An archaeological dig
6th June 2013It’s a lovely sunny summer evening as I write this and there have been times when I was out and about in the sunshine during the past few weeks. Last Sunday afternoon saw me trot from the Cat and Fiddle Inn back to my house. Spying a useful right of way that dropped me down from Shining Tor to Lamaload Reservoir was the cause of taking me around there though my hopes of seeing the former in sunshine largely came to not as much as I’d hoped. However, there was sun to be enjoyed while I was around Shining Tor and a peaceful atmosphere pervaded much of the walk so I wasn’t embittered. There was no rushing about either as I continued to Rainow and then along Ingersley Vale to Bollington. The Macclesfield Canal and the Middlewood Way were what conveyed me much of the rest of the way home without the itinerary feeling overly long. In fact, I can foresee another wander by Lamaload happening when a chance offers itself.
The previous bank holiday weekend should have seen me do more with it but for fatigue and computer tinkering taking from my resolve. The greatest extent of my outdoors wandering wasn’t to be limited to various shopping errands or watching Terry Abraham’s The Cairngorms in Winter with Chris Townsend, though. The latter turned out to be a pleasing use of time with there being plenty of stunning countryside to ogle; the quality of the film footage was stunning. While the Cairngorms were the star of this film, Chris got to draw us to the area by tracing his love of wild country. The realities of camping (it includes bothy usage), walking, snowshoeing and skiing in winter mountains got a necessary airing and the featuring of a walk through the Lairig Ghru that was abandoned was no harm either. If that was insufficient, there is a wealth of social outdoors history surrounding the Cairngorms that could have been added too, but the sparing of that probably got us looking at the scenery more closely. After all, that was centre stage in this production and with a stirring soundtrack too. It probably was odd to be enjoying this film with sunny weather outside, and that’s how it was, but I was lured out as far as Tegg’s Nose on the Sunday evening. Just like a warm summer evening among Scottish hills, it too was quiet and peaceful as I took in the views towards Shutlingsloe on a circuit that took me by Langley and Sutton along paths and tracks that I have travelled a fair few times, so often that I hardly need a map for these any more.
Alongside all of this and midweek evening walks around Macclesfield’s Riverside Park, I got the idea of adding more details to photos featured in the site’s photo gallery. These include the camera used and the date that the photo was made. The first of these is not too hard to recall, but dates have been the more trickery because there have been times when I have wondered if part of my memory managed to fall into some sort of black hole. The blog certainly has helped from mid-2006 on and the move to digital photography almost nails your dates for you. Before both of those, unless a certain scarcity of trips, coincidence with a memorable event or the imprinting of dates on photos helps. There also is the trawling of old emails (yes, inertia has meant that more of these have been retained than might seem conventional) to see when train tickets were booked and peering at now historical calendars. The last two of these especially have a more archaeological feel to them, hence the title of the post. The fact that dates do not surface without some effort for trips between 2004 and 2006 is a reminder to me that I should be thinking of improving records for the future. After all, you never know what another bout of stress can do to a memory and, like anyone, I have had a share of that in recent years.
The addition of that extra information to the photo gallery continues and some refreshed or new photos are to come online too when all is done. Looking at those older photos has another effect too. When you see a photo and think that it can be improved, then a trip idea emerges. It already has been the cause of retracing some steps in the Peak District and it may be that 2013 could be a year spent exploring more of this alluring part of the world. What has been in my mind for a little while is a potential walk from Edale to Hayfield or Glossop that follows Grindsbrook Clough at the start so as to replace a photo that dates from the Summer bank Holiday Monday of 2001. Hopefully, it can happen before we lose the current run of good weather. There also is walking north along the West Highland Way from Bridge of Orchy, at least as far as Kinlochleven, to see if I can better photos from previous outings along the route of that well trodden trail. With the way life is going for me now, that is a longer-term ambition and it’s always good to have them.
Things may be quieter on here these days, but the walking continues and I need to add a number of trip reports, as you can see from the Trip Reports to Come page. What’s needed is the summoning of energy and it’s hard to commit to scribbling them when sunshine is peering in your window as it is this evening.
Into 2013…
1st January 20132012 was a slower year for this place than others, but there still are things to say. Outstanding trip reports await writing and there are other things to be sharing too, so there should be no stopping yet. The one longer walk a month ethic (there may be more sometimes, of course) will remain for me even if December saw a trip to Tatton Park was the most that I got to do; those Christmas preparations had their part to play in this, naturally. Even the Christmas and New Year period saw less than it usually might have done, for a variety of reasons.
Today, I am nursing a heavy cold, so that has put paid to any greater ambitions that I may have had for New Year’s Day of 2013. The weather has had its part to play too, with all those deluges that have been tormenting others far more than me. Let’s hope that the promised dry spell of weather materialises and allows everywhere to dry out a little. Once this cold is behind me, I even might get out for that longer walk of the month too.
Apart from the cold, there is one other thing that limits grand designs like my trip to the Western Isles in 2008. My parents are older and my father’s health is far from what it was, so it will need close watching and more thinking about his care than he himself is willing to do. Walks still will be needed to clear minds from time to time, so they won’t stop. The de-stressing action of simply putting one foot before another is one help, and there is the time for thinking too. When I changed jobs in 2010, both of these really helped, and I hope that they’ll continue to do so.
That’s not to say that there won’t be brighter interludes, too. After all, it is amazing how bright lighting of wonderful countryside and the peace of the natural world can soothe and delight a weary soul. When I was watching episodes of BBC Scotland’s Adventure Show highlighting the Scottish National Trail on the iPlayer. The first of these really struck a resonance with me because of how many of the places featured were among those that I have passed on my Scottish forays. Places such as Kirk Yetholm, the Eildon Hills, the Three Brethren, the Pentland Hills, Edinburgh and its Water of Leith walkway, the southern reaches of the West Highland Way, the Rob Roy Way, Aberfoyle and Aberfeldy. It felt as if I had shadowed much of the route on my various comings and goings. It was hard to say the same for much of the countryside crossed in the second part, though I have had a taste of what Glen Tilt has to offer last June. The threatened Monadh Liath hardly have seen any invasion from me, and those north-western Scottish fastnesses have lain beyond my attention so far.
There has been a chance to catch up with unread issues of TGO too. Older ones from before the big redesign were among these, and I was reminded how more portable these used to be. Of course, Android digital editions fulfil this need, so I suppose that I need to look at that app, though there is something a little more special about holding a paper magazine in your hand in these ever digital days. Also, I am catching up with those delayed trip reports too, and they are reminders of ambiences experienced then that may be revisited in the flesh again not far into the future. Macclesfield’s nearby hill country has its share of these to offer, so it could come into its own when short departures from the cares of modern life are needed, and other similar spots are not too far away either, so who knows where I could be hiking?
2013 may feel more uncertain for me than other years, but I got through 2010 and that was bumpy in its own respects. For me, it looks as if it will be a matter of inching a way through the year. Of course, at the start of any year, it is impossible to know where things will sit at its end, and so it is with this one. Obstacles get overcome and life goes forward in its adventurous manner. Over the Christmas period, I read an opinion piece from Cameron McNeish in TGO bemoaning adventure holidays and their misplaced concepts of planning and organisation. Life’s not like that, so that mindset sounds hubristic to me, and especially so now.
While my 2013 is beginning in a wistful state of mind, I hope that yours will be good to you. May twelve months hence have us recalling happy surprises that have come upon us along the way too; I am recalling 2012’s in my own mind right now as this blog goes into its eighth calendar year (the actual birthday is at the start of May). Life’s adventure continues…
Stiffness
17th January 2012In weather terms, 2012 started like a lion in some parts with Scotland getting a particular battering. Before that, the second day of the year saw me crossing hills to pop over to Buxton. That act planted in my mind the prospect of exploring more of Macclesfield’s hills this year. However, the following weekend was a quiet one for me.
The weather may have been offering in other places, but a prior commitment was the cause of my staying close to home and not getting out among hills in parts like Shropshire or even wandering along the streets of somewhere pleasing to the eye like Edinburgh or even Shrewsbury. That’s not to say that I wasn’t doing some more playing with ideas for outdoors outings, though.
While adjusting albums in the photo gallery, thoughts were drawn to revisiting places where I haven’t been for a while. The online photo albums that attracted my attention were that for the Pennine Way and the Scottish Southern Uplands and Borders. The refresh involved adding photos were added, removing an old one rewriting a few descriptions. The trip ideas that came to mind while adjusting those photos included a stay in Peebles to explore the surrounding hills as well as getting to walk more of the Pennine Way or even the Southern Upland Way. Old and not so old photos act as reminders for me of past glories and lure me back to where I found them before.
Last weekend’s cold frosty sunny weather was enough to draw out among hills again on Saturday. It was a day when any part of Britain’s hill country would have delighted and I did play with a walk around Sedbergh that involved an out and back yomp into and onto the Howgill Fells. Looking a bus timetables caused me to leave it for later in the year. Remembering how stiff I felt after a trot about Church Stretton’s hills before Christmas was a factor too in not deciding to not set my sights too high. Thus, I opted for a hike from the Cat and Fiddle Inn to Buxton that mainly followed the Dane Valley Way with a deliberate diversion or two. After all, the prospect of seeing the Three Shire Heads bridge in full winter lighting was too good to miss; it may have added to the distance covered but proved to be well worth that. If all goes to plan, more will be said about the walk sooner instead of later.
Though our settled spell of weather is leaving us at the time of writing, there are promising signs for the coming weekend too. While my limbs were stiff on Sunday and Monday, I take that as a cue for trying to get out a little more often than last year and January 2012 isn’t over yet. What I am not planning is anything as frenetic as this month last year when I walked successively in Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Pacing oneself is no bad thing either and quiet moments are needed for collating more ideas too. A recent catch-up with an article from one of last year’s issues of TGO has me wanting to sit with it and pore over maps while ogling the contained photos of splendid Lake District hill country. Wandering needs forethought at times.
A footer got too long
3rd January 2012The start of a new year can set me to casting my eye over this website and one thing that I noticed was the length of the footer on here. That has been shrunk now with the lists of websites from fellow outdoors lovers and outdoors organisations finding their way into new pages under the community section of the sidebar. The remaining walking and cycling ideas links have been split up so as to make it more obvious to where they refer. Other tweaks may come too but this blog’s footer has been adjusted on a day when many got storms with heavy rain or snow. Macclesfield didn’t fare badly though but, apart from a few short bursts of sunshine, it wasn’t a day that would draw everyone out of doors. Others may come yet.
And so to 2012
1st January 2012Having had a few days to catch up with a few recent issues of TGO, a realisation has popped into my mind: maybe basing myself somewhere on a trip away might allow me to get more from it, especially for those places that take a little longer to get to them. Using Dunoon as a base for exploring Cowal worked very well in 2011, so I need to spend a little time pre-assembling some designs so that they have some hope of becoming reality. Along with the wilder parts of Scotland, Northumberland also comes to mind with the longer travel times needed for getting there and because of my whetting my appetite for its hill country during the summer of 2011. Parts of Wales, such as the countryside round about Brecon or the Heart of Wales railway line also come to mind, as do the eastern fells of the Lake District in Cumbria and the Cairngorms in Scotland. Methinks that setting aside a little time to think these over might be no bad idea, and there are others that I could list here too, but there are enough mentioned for now.
The end of one year and the beginning of another is as good a time as any to take stock of things. One of these that comes to mind pertains to numerous loose ends outstanding in my hill wandering from the last few years. The biggest of these is the Pennine Way, along which I haven’t walked for a while, and it now looks like multi-day trips are need to add to the mileage already completed. The mention of the Pennine Way also reminds that unused plans exist for walking Derbyshire countryside too, both new and already frequented. Then, there’s the prospect of extending what I have walked of the Rob Roy Way and the perennial desire to savour more of what my home country, Ireland, has to offer the hill wanderer. Those should mean no shortage of trip ideas like what I felt to be the case at the end of 2010, at least until I started to catch up with then unread issues of TGO anyway.
2011 has been a busy year for me and I hope that 2012 lets me outside more often, though the future will decide that when it first becomes the present and then the past. After all, there’s hill country near Macclesfield that needs to be revisited and other possibilities may come my way. Unlike the end of 2010 when I felt that I had run out of ideas, a year later sees me pondering a fair few options as the blog goes into its seventh calendar year, although its actual birthday is at the start of May; 2012 will see the sixth one being reached. Any designs that I concoct may not be as grand as those of other folk, but having a few of them manage to come to pass will more than do me. Hopefully, 2012 will turn out to be a good outdoors year for you, dear reader, too.
