it’s taken Clare and I over a year to get round about four-fifths of the Calderdale Way’s 50 miles, after today. Still a couple of legs to go yet. Today introduced us to the side valley of Shibden Dale, a beautiful spot and, somewhere previously unknown (except as a brief glimpse now and again from the train, as the line crosses the dale not long after leaving Halifax) despite having lived here 21 years now. The cow looked happy to be there too.
After ten shots in a row with no people on them, let’s admit I do still occasionally join the social world. And Whitelock’s in Leeds really is a fine place to do it: the blue plaque acknowledging that this is a pub with much history, opened in 1715 and still going very strong. Arguably this place is the best thing about Leeds, and that’s not even to diminish the rest of the city.
Whenever I walk past the new car park on Princess Street in Manchester, just north of the Mancunian Way (the shadow of which is visible), nine times out of ten there is a mysterious, anonymous white van parked in the service tunnel, as here. The metal grille in front of it adds a pointillist effect to what is basically an abstract. Yes, probably it would have been better without the shadow, but it was another sunny and warm day, so I’m not complaining too much.
Since Halifax’s Piece Hall was renovated a few years ago it has become by far the most pleasing urban space in the town. The quadrangle is currently displaying a number of sculptures by Sophie Ryder, this being one of them; I recall a similar huge grey rabbit/woman at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park around a year ago, making me think, with hindsight, that this is probably the same artist. Incidentally, as far as I can ascertain, no actual rabbits have appeared on this blog in its 3,864 days.
Spring definitely sprung in Hebden Bridge today. Everyone and everything seems to be stretching out to enjoy the sunshine.
After 11 days of 11 different places I had no need to, nor intention to, leave the house today. What you see here is what was outside our front door, with the little dollop of variety and ‘free stuff’ to sustain the interest — at least a little.
A brief stopover on the way home from Newton Stewart. If I was filming a classic 1970s British horror movie in the Dumfries and Galloway region, and I wanted an abandoned church as a location, I’d come and use Anwoth’s, just as did the makers of The Wicker Man. (See this page.)
11 different locations in 11 days — Manchester, Burnley, Brighouse, Mytholmroyd, Leeds, Hebden Bridge, Huddersfield, Carlisle, Polbae, Glen Trool and Anwoth. That’s the second time there’s been such a long run of variation in place.
Having done Craig Airie Fell the day before, today I continued walking and bagged two more County Tops. This cairn marked the second one of the day, Kirriereoch Hill, high point of Ayrshire. Apparently its name translates as ‘Hill of the Brindled Quarter’, which to me is no translation at all. When I came up over the final slope and saw the cairn sitting next to the vast granitic lump of Ailsa Craig out there in the Irish Sea, the photo was immediately assured. A mild shame about the wind turbine poking up to the right but one can’t have everything.
After coming up the M6 yesterday, we turned left as soon as we hit Scotland, and headed for Galloway, the south-west corner of that country. There were various motivations for doing this, but getting some walking in was certainly one of them. This is the view from 1,050 feet above sea level, on top of Craig Airie Fell — not a substantial eminence in its own right, but it has a great panorama of the surrounding area, as a proper County Top should. Read all about it on the other blog, if interested.
Southwaite services on the M6, just south of Carlisle. This huge crow, possibly a raven, with a beak to strike terror into any smaller and inferior creature, was definitely in charge: principally of waste disposal, but, I suspect, of various other aspects of the operation too.
Being 42 