A beautiful late May day. A public holiday in the UK. A need to stop having a head like Munch’s The Scream, a need to say no to fear and paranoia. And all these things for Joe, too. The first shot taken outside Yorkshire since 21st March.
I’m still trying to keep the step count up, but the weather turned rather grim. Being up on the moors above the town in squally drizzle made the exercise less pleasant than it might have been. But it kept me moving.
The moor here is a riot of cottongrass. I feel it comes out at the wrong time of year — it looks like it should be a December plant, a proxy for snow.
I know I am not the only one to whom this has happened, but I have lost all the little things, outside my immediate home, that gave my life pleasure. Except one — and that one thing is walking, experiencing the countryside. I spent the day reading, planning, looking forward. That’s a large part of the fun, in fact.
And yes, I need the reading glasses to do it. So they can take their rightful place on the stage.
Since I paid a visit to Manchester on 21st March, every picture on here has been taken in the county of Yorkshire, but I am not ‘staying at home’ and nor, any longer, am I supposed to be. Garrowby Hill is the highest part of Bishop Wilton Wold, and the trees shown here stand on the highest point of the old East Riding of Yorkshire, meaning this is number 11 of my county top collection. I passed three people all day at no greater risk to my health than I suffer from simply reading the news at the moment.
When I came home after this walk, Clare was upset as an old family friend has committed suicide. Already depressed, lockdown was for him the last straw and he hanged himself. What did ‘Stay Home, Stay Safe’ mean for him? How many more of these hidden tragedies will there be, lost in the chaos but no less real than the ones that make the statistics?
We need to restart our lives and our economy, and right soon. ‘Zero risk’ does not exist.
The outdoors is good. The outdoors is healthy. And it always will be.
Well, OK, perhaps it is ambitious to expect that this caterpillar will manage to complete all 300+ miles of the Pennine Way, but if you’ve never been near it, it’s done more of it than you. And it also becomes the blog’s first caterpillar, a singular honour.
This family are doing the sensible thing, as was I this morning. Our overall physical and mental health is vital and needs care. No social distancing guidelines have been violated in the creation of this photograph. And yes, it’d probably be nicer if the shrub wasn’t there, but you can’t have everything.
I have exhibited no symptoms of viral infection. No one around me has exhibited them either. So I am not locking myself up in my house, not yet. What will be the overall impact on public health of the proposed lockdown (and along the way, creation of a police state)? On mental health, levels of domestic violence and abuse, et cetera? The UK is not the only country launching a massive experiment in depriving tens of millions of people that they have come to rather like. Maybe it will relieve pressure on the health service. But maybe it won’t.
Anyway this lockdown is not quite yet in operation. Hence, I got outside today, because there may not be many more chances in the next few weeks. This is the summit of Watson’s Dodd, above Thirlmere in the Lake District — behind, the peak of Helvellyn, at 3,117 feet the third-highest mountain in England.
I said yesterday that Lincoln cathedral stands at the top of one of the few hills in Lincolnshire. This beauty — a radar station, apparently — stands near the summit of one of the others, Normanby Top (a County Top). This looks exactly as if God is waiting up there with his 3-wood, ready to smash it over the nearby water hazard (the North Sea) and out into Europe.
In my project to bag the county tops of Britain it has already become obvious that many of them are not prominent, airy summits lifted far above the surrounding countryside. Haddington Hill, at 875 ft (267m) above sea level, is not only the highest point of Buckinghamshire, but of the whole Chiltern Hills range which stretches through three other counties as well. But you wouldn’t know it, were this monument not located at some otherwise indefinable point, skulking under trees and definitely trying to not draw attention to itself. Still, that’s another one bagged. Eight down — 83 to go…
