When you’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta go, but this sign, at the Belle Vue stadium in Wakefield, promises something like the ‘Worst Toilet in Scotland’ (from Trainspotting) waits around the corner. Perhaps fortunately, a gate just round there bars further progress.
The River Calder is the one that runs through Hebden Bridge, and I found out today it’s actually rather longer than I have been thinking it is for the last 20 years or so. I knew it debouched into the Aire but I thought this happened not far past Brighouse: in fact it’s about twenty miles further on than that, in Castleford. Here in Wakefield the Calder (not the Aire) is a wide beast, and navigable by barges, at least if those orange things weren’t in the way. (In the background, the Hepworth Art Gallery. It was news to me that there was an art gallery in Wakefield, too.)
The boys watch the real thing, being played outside (Wakefield Trinity LFC v Hull Utd LFC, as it happens). The man watches the TV version. I watch them all.
Off we all go to our various duties and assignations, early on a Wednesday morning. And what was I doing in Wakefield Kirkgate station — a town that has never before featured on the blog (thus becoming named location #270) — at 7.40am? Well, you don’t get to see every aspect of my life on here.
Being 42 