The Conclusions of 2015

The Festive season passes and so does 2015, slipping into history, and with a New Year underway, it's a good moment to look back to the last walking season, already further away in the past than the next one is in the future, and the best news to report is that everyone made to 2016. There had been significant doubt that My Dad had many more days left in him during the darkest days of October but now, six weeks on from his discharge, He's giving every impression of being able to be around for quite a while yet, and thus we are still a complete family as I look forwards to the coming year, but before we go on, the question has to be asked; What did we learn in 2015?

The Aire's Fury 28/12/15

A Stroll along the Aire from Whitehall Road to the Royal Armouries.

As anyone should be aware, on Boxing Day 2015, rain in the wake of Atlantic storm Eva brought flooding to many parts of Lancashire and Yorkshire, causing record peak flow on many rivers and causing at least six major rivers to burst their banks to bring devastation and misery in their wakes. I managed to personally avoid the worst of the weather, having been celebrating Christmas with My Parents in Leicester but on return to the North Country it made sense to put on my boots and do something useful, though personal involvement in the clean up operations was probably beyond my scope. Travelling to aid my friends in Mytholmroyd was out of the question with the town centre still underwater, and heading out to Kirkstall was improbable due to the flooding of the A65, and so I had to limit myself to where was straightforwardly accessible, and that would be the banks of the Aire through the city of Leeds. Even two days after the rain had passed the river was still elevated and full of fury, providing a handy reminder that when nature chooses, all of the will and engineering of humanity can do little to contain it, and the implacable natural forces unleashed will do their thing with little regard for what has been put in their way.



Upstream from Whitehall Road bridge, the Aire may have dropped from its peak but it still
rides well above its usual level and roars with a fury that you wouldn't normally hear.

Rumination: The End... For Now

The 2015 season reaches its end.

And then, the Rain came. Another walking year thus draws to a close, ultimately undone by precipitation, and whilst this has been a year that has been generally warm, there has been quite a lot of wetness in amongst, I feel I have been fortunate in having avoided most of it, only four days over the entire nine month season have been affected, and only one unduly. So when the rain does come, and coming on pretty hard on as of 7 o'clock this morning, the immediate instinct is to roll back into the warmth of my bed and call time on the season, the weather projection of heavy rainfall until at least 1pm has my enthusiasm dropping to absolute minimum. It doesn't honestly matter that the sun has returned brightly as we write now, a soaking at the start of an autumnal day would dampen any joy that a stretch of exercise might have otherwise engendered.

That's the season done, then, I've managed to keep dry for so much of it, and have no desire to take a three hour dousing on the trail between Outwood and Micklefield, and unlike 2013, when I hoped that the year might offer me another day past my regular stopping time, this year all targets have been met and exceeded, and then some, with me feeling no loss at all at missing out on the last day. 600+ miles on the 2015 season is quite enough, and virtually every day since the high days of Summer has had me struggling to get my enthusiasm stoked up, but every day has had me getting going eventually, and that's been the motto for the year really, 'Just Keep Going', as sage a piece of advice that I could offer to myself, and to anyone else for that matter. This walking season has been a lot of fun, but my focus can now shift elsewhere, as once past my 41st birthday, I'll be off down country to see My Parents, to see what help I can offer now that My Dad has been shifted from the Stroke Unit and into the care of Rehab Medicine. Initial indications suggest that his physical rehab is coming on well, and if 'Just Keep Going' is a motto that has served me well, I hope it might be one that serves the whole family well in the coming days, weeks and months.

Next Up: What have we learned in 2015?

Glasshoughton to Cross Gates 31/10/15

11.4 miles, via Cutsyke, Whitwood, Mickletown, RSPB St Aiden's, Swillington, Colton
 & Austhorpe.

Back up country for the last couple of weeks of the season, feeling secure to be here as news from Leicester had been mixed, with the result of my Dad's MRI scan showing the possibility of him having a brain tumour, but the team at the Infirmary deciding to put him into the process for discharge to the Rehabilitation unit. Anxiety inducing news for sure, but the lack of urgency at their end is enough reason to feel that things may not be immediately serious. So I return to my familiar haunts, with the walkable season fading fast, with a plan to stitch the two halves of my walking season together, attaching the late season lands of Wakefield district to the early season territory to the east of Leeds.

Today brings me to yet another fresh station to check off the WY Metro list, starting out from Glasshoughton, between Castleford and Pontefract at 9.25am, early enough to get ahead of the crowds who alight here to visit Xscape and the Junction 32 retail park, many of whom would probably be unaware that this was a colliery site only three decades ago. My ancient E289 shows none of the developments that have grown since then, but the eye can still be drawn to the dark soils of the spoil tips to the south of the railway line, and there's a post industrial feel to all the rough land along the side of Thunderhead Ridge (yes, that is the road's name), and the big clue to this site's use is the considerable colliery memorial sculpture located on the A639 island, reminding the visitors of the industry which endured here from 1869 to 1986. Pass onwards, along the main road between the local branches of Wakefield College and Asda, and downhill to the railway crossing at Cutsyke, with intention to walk the greenway that has recently developed on the L&Y Cutsyke - Methley line, previously seen from above but now accessible, once I've found my way to it via the terraces on Granville Street. Despite having been open only 16 months, it's already looking pretty much settled in with the vegetation having covered much of the recently turned earth, and foliage obscuring most of the sight lines in the early going, but things get more interesting once the deep cutting below the Lumley Street bridge is met, the access ramps being almost as impressive feats of engineering of the cut of the railway itself. Pass on to the Barnsdale Road bridge, a much more modest structure, and soon enough the path ends, less than a mile on behind the edges of Castleford, but a nice start to a track that should grow to meet the Methley Joint Lines, at least once someone finds a bridge to replace the missing one at Whitwood Junction, hidden away but still accessible beyond the trees. So back to the roads, following the A639 through the estates at Whitwood Mere, and to the edge of the Calder, a location I have already seen many times, but this is the first time I will actually make my way across the river.

The East Leicestershire Village Circuit, v.2.0 23/10/15

14 miles, via Scraptoft, Houghton on the Hill, Gaulby, King's Norton, Little Stretton, 
  Stretton Magna, Stoughton & Thurnby.

Down country again for an emergency visit to Leicestershire as My Dad is in hospital after a fall and My Mum is need of some moral support after a minor incident a couple of weeks back has evolved into something more serious, with a diagnosis of him having a Subdural Haematoma, and currently being in the care of the LRI's stroke services, awaiting an MRI scan to check the extent of his brain injury. Thankfully he's mostly still there, but looking extremely tired and responding like a his battery has run almost flat, and My Mum is demonstrating all the qualities of a trooper as the scenarios shift almost daily with the hopes and fears that come with them. The whole family is down for a long weekend, so My Dad can have some company daily and I can not feel to bad when I feel the need to get out of the house to get my head clear, and the first Leicestershire walk that I had plotted for 2016 can go down on the Friday, which looks like the best available day whilst I'm down here, and my tilt at 2000 miles before I'm 41 and 600 miles before the end of 2015 can be completed whilst among family and in the lands of my birth. If nothing else, it will give me some extra good news to report to My Dad when visiting him over the weekend.

So, the second tour of the villages of East Leicestershire kicks off at 9.30am, My Mum dropping me off at the top of Scraptoft Lane, just along from All Saints church and a mile or so from the family pile, setting course eastwards along Covert Lane, which has been a road to nowhere for as long as anyone can remember, but now has started to gain traffic thanks to the redevelopment of Scraptoft campus, and now it's lane popular with those doing jogging as exercise. I push on, beyond the old Polytechnic's sports grounds and make my way to the bridleway that departs on a southward path through Square Spinney, setting off with great purpose before reaching the fields and disappearing from view, leaving us with hedges to follow down to the very obvious railway remnant stretching across the landscape. Heading eastwards on a rising gradient is the alignment of the GNR branch from Leicester Belgrave Road to Marefield Junction, operational from 1882 to 1964, and hosting a few relics on the half mile that is now a farm access track, namely an overbridge that carries the bridleway, an aqueduct carrying Willow Brook over the cutting close to its source, and most impressively the west portal of Thurnby Tunnel. Despite being sealed and partly infilled, a hole cut in its plating means it is accessible but I don't have the torch with me that I hopefully took to Barndale and Crigglestone, so what's left of its 516 yards will have to go unexplored, odd to think that such a significant structure could have gone unvisited in all my years in Leicestershire. Return to the fields in the direction of New Ingarsby farm, and the easiest path to continue my circuit in the direction of the A47 is up the farm driveway, which has no PROW, I'm guessing, but it gives me the best access to the paths that head into Houghton on the Hill from the south, its continued expansion convincing me that this village is still a growing satellite beyond the city of Leicester. Main Street still has most of the village's old face along it, and I had never really acknowledged its elevation as a settlement, but the fact that the spire of  St Catherine's church is possibly the only distinctive man made landmark on the local horizon suggests the 160m of its location must be considerable.

Abbey Village to Rivington Park 18/10/15

7.8 miles, via Brinscall, White Coppice, Anglezarke & Lead Mines Clough.

There's always an option for a bonus day when visiting My Sister's family, so whilst I'm still not persuasive enough to get the girls out walking today, preferring a trip to MOSI with Dr G, a bit of car relay can get us out to Abbey Village, the odd linear village that grew alongside the A675 Bolton Road, a start point for a stroll of many sections before a late lunch and my ride homewards. Drop off outside the Hare & Hounds pub at 11.20am, at the bottom of the village, pacing the way among the terraces at the roadside and past the mill that drew the village here in the first place, to start a railway walk that hadn't quite aligned itself to fit onto my Coastal trek, the remains of the Lancashire Union Railway (L&Y / L&NWR joint) line from Blackburn to Chorley, active from 1869 to 1966, have become a linear park running through to Withnell and Brinscall. It's a leafy and nature filled route which immediately gets My Sister's approval, one which she hadn't known about previously and now provides a much more level cycling route than the one available on the roads, with a few pretty impressive bridges along its length, an obvious station house at its top and a parkland with fishing lake near its end, a really good use for a resource that could have lain fallow otherwise. Pass the C2C route again as we meet Brinscall, having once again passed close to Withnell without entering it, and this might be the smallest place in the country to have its own swimming baths. Dick Lane shadows the railway line to the bridge on the lane to Brinscall Hall, before footpaths almost drop us onto the alignment before we peel away to head towards the woods on the moorland fringe and the path that accompanies the goit channel that links the reservoirs at Roddlesworth and Anglezarke. Another leafy walk on the western bank, along a track badly represented on the map and oddly developed as a good bridleway surface but with cycling thunderously forbidden from it, and as for the goit, I've no idea at all if the water still flows functionally in it, as it is, it's a good way to get down to White Coppice and to observe to moorland edge as we pass. Change sides by the cricket field, moving onto a slightly more undulating course on the eastern bank as the rough upland looms larger, and it seem the cyclists are pretty keen to ignore the ban along here, we pace along discussing this odd section of moorland, as is ends so abruptly on the edge of the coastal plain, with neither of us having quite enough geological nous to theorise coherently.

Egerton to Darwen 17/10/15

10.3 miles, via Cheetham Close, Entwistle Reservoir, Darwen Moor & Sunnyhurst Wood.

So back to the West Pennines, with the intent to get in the conclusion to my Summer break, even though the temperatures and skies of the high season have retreated into the past, and I travel with an uncertain heart, believing that I should be down in Leicester after my Dad suffered a fall last weekend, with him now being admitted to hospital for observation and assessment. My Mum is entirely content for me to have this pre-planned weekend away though, so off we go to enjoy some fresh miles with My Sister, just the two of us on this occasion as Dr G and the girls are off doing cyclocross, which appeals to them much more than wandering, and I couldn't really blame them as the skies hang heavy. Away from Egerton at 10.40 am by the United Reformed church to strike a different path up to Cox Green Road, and once we hit the path to New Butterworth's farm, you could be forgiven for thinking we might be cutting a path towards Ramsbottom again. No, we are taking a sharp turn left as the moorland walk starts to get serious, heading up to the top of Cheetham Close, the hill which divides the Eagley and Bradshaw brooks and provides some rather sticky going as a fresh panorama is presented, another perspective gained on this corner of Lancashire. Only a 329m top, but worth it, before the muddy and slightly puzzling descent sends us down in the direction of Green Arms Road and the path in the direction of Entwistle reservoir, soon back into familiar territory as we hit the level path on the southern side. It's as about as different as it could be from the last time I came this way though, the water level being right up to path in February '14 but many feet below us on this occasion, indicating that 2015 might not have been as wet as we thought it was.