Another short walk today, in bright sunshine all day. We climbed steeply out of Holmfirth and then our route was a mix of pastures and woodland until we reached the outskirts of Huddersfield. We had a long steep descent down to the River Colne and the Huddersfield Canal, and then a very steep, long ascent until we finally reached the road where our hotel could be found. We stopped on the way for a very welcome drink in a Conservative Club (yes, I know, I’ve let the side down, but no alternative watering holes to be found!).

A Backward Glance

Straight out of the door and across the road and then straight up, the first of five major climbs today. Again a lot of the trail was on paths snaking between houses or through short stretches of woods separating tendrils of habitation reaching out from the City of Huddersfield. At the top of one climb a grey squirrel greeted me sitting on a stile we needed to cross. After a twitch and a second take it looked straight at me and waited bravely until I was almost ready to struggle over before it made it’s getaway. Then immediately on the other side a Jackdaw with what appeared to be a damaged wing jumped out of the thick hedge to my left then started walking and hopping away from me at pace through a gate on the same side and into a field of recently cut grass. Jackdaws are social creatures fast in the air and aerobatic, but this one’s friends and family were not likely to visit and gravity had made its cruel abandonment total. In other worlds too, fear is faced alone and ultimately is at our last communion with the one we find ourselves in. Then we saw and heard Microlights about a hundred feet over our heads and later closer at a small private landing strip. Those machines looked a lot more sophisticated than I remembered them. Something that people find difficult to accept is an elderly person sitting on the ground. First time Carol allowed me to stop, I removed my backpack and sat down on the grass. Within seconds people were around offering me water, telling me how awful I looked and wanting to call an ambulance! So when today Carol gave in to my pleading again, I made sure nobody was about before getting my bum comfortable on terra firma. Within minutes a woman arrived panting saying she’d seen me from a distance and thought I’d collapsed! Later from a bridge over the River Colne we watched a Heron standing statuette like, when it suddenly stabbed the water, leapt in the air and like Dumbo the elephant was flying down the river zig zagging between trees away from us. Life is wonderful, weird and wretched.