Notes made whilst sauntering: 1 July 2020. ~ a long familiar place, unvisited for decade or so ~ wind, carrying drizzle, in branches ~ grass snake swimming amidst horsetails ~ the great sickness, for a while, far away ~ half traces of maybe paths – tempting ~ explore for a Read more…
Notes made whilst away in memory: 11 August 2020. ~ an old photo, January on Kinder ~ the quietness of cold fog ~ alone ~ an isolation not imposed but freely chosen ~ running easily within a moving twenty metre cocoon ~ distant guback-gabuck grouse laugh ~ then silence, bar Read more…
A picture can paint a thousand words, or so the phrase says. Perhaps so. On a long office day, editing my back catalogue, a 5×4 slide starts talking about memories. In 2001 my world, like many other people’s, was turned upside down. On an isolated farm in Northumberland some Read more…
A work in progress. Well, more play than work, and in several parts … … this being part one. An old piece found lurking on my Mac, an idea, … “As it’s ‘that’ time of year(surely the new year really started ten days ago, after the solstice?) a plan. Probably Read more…
The bus has stopstarted out from Sheffield to Fox House. The stopstarting shlep from Fox House, sweatily burdened under bouldering pads and bag full of shoes and food is finished. Time to climb. But maybe coffee and a teacake in this sun warmed hollow first. Eventually the pad is positioned, shoes Read more…
“Millstone Grit; coarse-grained carboniferous sandstones – gritstone specifically refers to such rocks in the Pennine areas of Northern England – the gritstone edges and boulders of the Peak District provide one of the world’s classic climbing areas.” Yes, yes they do. The grit; Burbage South boulders, The Brick. A cold Read more…
A prologue, of sorts. In these interesting times, a vignette of memory from a couple of years ago. It would be wonderful to be as full of love and laughter as those two ladies who shared a good few years of life well lived. spacer Spring. Blackthorn in flower and Read more…
spacer Northern winter; at the turning of the year. At the turning of nature’s year, not the turning of our human year. Mistchill and windwhip swirl around the fell and valley blurring sound and sight. Reminders this place of aeons old fort and ritual may be within Sheffield’s city bounds, Read more…
spacer Car park; drop off, jump out; car door, shut. Wave K off, now; Run Mam Tor steps steep past scowling tourists. Quick, tap summit view guide then skedaddle fell shoes scarting on crumbling paving slabs where grass once grew. Run on Down now – more people; polite good afternoons Read more…
Late November, the dark peak.
Winter is home again on these high moors,
mewling in with chill-lash days of sleet and gale.
With fellhard testing days of hail obscured horizons and roaring, bed broaching brooks.