Rumination: Summer Jollies (with Trains, Birds & the Night Skies)

Featuring: Ruswarp to Whitby - 1.5 miles, via the Rail & Riverside Path. 07/09/23

Esk View cottage might be the
 best letting we've scored so far!

Back in May, I pontificated some on the real value of a holiday break away from home, having let the disappointing opening of the year pass away and getting the spirits lifted with a warm week away on the Yorkshire Coast to get my walking year going properly, and three months on from the revivifying benefits of my Spring Jollies, I can tell you that exactly the same benefit can be felt at the End Of Summer, having endured two of the most frustrating months of poor weather, low energy and lacking motivation, heading away from the persistent gloom and changeability that has blighted July and August to be rewarded with the bright and warm week and the universe knew I spiritually needed. It’s another Friday-Friday let that we’re taking, going back to the coastal edge of the North York Moors after Mum expressed an interest in staying in the vicinity of Whitby, and I pulled up a very plausible pair of walks on the moors that got plotted when I was first seeking out rail trails at the start of my walking escapades in 2012, having managed to find a cottage at a significant reduction in price for the week after the end of the schools Summer break, just outside the town in the village of Ruswarp (which is pronounced Ruh-sup, if you were wondering), in a peaceful little idyll of its own, away from the tight streets and general throng of visitors that comes with this most beloved of coastal settlements. Even arriving having passed over moors under the heaviest of damp palls hanging in the air via the A169 does not do anything to temper our enthusiasm that we feel for Esk View cottage, and even on arrival we know that we’ve scored ourselves a gem that will be absolutely ideal for our rest and relaxation needs, amply sized and quietly out of the way at the end of its close, right on the north bank of the river Esk, with its own terrace and directly across from the railway bridge, which means that there will be entertainment to be had, even when settled in at our holiday base, be it on the rails above the water’s surface, or on the banks and their surroundings. 

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!?).

Rumination: Morley Gets A New Station

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.

Rumination: Spring Jollies & Planet Spotting

Blogging with a View, in Scarborough.

Sometimes, the value of a week away from home really cannot be understated and before we press on into the High Season, it's worth pausing for a brief moment to contemplate just how good getting away from it all has been for me at the end of May, completely breaking away from all that's going on in my regular life and work in Leeds, and putting some considerable mental and physical distance between it and me, allowing me to properly unwind after some testing weeks and to allow me to get back into a creative mindset that had almost fallen way to the point of irredeemability, restoring my belief that I will be able to continue pursing the hobbies that I've invested so much into over the last decade. Peace and Quiet is wholly under-rated need in this age of almost constant activity, and we really managed to find that on this break away, keeping away from all the disturbances that you might expect when staying in a seaside town, which we were only just doing, as our let was to be found about three miles out from Scarborough town centre, right on the edge of the Throxenby and Newby estates, and looking over the hillsides of the North Yorkshire Moors, where the River Derwent and Scalby Beck rise, on an urban country lane where there was little traffic to be had outside of commuter hours, allowing us all the silence that we needed to allow us to unwind. Thusly, across all my days off the trail, we had time in the mornings and evening to get busy with catching up on almost two months worth of blogging, which you wouldn't know from the timestamps on these posts, but anyone who's been following me for a while should know that my time-keeping is a complete tissue of lies, and that I work better when away from my own desk, despite it being set up for my needs with an appropriately adjustable chair, leading me to conclude that I do my best work when sat at a dining table with an uncomfortable seat that needs to be padded with random cushions, working in a posture that surely couldn't be doing my back, neck or arm joints any favours. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

Out of The Dark Season, and Onward!

In all my walking years, I cannot recall a Dark Season which has passed as rapidly as this last one did, seemingly come and gone in about half the time that they'd normally take, and that has to be in part due to effectively going to ground completely after the end of 2021's open season, taking a well earned rest that rapidly turned into an extended period of isolation - hibernation as the risks posed by the Omicron wave of the Covid pandemic washed over ahead of Christmas, when all focus fell upon having a normal sort of Festive Season before we embarked on 2022's journey.  I can't place how we managed to get January to shift through so quickly though, as it's always the month of the year that feels like it's over six weeks long, but this one has flushed through in no time too, come and gone rapidly after getting in our necessary weekend of social interaction at its start while toiling through a busy month at the hospital which never gave me the opportunity to feel bored, with the sunshine returning in the evenings with almost indecent haste, all combining to make our passage from Samhain to Imbolc, via the festivities of Yule, almost bizarrely short. Maybe it helps to find distractions to pass the time away, and becoming a moon watcher in 2022 has helped with that, as I've never quite been familiar with its phases and location in the sky through its orbits, and this has been a particularly good month for watching it wax and wane, awhile taking an interest in seeing it in its crescent and gibbous forms, revealing it cratered features and many mares when contrasted in shadow, around the appearance of January's full moon, the Wolf Moon, which I can only hope every howled at on the evening of the 17th. Now having a decent idea of where to look for it in the mornings and evenings, that can be fitted in around a renewed engagement with a bit of astronomy, an interest of mine that has become very minor over the the last decade, and the month has also been spent spying Jupiter in the evenings during the early going, while chasing Venus in the dawning skies later on, both repeating the reality-altering experiences of my youth when I first regarded them with binoculars, namely spotting the former's system of Galilean moons across the vastness of space, and seeing the latter resolve as a crescent showing it as a planet, and not just a bright star in the morning sky.