it's not used to being unwell for a long period, something which I've never faced in my entire lifetime, which is particularly unfortunate to be attached to a grey and cold atmosphere which is doing my seasonally affected issues no favours at all.
Sunday, 19 March 2023
Cottingley to Burley Park 19/03/23
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.
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.