Time to do some exploring. It’d be nice if the weather improved — even the locals are complaining that it should be sunnier and warmer by this time in the year — but at least the drizzle gives this shot a nicely melancholy atmosphere. This is taken almost in the very centre of the island, very close to where Edmond Halley, the famous astronomer, set up an observatory in 1677.
After eight days in a row in the house, a morning out — so I could have something stuck up my nose, and then be returned. Somebody, somewhere, thinks there’s a point to all this. (I will add that I had things stuck up my nose both before flying here, and on arrival, and have been in isolation since.)
The island has a verdant interior but the rim is very barren. Out by the airport sits “Bradley’s Camp”, a bunch of prefabs surrounded by barbed wire and personal security that is presumably where the local authorities stick the asylum seekers, people with a 0.0001% chance of having a currently fashionable communicable disease, and other undesirables. But at least it has parking facilities for visitors.
OK, it’s time to do the main panorama from my place of incarceration. The movie director in my head would still prefer to wait for the lighting to be just so, but to be honest, breaks in the cloud have been rare this last week — indeed, as I type this on Wednesday morning, it’s raining heavily and none of this can be seen at all.
To the left, Ladder Hill, depicted in close up a few days ago. Below it, tucked in its valley, Jamestown, the capital and one of the few places on the island where one can actually land a boat. To the right, Rupert’s Valley, more industrial (i think those are fuel pipelines visible) — between them, Munden’s Hill. All to be more intimately explored at a later date. In the direction shown, the next land is, I calculate, the Ivory Coast, or perhaps Ghana, at least 1,800 miles away.
Sunshine has actually been at a premium thus far, and I’ve been waiting to give you more of the panorama from my place of incarceration until the light gets better. But a burst of it after lunch did today illuminate the distant Ladder Hill. So named as it is the top of Jacob’s Ladder, visible heading down to the right — an infamous 700-step climb up from Jamestown below. People run up this for fun, so I’ve been told. Rest assured that once I get out of here, I shall not be joining them.
Hebden Bridge in autumn plumage. A nice place to be. Cold at the moment, though, but the trees look good.
Yes folks, after 615 consecutive days on the island of Great Britain, I have finally left it. It was February 2nd 2020, in Bucharest, that this blog last featured anywhere outside England, Scotland or Wales. You know the reasons why. And yes, I appreciate travel can be seen as a privilege, and I’m grateful that I’ve finally broken the run, for all that the last 20 months have, at least at times, seen plenty of interesting sights.
This is not my final destination: instead this was taken on my first descent, into Keflavik airport, where I and the family were last seen waiting out the 12-hour flight delay that EasyJet (never, ever again) subjected us to in July 2019. I changed planes here and moved on. You can tell it’s Iceland, though — only that island has random burned bits like this, huge lumps of volcanic cinder that just seem here to be a normal part of the landscape.
A long time ago, in the first few days of this blog on day 8, I was halfway up the southern butt end of the mountain of Yewbarrow, in Wasdale in the Lake District, in quite foul weather, wondering what the hell I was doing there. The view I posted there, of the dramatic rocky gash of Great Door, gives an indication of the conditions I faced.
Today, ten years, one month and four days later, I returned. The weather was much nicer. But the climb up to this point is still an absolute arse. For its height I would say Yewbarrow is the toughest of all the fells in the Lake District — but as it’s now done twice, I never, ever, have to haul myself up it again. And that’s a very good thing. (See my Wainwrights blog for more.)
Down (or is it up) to London, just for the day. My hotel room had a fine view of the city, and I took several photos of it as the sun went down. This one was fairly early in the sequence but going monochrome seemed to please Clare, who chose this one as her favourite.
Spent most of the day until 2.30pm behind the wheel, and the rest sat at home recovering from the first part of the day. But this scene did cause me to pause on the way home, on the A702 just north of Biggar, in southern Scotland. I’m not sure I’ve quite captured the sunbeam effect, but I did my best.
That path snaking up this hillside on the south edge of Halifax is part of the Calderdale Way, round which Clare and I (and Joe, today) continue to perambulate, when we can. July 11th was the last time we managed some but the weather on this Sunday was too good to ignore: one of those days which proves that on average, if you want really good and reliable weather in this country, come in September.
Being 42 