Staring Sheep and Smoking Chimneys ….. and Car Crashes!

A 15 mile walk from central Harrogate to my home, high up in the Yorkshire Dales, near Pateley Bridge.

“The long and winding road” – The Beatles 🎶

They say a week in Politics is a long time.

I know very little about politics and much of what I do know I often don’t like, but I do know that the last week of my life in North Yorkshire has been full on, fast paced and loaded with ‘experiences’.

These experiences, as ever, have conveyed every single human emotion.

The third week in September had concluded in spectacular fashion when my debut as a ‘show-er’ (ie someone who ‘shows’) at the Nidderdale Agricultural Show.

It had seen me take a third place prize of £3 for my photograph of Gibson Mill in Hebden Bridge.

I had also won a second prize with a £4 win bonus, for my 20cm coffee cake.

The whole Show experience had been phenomenal, especially as I had shared it with 3 of my girls: wife Nicky, daughter Rosie and granddaughter Honor.

And so, the last full week in September began with an early wake up on the Monday and preparations for my packed lunch: it was walking group day and I was due to head off at around 8.30am, to drive 40 miles west, to meet my Monday group: The Yorkshire based ‘Midweek Wayfarers, 8 milers’.

I was ‘buzzing’ with the euphoria of those Pateley Podium prizes.

My world was good: what could possible go wrong?

My friend ‘Cap’n Bob’ was due to lead that walk, over the bleakly beautiful moors above Marsden, on the West Yorkshire/Lancashire border.

I live in North Yorkshire, not far from Pateley Bridge, making this walk a longer distance to travel than usual.

But the drive, even a long one, is always worth it.

Bob’s walks are always brilliant anyway. Usually steep and elevated, they are enhanced by his geological expertise which he shares in the grit and limestone rich countryside that he chooses to lead us in.

My route to those walks is never easy. Most of the good things in life, need effort if truth be told.

School and work based traffic often cause delays and I always have to negotiate a couple of quite tricky, sometimes dangerous junctions.

On that Monday I safely manoeuvred the first of these, just outside RAF Menwith Hill, where the Pateley to Pool in Wharfedale road joins the busy Skipton to Harrogate A59.

Gary, our friendly local plumber in Nidderdale, told me 5 years ago, that locals call this junction ‘Catch ‘em Corner’, on account of the number of accidents that occur there.

Thankfully there were no issues on that Monday for me and I carried on to tricky junction number 2 where that same B road joins the busy A658 from Leeds and Bradford to Harrogate.

It was here that disaster struck.

In the blink of an eye, my plans for a walk in Marsden were over as I collided badly with another vehicle.

Mercifully, no one was hurt, but my car was an instant write off.

No car = no walking.

A helpful passing motorist towed my car onto a grassy verge at the junction and I started the necessary procedures that accompany any significant car crash: calling the police, my insurers, their recovery agents, sweeping the debris off the road and stripping my car of all its worldly possessions.

I knew that the Kia and I were separating for good.

It was a sad realization.

It had been a good servant, I’d bought it off my brilliant nephew David 3 years earlier.

It comes with a ‘highly recommended when crashing’ tagline!

So now I was carless in the country.

How careless to be carless too, though at the time of writing, blame has not been apportioned.

This is where my brilliant wife stepped into the story.

I am married to a researcher ‘par excellence’.

Nicky always diligently investigates every option in these sort of situations and then negotiates the best possible deal.

Usually that might take a number of days.

Not this time.

Within a day she had secured a brilliant deal on a new Skoda Karoq, a model that came highly recommended by my 2 friends Mike and Robert who have both joined the Skoda Owner’s Club in the last year.

These 2 friends are arch researchers in their own right.

They had reasured us back in the spring that the reputation that Skoda cars held back in the 1980’s and 1990’s had long gone.

Back then, Skoda and Lada, both communist state car manufacturers, had vied with each for the tag of ‘worst car ever’.

Lada hads since gone east: literally!

They are no longer produced, but Skoda are now part of the VW stable and carry that reputation for German excellence both in performance and design.

So Nicky struck her deal and our new car arrived at the end of the month.

‘Carless in the Country’ could carry some challenges.

Fortunately we have a great network of family and friends.

Our fantastic friend ‘King’ David, married to ‘Suzie Sue’, star of my last blog, had rescued me and my pile of crushed car contents from that grassy verge.

And living with family makes scrounging a lift always more possible.

But of course, I also have good legs: strong and long and I love walking.

I was told back on the historic Camino de Santiago in 2917, with my 2 sons Harry and Jake and nephew Dan, that ‘you Moorman Boys have pep in your step!’

So now was my chance to prove it!

My subsequent week had panned out into a spread of essential pre winter maintenance on our property: after all, ‘Winter is Coming,’ as they say in ‘Game of Thrones’ and I’m always chopping and storing logs in readiness for that eventuality.

Other tasks included finishing the repointing of our patio, cutting the grass that is now flourishing and no longer drought ridden, lowering a dry stone wall and trying to tackle Nicky’s dreaded ‘Can you just?’ list!

The UK Government, back in the 1990’s ran an employment programme called ’The Job Creation Scheme’.

I never understood why my wife wasn’t appointed as its CEO.

She is unrelenting.

Her list never ends.

Just like the westerly wind that impacts our elevated property, Nicky’s list is there!

ALWAYS!.

However, I’ve grown to understand that ‘all work and no play makes Jack (Martin in this case) a dull boy’ and across this one week, I have now manged to walk over 200,000 steps.

‘Work hard and play harder’ might be a favourite personal motto?

I’m NOT massively competitive, but I do like a competition all the same.

I was in a steps challenge group with many of the boys I play football with, every sunday night. These are young men, fit, strong, fast and furious. I’m the oldest by 25 years! But I’m just a goalkeeper these days. I know my limitations!

‘The Bridge the Gap Steps Challenge’ is a September long walking challenge and at the start of my ‘week of all weeks’ I was lying 3rd, some 60,000 steps behiund Tyrus and Douglas. Tyrus is a great lad, super fit, with a great ‘engine’: he is doing a sports coaching degree in Leeds and he walks and runs over 16,000 steps every day:

Amazing.

Over the past fortnight our banter had been enjoyable.

I had warned him that I was ‘gunning’ for him and now, fortuitiousl;y in a very random way, my crash had provided me with an opportunity to ‘reel’ him in.

So I went walking, on successive days, sometimes with a friend, once with Honor on my back, but mostly on my own or with Tip, our border collie, who remains the best walking companion ever!

This walking weekend blog is the culmination of the thrill of one of my various chases as I made every endeavour to catch Tyrus up.

It started on Friday with a shopping visit to Harrogate, as I jumped in the car with Rosie and Will who had a scan appointment that afternoon.

Rosie is now 7 months pregnant. I can’t wait for my second gradchild to arrive. To live with Honor is an enormous daily privilege. To live with Honor plus one is going to be unbelievable.

So I resolved to walk home from Harrogate, exploiting the River Nidd and the old railway line that is open for walking in various places: a path along a disused track, which linked Harrogate to Pateley Bridge before the dastardly Lord Beeching had his wicked way in 1963-4: and closed it.

The first 5 miles out of Harrogate were lovely but not particularly spectacular and I didn’t really bother to take photographs.

I followed the traffic free cycle route, funded and opened by the Sustrans Charity, now freshly rebranded and called the rather underwhelming, ‘Walk, Wheel Trust, the UK’s national cycling charity: a cause that we choose to support with a regular direct debit, monthly donation.

The route ended some 2 miles beyond Ripley Castle, a beautiful stately home curently for sale for a cool £21 million! Small change to most of the readers of this blog I know!

https://www.onthemarket.com/details/17808394/

A check pre-publication suggests it is no longer up for sale.

As the tarmaced trail ended, so the beauty of the Nidd Valley and the pastures, fields and hamlets that accompany the meandering River Nidd, began to unravel before me.

It started with yet more stone barns, ripe for renovation or redevelopment.

So beautiful: they are centuries old.

They just don’t seem to build like they used to!

I walked past the remains of Clint Hall near Birswith.

Centuries old, it was obviously a house of some prominenece 700+ years ago.

A search on the internet when I got home provided me with a bit more information, but in truth it was all a bit sketchy.

Not for the first time in my walking life, I wished that those old hand chiselled stones could share their story.

Beautiful stone built properties were scattered across the gently rolling valley.

The walking was easy and my pace was good.

The Station Hotel in Birstwith gave testimony to a bygone year.

Laying that railway line to Scarhouse Reservoir, some nine miles north of Pateley Bridge, must have been a tough challenge for those navvies of yesteryear.

Conkers were starting to fall: giving me a nostalgic reminder of my conkering, or was it conquering, escapades at primary school some 55 years ago.

Just as with a ‘Fisherman’s Tale’ those intervening years have probably distorted my memory of long lost triumphs.

My old vinegar pickled conkers were of lore back in rural Norfolk as a 7 year old.

I swear I had a ‘121-er’.

That’s 121 conker tournaments won, to the uninitiated.

When your opponent’s conker fell off it’s string, you were allowed to stamp on its: hence the term ’stampsies!’ (Yes, I probably made that up too!).

That was the way to confirm your ‘kill!’

A bit like beheading your opposing knight in a medieval joust: just not as brutal or bloody.

The river Nidd gurgled beside me. its peat coloured waters confirming its slightly ominous presence.

‘Winter is coming’ for our rivers as well as our fireside log supplies.

It reminded me that however much I love the notion of living by running or moving water, the reality, in our 21st century lifestyles, is that it carries threat, due to our climate changing flood reality.

I saw the first holly berries of the season.

Great clumps of them hung from the trees along the river.

I passed those staring sheep and a smoking chimney.

The first hint of cooler weather was upon us.

Perfect for walking but there was a noticable chill in the westerly wind which pierced me every time I stopped to take a photograph.

I passed enormous century’s old trees on a well maintained and signed path.

In Yorkshire, we are now in the summer to winter lull and the variety of vegetation colour has dipped briefly. But creative beautry was still everywhere: I just had to look.

A splitting seed head of a Rose Bay Willowherb conveyed intricate created beauty.

The symmetry of a solitary dandelion showed this pesky weed at its best.

The curve of the ’New bridge’ between Birstwith and Darley was superb.

New bridge?

It must be at least 300 years old!

It was historically used as a packhorse bridge, back in time.

The elvated man-made section of the trail led me to that rarest of sights in this stone dominated area: a red brick house.

It looked strangely out of place on this walk.

A fantastic rope swing dangled off a the lofty branch of an ancient tree. Whilst short on time, I still answered its call and took my swing.

Plenty of life left in this old swinger, I mused ironically!

Why wouldn’t you?

The distant woods at Swarcliffe, hinted at imminent and eminent autumnal glories.

They were starting to change colour.

A local horse, peeped indifferently, out of his stable as I walked by.

A giant, edible mushroom had ‘popped’ in a field of cow pats.

Or should that be ‘pooped?’

Like negotiating a minefield, walking that splattered section of the trail, with clean boots, was a miracle!

Finally, I reached Birchfield Farm and its famous pumpkins.

The bright orange of its harvest plunder dominated the hillside.

Pumpkins ready for the Halloween inspired excesses that I feel can be squarely and fairly blamed on our friends across the pond.

Halloween?

I don’t really get its allure?

It seems to be the one day in the year where parental commonsense disappears and kids of all sizes and ages, knock on the doors of complete strangers.

At a time when Child Protection is under so much scrutiny I find it all, somewhat baffling.

And I’m no ‘Fun-spoiler’ I promise you.

But, in the spirit of ‘no judgement’ I’ll leave that thought with ‘an each to their own’ conclusion.

I still had ‘many rivers to cross’ – well actually four, before I reached the lane leading me to home.

It was dusk now and the sunset was spectacular.

As I chatted to my oldest son Harry, at home in Scotland, as I walked up my final hill, the sunset colouring got better and better.

He and his wife Emily are cat mad, so it seemed providential that I should pass a ‘Dulux white’ cat as we chatted!

As I paused outside my gates, the intimidating Nidderdale cows that live next door, cantered towards me.

I am not exaggerating!

Their gait, at the sight of any walker, is almost at gallop speed.

“Tough luck, boys and girls, you can’t touch me’, I crowed as they snorted and reared on the other side of the wall!

The subset softened their menace.

We even had a chat for a few seconds.

My 15 mile walk had taken me 4 hours.

My charge to catch up with Tyrus had been boosted with nearly 40,000 steps.

A blast from my past: ‘The heat is on’ 🎶 gave me ear worm.

In my next blog you will find just out how the race to top the Monthly Steps challenge unfolded.

More twist and turns than an Alfred Hitchcock thriller or a Manchester City FC finance scandal, for that matter.

I hope you enjoy it if you choose to read it.

Thanks for reading of this blog.

Have a fabulous weekend when it comes. 

Martin x

Massive thanks to my Derbyshire based Editor in Chief, Sarah Cross. Sarah can spot a typo a mile off. Hopefully her attention to detail has helped he to go ‘💯% typo free’ once again!

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All of my photographs are ‘seen as ‘scene’!’

I really want you to see what I saw when I pressed my shutter: not a touched up, exaggerated version of a non reality.

Martin Moorman is a 61 year old retired Headteacher who lives with his wife Nicky, daughter Rosie and her family in North Yorkshire, UK. Martin and Nicky have 3 grown up children, Rosie, Harry and Jake, all happily married too. In his spare time Martin loves walking, photography, blogging, football, renovating, cooking and chatting to anyone who will listen!