Yorkshire Girl's Midlife Diary

I’m adventuring quicker than I can write at the moment so this one is about the trouble I got myself into two weekends ago. I hope that it makes you smile and makes you feel better if you struggle with some forms of modern technology, you are not the only one!

Generally, I am quite good at working stuff out. I work on a PC all day, have lots of gadgets and really do think technology is marvellous most of the time. However, I got myself in such a tizz with it this particular weekend and got into trouble with the one person who you do not want to get into trouble with ……….. my mother! What did I do?

Well in short, I went for a lovely bike ride on the Kirklees Way. It was one of those Sunday mornings when I could have done all my jobs and housework but I thought they can wait until tomorrow, I’m off on a bike ride. I will however admit to taking the electric mountain bike. My legs were so tired with lots of running as I am training for a race at the end of March. From my house to Kirkburton and back on the Kirklees Way it’s 33 miles or 53km and it is very hilly so I had a bit of battery powered assistance for the hills. You still have to work hard on an electric bike. Some people think it’s cheating, but it’s still quite a workout for 53km.

It’s a lovely ride as it is almost all off road through woods, across fields and down farm tracks with some lovely views. It was one of those dry crisp days with a very moody sky but fortunately it stayed dry. The first part across the fields is lovely.

Then you come into the very lovely village of Upper Denby……..and what is located there?!? Only the best ice cream parlour in the area which makes its own ice cream from its own dairy herd. So, what did I have?

I bet you guessed wrong! Yes, for the very first time in my life I went to an ice cream parlour and did not have an ice cream. It was Sunday morning, I was frozen and I just needed a bacon sandwich and some caffeine.

So once I’d fuelled it was off again for the remainder of the ride. It was a super ride and the first time I have done it in its entirety. Under railway viaducts, through woods and past the sweetest little pony which I just had to stop and pet.

However, it all went slightly downhill when I got home and discovered my technology issue and the dozen missed calls from my mother!

You see I have one of those new fitness watches now I’m a ‘competitive athlete’! I say this as a joke because I use only 3 things on it, distance, speed and elevation. I have no interest whatsoever in all the other fancy stuff it does like cardio statistics, cadence, oxygen saturation etc. But they just don’t make anything simple these days do they, everything has to be so overcomplicated. Now I have to admit I’ve never really sat down and set anything up on this watch. I’ve sort of fiddled with and amended settings as they’ve annoyed me. Like when I sit still for more than 5 minutes at work and it tells me to move…….I rapidly disabled that! I did the same for the ‘relax’ warning because I don’t do ‘relax’, I’m wasting adventuring time if I’m relaxing, I feel guilty, like I’m missing an opportunity.

Anyway, I suspected something may have gone slightly wrong with my new fandangled watch when I checked my work out on Strava when I got back. My 33 mile very tiring workout had recorded 38 seconds of the ride with zero distance and 1 calorie burned……..so not even enough for the bacon sandwich. It had then published it on Strava and attracted comments from my running club friends along the lines of, “Some bloody workout that!”

However, if that wasn’t bad enough, I then discovered all the missed calls from my mother demanding I ring her ‘IMMEDIATELY’ ‘to let her know I was ok, the first one received four hours previous. Apparently, my watch has an inbuilt incident detection alert, which monitors your GPS activity for sudden stops and impacts and then notifies contacts that you may be in trouble, via SMS text message. Now I do vaguely remember putting my mother’s landline number in as my next of kin when I first got the watch, along with that of my eldest son but did not really pay attention as to why. Well, I now know that when you go down a very bumpy track at speed on a mountain bike, the sudden impact detected by my GPS, alerts my mother that I’ve been in an incident and am in trouble! What’s worse is that it does this every hour until I disable it. To say she was worried by the time I contacted her four hours later is understatement of the year and I was in more trouble than I’ve been in for a long time. At the opposite end of the spectrum was the text from my son which said “I’ve received an incident alert on my phone, I’m sure you’ll be ok, ring if you need me!”. I did point out that the whole point of the system was to summon help because if I’d had an incident, I might not be able to call him.

So, I quickly attempted to disable it and took her out of my contacts thinking that was job done. But no! I then got a call on Monday after work, a whole day later, from her mobile to advise me that, “Your Dad had had to unplug the landline phone because that watch of yours is still calling us every hour!!”. Anyway, to cut a long story short I’ve disabled the feature altogether as I’ve decided that lying in a ditch injured until someone finds me is a better option than being in trouble with my mother.

So, if you have issues with some forms of modern technology, don’t stress, it happens to those of us that are supposedly quite ‘with it’ when it comes to technology. I do however, strongly recommend turning the incident detection facility off on your watch if descending a bumpy track on a bike!

This was a lovely last-minute booking. The half term holiday came around so quickly and I had the opportunity to squeeze in a short four-day break to Prague, Czech Republic. This has been on my bucket list of European cities to visit for a long time and I had actually booked to go during the pandemic and had to cancel my plans.

I knew it would be very cold, with a forecast of minus 5 at night, but the weather was dry, and remember, there’s no such thing as too cold, just the wrong clothing! I hoped I’d packed the right clothing and off I went. What is there to do in Prague and would I recommend it? Yes, and most definitely yes, it’s a fantastic city.

I went with hand luggage only, which was quite a challenge given the temperature forecast! I just about managed at 9.8kg but did have to board the plane in Leeds dressed like an Eskimo as I had to wear most of my luggage allowance! I like to travel independently and prefer to use to local transport if possible. Prague has an excellent system of trams, buses and a metro system and it was no problem getting from the airport to the city. Once in the city it’s really compact and you can walk everywhere. I stayed right at the end of the Charles Bridge at the Hotel Pod Vezi. It was on a B&B basis as I like to venture and try local food on an evening. I would definitely recommend the hotel to anyone that is thinking of visiting. I like quite small, traditional places, not the big, pretentious, impersonal hotels and it was perfect. It was excellent value for money and in a super location but still had all those special little touches (think bathrobe, slippers, Nespresso machine and a chocolate on my pillow every night!). Every girl likes spoiling a little bit!

First stop had to be the number one attraction in Prague and everyone’s iconic photo, the Charles Bridge! It’s beautiful. It’s a medieval pedestrian only bridge which crosses the Vltava River, linking the two sides of town. It was started in 1357 and completed in the early 15th century. It is over half a kilometre long and has a large tower at each end. Along the bridge are 30 statues of various prominent figures of Prague. One of them is St John of Nepomuk who was the Queen’s priest at the time. He was thrown off the bridge for refusing to divulge her confessions! Apparently if you rub this statue legend has it that you will return to Prague. There are also excellent views of the bridge and river from one of the towers which you can go up.

I like to visit cities which have quite a lot of history and Prague is no exception. It’s not so long ago that the Czech Republic was under communist rule and it wasn’t until the end of November 1989 that Czechoslovakia, as it was known then, overthrew communist rule and ceased to be a satellite state in the Soviet sphere of interest. I guess we sit in a sort of bubble at home in the UK. We see the Ukraine / Russia conflict daily in the news but it feels such a long way away, and our daily lives, other than the price of gas and some food stuffs, are relatively unaffected by it. That’s not the case here. They quite clearly feel much closer to it, and I guess they are, being geographically just one country between them, but you can very much sense the solidarity with the Ukraine and the anti-communist stance. There are Ukrainian flags and banners ‘Hands off Ukraine, Putin’ draped off many buildings. They do not hide their celebration of the events of 1989, in what was called ‘The Velvet Revolution’, which saw an uprising of the people to overthrow the regime. I visited the ‘Memorial to the Victims of Communism’ which really brings the impact home and depicts disintegrating human figures descending a staggered slope. I guess all over Europe the symbol of the fall of Communism in 1989 was very much the removal of the Berlin Wall, as that is a physical image which we remember. However, the death toll and impact of communism across Europe went much wider. This memorial remembers the terrible human toll of the communist era on the Czech Republic alone: 205,486 arrested, 170,938 driven into exile, 248 executed, 4500 died in prison and 327 shot trying to escape. ‘The Velvet Revolution’ started on 17th November 1989 and there is actually a brass plaque on the side of a lawyer’s office in the street where it started to mark the tragic events of that day when tens of thousands of protesting students marching to remember the Czechs murdered in WWII were attacked by riot police. Nine of them were killed by the police and the plaque represents the 9 outstretched hands with fingers splayed in a ‘V’ for victory. I have to be honest I’d been oblivious to the impact on the Czech Republic before my visit and it was actually quite moving to learn how many suffered in just this city and country.

Anyway, on a lighter note, Prague is also good for beer! Its local beers are Budwar and Pilsner Urquell and they are good. They are more what I as a Northern girl would call a lager though, not a ‘proper’ beer like we have up North in Yorkshire! But not to worry, I found the proper beer. If there is one thing that monks are good at, other than praying, it’s brewing beer. Just like in Belgium I managed to find a monastery, the Strahov monastery, that lets you into the brewery to drink. They do a dark ale, with a proper head, called St Norbert’s that could rival any Belgian beer, and is almost as good as a proper Yorkshire pint! It was really good.

Another must see is Prague Castle and St Vitus Cathedral which are both together on the same complex. The Castle is very interesting and the cathedral is spectacular inside, particularly the stained-glass windows. It is guarded by a number of sentries in their very official looking uniforms. They look really intimidating and trust me, you’ll not get one to smile, I did my very best guard impression but I’ve just not got a face serious enough for it.

Next stop, the main squares, there are two. First there is Wenceslas Square. This square is the least pretty of the two but has historical significance. It’s where in 1918 the republic of Czechoslovakia was announced, in 1945 the end of the war was declared, where a number of ‘The Velvet Revolution’s’ protests were held and where the Jan Palach memorial is situated. This memorial remembers university student Jan Palach who, in 1969, set fire to himself to protest about the Soviet invasion the preceding year. He died from his wounds and is now a national hero. The Old Town Square is the prettier of the two and is where the ‘Astronomical Clock’ is. The clock was built in 1490 and does a little amusing performance on the hour with its many figures and the cockerel.

If you like food you’ll love Prague, but possibly not so much if you are vegetarian. Think lots of pork and lots of goulash and dumplings. There is smoked roast pork cooking on a spit in a lot of places. There is also a traditional cake called a Trdelnik or Chimney Cake. It’s a spiral of cinnamon and sugar-coated dough roasted on a spit and then filled with a filling of your choice. Mine was filled with strawberries, chocolate sauce, vanilla ice cream and then topped with cream. The photo demonstrates just how excited I get about ice cream, I really must try to contain myself! Then there are cakes, I like cake. The pistachio cake was just delicious and then I found myself in another cake shop where there were just so many beautiful cakes I could not decide. So, in short, if you like food, you will not be disappointed with Prague.

Oh, and there are some very quirky cafes. I loved this one, Vytopna, in Wenceslas Square. It has a model railway running all around the café with a train line to every table. You order your drinks or food and it is delivered to your table by a little train, which hoots and chugs around. It even knows when you have taken your drink out of the wagon at the back and then chugs off again. Childish as I am I will admit to ordering my drink and then my food separately five minutes after my drink came just to make the train come twice!

If you like sculpture and architecture there are lots of examples to see. There are the obvious buildings of baroque, gothic and cubist architecture, which you would expect to see in Prague. A more modern design, however, is the ‘Dancing Building’ designed by Frank Gehry and Vlado Milunic. It opened in 1996 and is ‘Deconstructive’ in style. It opposes the order of form, structure and symmetry and is meant to defy and rebel against the more traditional styles.

Prague is also the birth place of Franz Kafka, novelist and short story writer. The sculpture of his head by Czech sculptor David Cerny is definitely a must see. It is 11 meters tall and has 42 rotating panels that rotate in differing frequencies throughout the hour before finally resting in their original position. There are many Cerny sculptures in Prague. In addition to this one, another quirky funny one is that of two men urinating into a pond. The weirdest one though is out at the TV tower a short tram ride away. It’s another one of those that’s a bit lost on me. Ten large very creepy babies crawling up the outside of the Zizkov TV tower, creepy because instead of a face they have a sort of embossed bar code face, very odd.

Another interesting part of the visit was to the Jewish Quarter. Again, something else I was a bit oblivious to before the visit. I never realised the country had such a large Jewish population which suffered horrendously during the Holocaust. The Jews were confined to their own area of town and this has been really well preserved as a museum of 6 synagogues and a Jewish cemetery. Each one tells a different story but for me the most moving and informative is the Pinkas Synagogue because on the walls are inscribed the names of the almost 80,000 Czech Jews that perished in the Holocaust. There is also an exhibition in there at the moment of children’s drawings which were completed in the ghetto under the supervision of artist Friedl Dicker-Brandeis between 1942 and 1945. They really are quite moving and telling as they unconsciously express the emotions of the ghetto children at the time. It’s amazing what truths you get if you ask a child to draw a picture, it’s a window into the mind. There are similarities in the pictures: lots of black, lots of trains and lots of train tracks and it really makes you quite sad.

Finally, I just had time to squeeze in a quick walk up to the Letna gardens for the most amazing view of the city from up above, with the added bonus of a beer garden!

So that’s it, the whirlwind guide to Prague. Four days was just enough time to see everything I wanted to see. An amazing city with so much to see, do, eat and drink!

This weekend really was the weekend best forgotten but it gives me the opportunity to tell you about one of my other pastimes……….the ‘pandemic jumper’ and what I do when I can’t go anywhere and have to stay in.

This weekend I really have had my adventuring wings clipped as I’ve been in hospital for a colonoscopy and it was a delight. You see, it’s not all adventure after 50, some things do start going slightly downhill, but luckily nothing too serious that can’t be managed with a few dietary adjustments, and I’ve already tested my resilience to ice cream and alcohol and it went well so it’s not all doom and gloom.

However, the weekend was an issue for me as there are three things I’m not good at, in fact, I’m really quite bad at them, and that’s not adventuring on a weekend, early mornings on a Sunday, and not eating. So, roll all three into one weekend and you have a pretty miserable me.

So firstly, 24 hours without food! Oh my goodness, food is my hobby, I love making food, I love eating food and I can actually read a cook book instead of a work of fiction book and get just as much pleasure out of it. Twenty four hours without food was quite an issue. So mid-morning on Saturday I had my piece of plain white sliced toast as part of my low fibre pre day-surgery diet knowing it was my final snack until Sunday afternoon. You know the type of bread I mean, it is like a piece of polystyrene, horrible. And how come you suddenly realise you are starving, just because psychologically, you know you can’t eat.

Then came the exciting bit, the drinking of the solution ready for the procedure, and the reason I could not stray too far. Oh my goodness, what an ordeal. I try to look on the bright side of everything so I sat there thinking how all these celebrities pay a fortune for colonic irrigation and there was me getting it for free on the NHS with the self-administration of sachets A and B. I also thought I might lose a few pounds and bear more of a resemblance to a supermodel afterwards, but sadly that did not happen. I did however, lose the will to live slightly and I really do question why anyone would want to do it on voluntary basis, I really can think of a thousand better things to do on a weekend.

The real sting in the tail was that I was the lucky individual who had been given the 8:30am slot on a Sunday morning for the procedure. In an effort to catch up on the backlog the NHS are now conducting these 7 days a week and until 9:30pm on 3 days a week. All well and good I thought, get it done early, until I realised that meant drinking my solution through the night, so basically, I was up all Saturday night, and needed to entertain myself.

It did not help that my current book that I started this weekend is Stanley Tucci, ‘Taste – My Life Through Food’. How ironic is that. The 24 hours I can’t eat anything I’m reading all about Italian food traditions throughout Tucci’s life. A lovely book by the way, but not when you are hungry and fasting. After a few hours reading my book Stanley was not helping my cause so I had to find something else to do.

Another love of my life is music, both playing, listening and singing and I love all types of music. I play flute and piano, but flute much better that piano, but you know what they say, practice makes perfect so I had a couple of hours on my pride and joy, my piano, and by one o’clock in the morning had perfected Mozart’s Menuett in F. I really enjoyed myself as I just don’t get chance to sit and play that much anymore, and I find it so relaxing.

Then out came the ‘pandemic jumper’! I need to tell you about the ‘pandemic jumper’, it is a standing joke in the family that the jumper will never be finished, but I beg to differ. I am going to surprise everyone one day when I turn up wearing the pandemic jumper in all its glory! The pandemic jumper was commenced almost 3 years ago in March 2020. I like to knit and I thank my wonderful Grandma Kathleen again for this life skill. In addition to Saturday baking, we also did knitting and sewing. Knitting has made a bit of a comeback recently but in the past many people have laughed at my love of knitting, it puts years on me apparently, “only old people knit Mum”.

I have long been aware of the benefits of knitting, it’s just a different type of mindfulness, like yoga for the mind. The mind is still, it reduces stress, improves cognitive function etc. etc. So, when good old Boris Johnson announced lockdown I thought, “how am I going to get through that?! I know, I’ll knit a jumper”, and I ordered the pattern and wool online. The only issue is, I’m still knitting the jumper three years later! The jumper’s pattern name is Delilah and she’s not just any old jumper, she’s got a pattern around the top and three different colour wools, talk about biting off more than you can chew, but that’s me all over. Delilah and I have spent many happy hours together but little did I think that we would still be growing together three years later. The problem is she is made of the finest wool, 70% Falkland lamb’s wool and 30% British alpaca. Being so fine in texture, you spend hours knitting and the jumper grows one centimetre. Delilah is now two sleeves, one back and I have now started the front. Then there is only the fancy patterned yoke to do and she’s finished. She will get finished one day and she saved the day this weekend, stopped me going slightly crazy, and grew 3 centimetres. We could well be into another pandemic by the time she is finished but watch this space, I will arrive wearing her one day in the not-too-distant future, much to everyone’s amazement.

Anyway, music, reading and knitting got me through the night and kept my mind busy. Then it was off to the hospital first thing for the procedure. By that time, I was ravenous, tired and not full of the joys of Spring. The nurses were superb and the consultant a lovely man, I mean, you really have to be interested in gastroenterology to do that for a job don’t you! I did warn him if he stood still for too long, I might actually eat him I was so hungry but it was all over relatively quickly in half an hour. I opted to have it without any sedation as I wanted to be up and out of there eating and adventuring immediately after, not under 24-hour supervision. I thought if I can run three and a half miles with a thorn in my shoe, I can tolerate this. There were only a few moments when I thought I might have made the wrong choice but I gritted my teeth and stopped the circulation in the hand of the nurse instead. And the bonus was, if I wanted to, I could watch the whole procedure on the TV positioned straight in front of me! I am being sarcastic on this point. The last thing I wanted to do at 8:30am on a Sunday morning was to watch a 30-minute video screening of my insides. It was quite funny though and demonstrated the consultants absolute love of his subject, he found it quite surprising that I did not want to watch and sort of made it sound as if it was on the shortlist for an Academy Award or BAFTA. Anyway, I hope this is not his nightclub chat up line, but apparently, I have a lovely bowel and an amazing resting pulse of someone years younger than me due to my adventures and running. I’ll add it to the CV along with my recent running competition prize for smiling in the face of adversity whilst battling sore legs and horizontal wind and rain. So, if asked to describe my good points I smile a lot, have a lovely bowel and an amazing heartbeat, but hey, when you get to almost 52, you’ll accept any compliment thrown your way!

Anyway, procedure done, another slice of toast and tea consumed to prove to the discharge nurse I was well and good and I was free to leave. I was told I might not feel able to eat much for the rest of the day. They clearly have misjudged the importance of food in my life! Before I’d even left the hospital, I’d booked a table at my local bistro and then devoured that good old British classic, the Sunday roast with my favourite beef brisket and a Yorkshire pudding. Delicious, finished off with a scoop of Cadbury Crunchie ice cream. Every cloud has a silver lining and I’ll be back onto proper adventuring next weekend! I also had a very exciting 4-day trip to Prague recently. It was lovely and I will find the time to tell you all about that at some point as it should definitely be one for the bucket list if you like European city breaks. Anyway, onwards and upwards!

Yes, it’s almost that time of year when I can start thinking about coming out of hibernation and not being quite as grumpy a bear in a morning. My favourite season of the year, Spring! I like Autumn too but I think Spring just beats it. One of the things I love about Spring is the awakening of all those little plants that have been keeping warm under the soil for these last few months. I also have a bit of a thing about baby birds and animals too, particularly lambs.

So, last weekend I thought I’d go to one of my favourite places that I’ve not been to for a few years, the Royal Horticultural Society Garden at Harlow Carr, Harrogate. This is where, around 19 years ago, I did a one-year evening course in garden design and absolutely loved it. So off I went in search of Spring on this bright crisp morning. I love flowers and plants so I’ll tell you a little about my favourites from this visit.

Now this occasion, being a cold one, called for the wearing of my new bobble hat! Yes, that’s right I’ve got another one. I have got this one to match my hair. Because there have been developments on the mid-life crisis front. I’ve gone back to my youth and am once again a red head as I decided that red head’s do have more fun. I was getting greyer by the day and was having a mini meltdown, I am not going to age gracefully, I’ve promised myself I’m going to do it disgracefully. I was red when I was younger and I thought what’s the worst that can happen, if I don’t like it, I can just have it stripped out, no big deal, so I’ve done it. It is very ginger, and it makes my eyes look very blue for some reason. I think I need to wash it a few more times to tone down the brightness before I make my mind up whether it’s staying. But, it gave me an excuse to buy a new hat, so all is well. I have had the expected responses from my two ‘bundles of joy’ who’ve had the ‘do you like my new hair’ Facetime call. One said “It does not look as bad as I thought it would”, I don’t know whether that’s a compliment or not and the other burst into a rendition of “The Sun’ll come out Tomorrow” from Annie the musical (you’ll have to google Annie but I swear on my life I do not look like Annie). They’ve put me off it slightly but I’ll leave it a bit longer before I decide whether it’s staying.

Harlow Carr is one of five public gardens run by the Royal Horticultural Society, a gardening charity founded in 1804. It holds various flower shows throughout the year, the most famous being the Chelsea Flower Show which I have been lucky enough to attend on two occasions. Its gardens are absolutely spectacular and showcase some of the most spectacular plants in a magnificent setting. It’s good to visit four times a year, once in every season, as it is a year-round garden and it changes throughout the seasons. A visit now is lovely as people often think there is nothing much to see in a garden in winter, but the RHS prove otherwise and there are some fantastic winter plants that thrive in the northern hemisphere, and now is the time when all the new spring shoots and bulbs are coming to life. May is superb as they have lots of rhododendrons in the woodland area which are a sight to behold. I love perennials so end of June/July is another perfect time to visit. Then finally Autumn just for the spectacular colours in the Arboretum.

What did I see?…………………Snowdrops, snowdrops and more snowdrops. They have a whole garden dedicated to this plant. There are around 20 different species of snowdrop in existence and in each species, there are number of varieties. In total, there are over 2,500 varieties found in the UK alone. There are huge snowdrops, tiny snowdrops, snowdrops with single layered petals, double snowdrops, pure white snowdrops, snowdrops with green markings…….just so many. Here are some of my favourites from today.

Then I went off in search of one of my favourite spring flowers. On my way I passed a plant with some really big orange berries on there. Very pretty and perched on the top was the most beautiful female blackbird, tucking into dinner between bursts of song. There were so many birds in the garden, and even they seemed happy it’s nearly spring, birdsong from every direction.

Then I found them, the daffodils. It must be a little warmer in Harrogate than at home because I actually found some that were out! It made my day. Daffodils to me mean Spring. They make me think of the poem ‘I Wandered Lonely as Cloud’ by William Wordsworth. One of my favourite poems as I can relate to his thoughts on daffodils, I can’t remember all the words to it like I used to be able to as it was a poem we once had to learn to recite from memory at school.

In addition to flowers the RHS also like to showcase the growing of fruit and vegetables, often showing how they can be grown amongst flowers in a domestic garden. I got really excited when I saw this one, rhubarb! It’s a love or hate thing is rhubarb, but I love it. I have two big crowns of rhubarb on the allotment, one early, one late. The first will be ready in around a month and that means rhubarb crumble, rhubarb pie, rhubarb jam and absolutely anything else I can think of that involves rhubarb.

Then it was time to have a look at the ‘Winter Walk’. This was lovely, full of Cornus (Dogwood), which just looks like it’s on fire from a distance, so bright. I love Hamamelis (Witch-Hazel) too. So pretty in winter and it smells beautiful, although it just will not grow in my garden at home unfortunately, I’ve tried it unsuccessfully.

By this time, I was so cold, but luckily there is a ‘Betty’s’ tea kiosk in the garden. I have Raynaud’s and whilst it’s not a serious thing it is really annoying to live with at this time of year and drives me crazy. At this point I’d lost all my finger ends and they really start to sting and throb so I needed a hot drink to hold to get them back. I also did not need an excuse and used the opportunity to eat a ‘Fat Rascal’. It’s a bit like a scone but has more fruit in, mixed citrus peel and a cute little face made from glace cherries and blanched almonds.

Fingers working again and refuelled the final bit of the walk took me through the Japanese garden and pond and into the arboretum and woodland. In winter I think my favourite winter woodland plant is the Hellebore. So many different colours of purple, pink and creamy white and there were so many varieties of it in flower today. There were lots of Silver Birch with some very cleverly planted red dogwood in front which contrasted perfectly, all ideas for the garden at home! Then I spotted the most spectacular tree, a Tibetan Cherry or Prunus Serrula, it had just the most amazing bark. Time then for a quick visit to the bird hide which I think must have been the busiest hide in Yorkshire today. There was a Woodpecker, who was too fast for his photo, Robins, Chaffinches, Blue Tits, Great Tits, Coal Tits and one of my favourites the Nuthatch, who really does not like anyone else on the feeder except himself, so funny to watch.

A lovely day: birds; plants; trees; sunshine; coffee; a ‘Fat Rascal’ and a new bobble hat, what more does a girl need. Well, perhaps one more visit to the Betty’s cake shop before I drive home? But that would be two buns in one day wouldn’t it. But the plan was to go for a 5 mile run when I got home so I decided that based on that fact, if I ran a little bit faster than normal and went a little bit further to burn off a few extra calories, and also the fact that it’s around Valentine’s Day, and this year I’m trying to focus a bit more on self-love, I came to the conclusion that a Betty’s fresh fruit and cream iced heart cake was just what was needed! This was even better than the ‘Fat Rascal’, it was delicious. And “Yes” I did go for that run when I got back and it was almost 6-miles at breakneck pace!

Oh it’s all happening here, extremely busy run up to half term and I’ve been so busy I’ve realised I forgot to post this the other week, I’ve just found it in the ‘draft’ box . It’s a bit out of date and not in sync as my lodgers have been gone a couple of week’s but thought I’d post it anyway to share with you a bit of the cultural side of South Yorkshire. I’ve also been somewhere lovely this weekend and feel all Springlike, like it’s nearly time to stop hibernating, but I’ll tell you about that next weekend as there will be no adventures next weekend, the magical mystery tour will be temporarily on hold for a couple of days as I’m in hospital, which will drive me crazy, thank goodness for books and music! So here goes, sorry it’s late.

Last weekend was an adventure of a more sedate kind for me. I’m slightly injured with a sore tendon so there was no Park Run for me, just a steady little 5 mile trot around the village to see when and how much it hurt. It hurt, so the rest of the weekend went at a more gentle pace. I still needed to get out and about though.

I like art, it was one of my favourite subjects at school. I’m still really creative now and love to make and do crafty things, and I love an art gallery. Unfortunately no-one else in our house does like a gallery, even the one who studied art, so I’m on my own on this one and there’s nothing worse than trying to drag someone around a gallery who’s just not interested. I’m a bit of a traditionalist when it come to art though and some of the more modern weird and wonderful stuff I get, but some I just don’t understand. I particularly like sculpture because I like 3D and I like to touch and feel art. I think it’s harder to portray emotion and connect with the viewer in a painting than it is in a sculpture. I’ve never been moved to tears by a painting but I have a sculpture, and that was the ‘Abduction of Proserpina’, a huge Baroque marble sculpture by Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini in the Borghese Gallery in Rome. Whist it covers an uncomfortable subject I don’t think there is another sculpture which captures the detail like Bernini does in the grip of Pluto’s hands on Proserpina’s thigh. When you get up close to it in the gallery it looks perfectly lifelike, from the veins on the back of his hand, the profile of his muscles, the creases on his knuckles, the indents in her flesh and the bit that you can’t see on the photo below is the way he has managed to carve the emotion of abject terror into the features of her face, for me there is no other piece as beautiful as this. I’ve visited a lot of galleries all over Europe but this one piece in the Borghese Gallery in Rome is still my favourite.

Now it will be no surprise to you that Yorkshire, God’s own county don’t forget, being as amazingly beautiful as it is, was the birth place and home of some very famous artists. David Hockney is Bradford born and bred, Barbara Hepworth from Wakefield, Henry Moore from Castleford and, although born in Bristol, Damien Hirst grew up and studied in Leeds. As a result of this, Yorkshire has the ‘Yorkshire Sculpture Triangle’ which encompasses four leading cultural venues; Yorkshire Sculpture Park in West Bretton, The Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield and the Henry Moore Institute and Leeds Art Gallery in Leeds.

I went to Bradford last year to the two main exhibitors of David Hockney’s work when one of my boys was completing his Art ‘A’ level and I was trying to inspire him (it did not work and he sat in the foyer on his phone but at least I tried), but it’s quite a few years since I’ve visited both the Hepworth Gallery and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, despite the latter only being five minutes from me. Out of the above four artists Hepworth and Moore are definitely my favourites so I decided this weekend I’d have a bit of a steady arty weekend to rest my foot.

First stop in the morning was at the Hepworth in Wakefield, named after, and dedicated to, Barbara Hepworth.

The Hepworth itself is a work of art. It opened in 2011 at a cost of £35 million and won David Chipperfield Architects numerous awards. In 2017 it was named the UK’s Museum of the Year.

It’s a stark grey concrete building which almost looks like it’s floating on the river. It’s main permanent exhibition looks at the life and work of Barbara Hepworth and it has a number of key pieces of her work. Barbara Hepworth was born in 1903 and died in 1975 and her work would be classed in the genre of ‘modernism’. I don’t like a lot of modern art but I love her work. Her sculptures are of abstract shapes and in interviews she tells how she was inspired by nature and the world around her. She remembers driving through the countryside with her family, and the shapes, bumps and ridges of the roads, hills and fields. All of that is evident in her work and I think that’s probably why I can connect with her work, because I too have a very special connection with nature.

There are lots of flowing curving lines. She uses different textures, different materials and the sculptures just seem to blend into the landscape. To me her work, whilst good to look at in the Hepworth, is better viewed at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park as it almost feels like it needs to be outside where it just blends into the landscape. The only downside , and this goes for the Henry Moore work too, is that none of the work on display can be touched and it’s such a shame because I really feel like I want to touch it and I’m sure the artists intended for it to be touched to appreciate the lines, textures and different materials in the work.

Once I’d had my little Barbara Hepworth fix I went into the temporary exhibition which was a photography exhibition by Hannah Starkey. Her photographs are of women in staged settings and urban spaces. Her work particularly looks at equality, women’s right and femininity. She talks about women’s equality being the longest revolution in human history. Now I had mixed feelings about this one, because I have a bit of an issue with the feminist movement, well some of it anyway. However, the photographs were really good, and interesting, and there were some powerful messages, particularly in the photographs of women in exile and women in Belfast during the struggles of the 80’s. And yes they do send a powerful message about the strength of women and the fact that women are quite often the backbone that holds it all together in a crisis. Wars would not have been won without the toil, support and dedication of women in the background. I know how in our house it all falls apart very quickly without me around because I instinctively do too much for them when I’m there, but I’m just a lot more comfortable letting it all fall apart now after last summer. I leave them to it hoping that they will learn from the experience. So overall I thought the exhibition was really well executed and the message was good. No photographs allowed though so you’ll have to take my word for it.

What do I have an issue with then? I just think the feminism movement has gone a little bit too far sometimes. I think some people get the words ‘equality’ and ‘same’ mixed up and they are two entirely different things. I get the equal rights, voting rights, freedom of choice and putting a stop to some of the dreadful forced practices that occur throughout the world. However, we are not the same. Men and women are entirely different, we think differently, we behave differently and we are scientifically proven to be different to each other. Sometimes I think the movement seeks to polarise the two and promote the fact that one is better than the other, like so many of today’s movements do. We seem to have to have a sector of society to blame for the issues in another sector. It would be far better to just understand and respect each other’s differences and work together rather than claim to be the same or better. It’s got to the point now where if we are not careful the art of chivalry will be dead because no man will dare to display it. I’m quite comfortable with being a woman, I wouldn’t want to be a man, and I like a gentleman, I would be very sad if a man felt like he couldn’t open a door for me, pull my chair out for me when I go to dinner, tell me I look lovely, or offer to lend me his coat when I’m shivering cold.

After the Hepworth, the afternoon was spent at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. The park is 500 acres of beautiful rolling countryside, throughout which is scattered hundreds of sculptures. Some of them are permanent, like the Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth sculptures and some of them are temporary and the displays change on a regular basis. I particularly like the Henry Moore work in the park. Henry Moore was good friends with Barbara Hepworth and was active in the same time period. His work is similar and belongs to the ‘modernism’ genre but is often depicting the human form or mother and child in an abstract way. A lot of his work is in bronze.

There’s some really interesting work around the park at the moment. There’s an exhibition of Robert Indiana’s work, an American sculptor, whose work often speaks of human love and identity, his iconic ‘LOVE’ images being one of the key iconic images of 20th century art.

Then there are some really weird and wacky sculptures, like Daniel Arsham’s huge ‘Eroded Bunny’ and ‘Eroded Melpomene’ in bronze, and Sophie Ryder’s ‘Sitting’ Hare. I quite liked these.

But the most wacky to me are the Damien Hirst sculptures on display at the moment. I just don’t get them! Damien Hirst is the sculptor who caused a stir when he placed a dead cow in a glass box full of a formaldehyde solution in the name of art. A lot of his art incorporates the human or animal form and quite often exposes the inner of the body with the skin stripped off and organs, muscle and bone exposed. The one entitled ‘Myth’ is a unicorn and whilst I don’t understand it it’s not too jarring on the eye.

However, the other one ‘Virgin Mother and Child’ is completely lost on me. I find it quite horrific to look at. It was designed for display in the inner courtyard of Lever House in New York and is part of their art collection. It’s absolutely huge and sticks out like a sore thumb in the middle of the landscape. it’s basically a huge cast bronze sculpture of a pregnant woman, 36 feet tall, painted in bright car paint. Half of her entire body has been stripped of skin, exposing all the inner cranial head, muscular and circulatory system and and inverted foetus in her womb. I just did not get it and found it quite uncomfortable to look at, but that’s perhaps what he’s hoping to achieve, I don’t know. It’s just not my sort of art.

So that was my little wander this weekend, very sedate by my standards and living proof that people from Yorkshire do do culture. I will be back to much more exciting things next weekend hopefully if my injury feels a bit better. And here is living proof that it all falls apart in my absence.

Yes, I’m embarrassed to say that’s my kitchen sink. I was out for around 5 hours. I don’t think that constitutes child neglect as they are 19 and 22. The strange unidentifiable object directly below the sink on the right is the dishwasher! And no, the door has not broken, it opens quite easily, but the student arm is quite obviously incapable of opening it. The items in the sink are the breakfast pots, a milk bottle and an empty tin can which they must believe finds its own way to the recycling bin. Then when you run out of space in the sink and it gets to lunchtime you just start piling everything on the draining board. See, I told you it all falls apart. I did have a slight moan and made them tidy it themselves and yes of course I was “over reacting Mum”, they were always intending on clearing it up themselves apparently! Back to University after the weekend, so as per usual I’ll be jumping for joy on the station platform and then missing them like crazy five minutes later, but at least I’ll have a good few months of child free adventures and exploring until chaos descends again at Easter.

I’ve been to the seaside! It took me a few hours to get there but the sun was shining and I just love the seaside. It’s the sea I like, I don’t like sand! I’ve always had a bit of a sand issue, it’s a bit like the issue I have with glitter. It gets everywhere, I can’t stand the fact that it just clings to you and you can’t get it off. But the sea is a different thing altogether, it has to be in my top 10 favourite things. I like to watch it, I like to swim in it and I just love to listen to it laid down with my eyes closed.

So which bit of seaside did I go to…….the North Yorkshire Coast. Runswick Bay and Staithes to be precise. I adore these two places and there is the most fantastic cliff top circular walk between the two, so that’s what I did. These are not the big commercialised tourist hotspots, they are still little working fishing villages, and they are so pretty.

You can do the walk in any direction but I parked up at Staithes and walked north to south, into the sun. Staithes has the prettiest little harbour with bobbing colourful fishing boats. Its streets are winding and cobbled. You can almost imagine the smugglers and pirates hanging out there in days gone by. The beach is really sandy and there are hundreds of rock pools in which I’ve spent many a happy hour with my two in the past looking for crabs.

I think it reminds me of happy family holidays when I was little. We used to go to Bournemouth every single year, same two weeks, same hotel because my parents are creatures of habit. I have such happy memories of childhood holidays. Apparently, I was the nightmare child on the beach though. Who would have thought?!?! I had to be watched like a hawk because I made an instant dash for the sea as soon as I was able to walk, but before I could swim. I have photos of my dad engaging in what can only be described as child cruelty. I’m only joking, or am I? Perhaps this is where my sand issue came from. His answer to this dilemma was to dig a hole in the sand as soon as we got to the beach and basically, when my parents wanted a bit of peace and quiet and a break from constantly watching me, they put me in the hole to thwart my escape plans. I then spent a couple of hours trying to get out of the hole. The only way they could keep me quiet was to buy me ice cream or put me on a donkey. Some things never change, even now the only thing that shuts me up on the beach is an ice cream, I’m a bit too big now for a donkey though!

I need to get as close to the sea as possible too. I didn’t take my swimming stuff on this occasion because it was far too cold. The closest I could get to the sea was by doing my best mermaid impression on a rock with my book. It was quite rough though and I got soaked as the waves crashed against the rocks but it really did blow the cobwebs away. I love the smell and taste of the sea too, when you get the salt all over your face. I wanted a swim so badly. I need to tell you about my swimming though. Although I love to swim and love water, I just can’t put my head under. You will notice on any picture of me swimming that my head stays above water and my hair is dry. If it’s otherwise, I’ve gone under by accident. I have an instantaneous panic reaction as soon as my face goes in. So, I can’t dive, only jump. It’s one of the things on my bucket list to get over it and learn to dive, I’ll do it eventually, maybe this year with some patient instruction! The back of my head is fine, I can do backstroke all day, but as soon as my nose and mouth are covered, I panic. According to my dad, I am the only person who can jump off a 5-meter diving board and not get my hair wet. I’ll have to video it one day as it’s hilarious to watch. How do I do it? I start doing breast stroke arms as soon as I leave the diving board. I create a huge splash and it makes my arms sting but I don’t go under!

This fear of putting my head under comes from when I learnt to swim when I was little. I think my swimming instructor went to the school of how not to teach children to swim. I’m sure she would be struck off in this day and age and I can’t believe anyone teaches swimming like this now. We never really started off in the shallow end or had flotation devices. She made you jump in the deep end and had a huge wooden pole which she promised would be within arm’s reach. I used to paddle furiously with my arms and legs, it wasn’t swimming, it was just trying to avoid drowning, and then every time you reached for the pole, she moved it just beyond your reach. I can remember being absolutely terrified of going for my swimming lesson and it’s a wonder now that I like water and swimming so much, but I just can’t put my head under. I used entirely the opposite methods to teach my two and they both swim like fish and are excellent at diving so I’m convinced I didn’t learn to swim the best way.

I had a brisk walk along the cliff top, wearing my bobble hat of course because it was windy, until I got to the next village, Runswick Bay. This is another gorgeous little fishing village and the beach near here is famous for fossil hunters looking for fossils from the Jurassic age. In the early 1990’s the fossil of a sea going dinosaur was found.

At the turn of the 20th century there were around 80 full time fishing boats going out of Staithes and Runswick Bay to fish the North Sea. They fished in a boat called a coble which is a type traditional fishing boat developed in this area. It was flat bottomed and high bowed so could be used in shallow sandy areas like this. Unfortunately, now there are only a few part time fishermen and a lot of the cottages are holiday lets as the younger generations have moved out of the area to pursue other, more lucrative careers.

It was truly a beautiful day. The blue sky and clouds were endless and the photographs don’t really do it justice.

I walked back along the cliff top to Staithes and even though you walk the same way back, in reverse it looks completely different. The advantage of doing the walk this way around is that you finish at the ‘Cod and Lobster’ the lovely harbourside pub which would at one time have been full of fishermen. Not so much today, but it does do the best cod and chips with mushy peas, slice of lemon and tartare sauce. Any visit to the seaside has to end with a drink in the pub and good old British fish and chips, and this day was no different. They always taste so much better by the seaside.

This was a really special adventure. It was beautiful, challenging, magical in the snow, an achievement but also very sad too. It was a day of really mixed emotions.

There are not many winter days like this in Yorkshire when you have thick snow on the peaks but glorious blue sky and sunshine at the same time, but last Saturday was one of those very rare days.

You will have worked out by now that I love hiking, I love mountains and I love snow (when I’ve not got to drive to work in it). I live on the very edge of the northern Peak District which straddles the counties of Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Cheshire and Staffordshire. The Peak District is a huge expanse split into the Dark Peak in the North where I am based, which gets its name from its geological formation from dark coloured gritstone, and the White Peak a little further South named because of its paler coloured limestone geology.

Just 20 minutes from me in the Dark Peak is the very bleak, isolated moorland, aptly called Bleaklow. It is over 2000 feet above sea level and is a huge plateau of peat covered gritstone. It lacks any changes in elevation. It is completely flat and has huge channels in the peat which you walk along. It’s a bit like a huge flat maze once you get up on the top of the moor and into the channels. In poor conditions, off the path, it is the most difficult traverse in the Peak District as the cloud just hugs the top and because it is so vast and flat it’s just so difficult to get a navigational bearing because there is just nothing there.

In addition to being a really difficult area to traverse it also holds much bigger secrets and that’s what I went in search of today. It is known as the UK’s biggest aircraft graveyard. There have been no less than 173 aircraft accidents in the Peak District, a large number on Bleaklow. At 1437 km² that’s almost one every 8km² compared to only 128 in the whole of Scotland which is 77,910 km².

What makes it even sadder and more eerie is the fact that due to the lie of the land, although the bodies were eventually recovered, the aircraft wreckage still remains in a lot of cases, as it would just be too difficult to reclaim it from such a bleak, isolated destination.

Now this is a story of ‘third time lucky’. I’ve been up here before on two previous occasions and never made it to the wreckage sites. I’ve lost my nerve both times when the cloud came in and I’ve turned back. All you have to help you find the wreckage is an Ordinance Survey Map grid reference. They are not on a footpath, there are no large signs, no directional arrows, just nothing for miles. It’s a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack and you completely lose your signal on any electronic devices up there so they are of no use at all to assist.

I’m not sure why exactly I have always wanted to get to the wrecks. I guess I just like to learn the history of things and try and understand. I know it’s going to make me sad, just like all those other war related sites I’ve visited, but I just have to go in search of them, pay my respects and understand.

There are three major aircraft wreck sites in a radius of a couple of miles and I wanted to try and find all three. I parked up in the small town of Old Glossop to climb the very steep hill which leads to the top of Shelf Moor and Bleaklow. It put my new coat to the test because although there wasn’t much snow at the bottom, as I climbed higher and higher it just got thicker and thicker and it was freezing cold. I was well layered though in my ski thermals and a number of other layers. I managed to stay snug as a bug in a rug and pressed on. I’d remembered my poles fortunately but it still felt like one step forwards and two backwards in the snow. You could tell in places, no-one else had passed that way for days, since it snowed earlier in the week, as sometimes there were no fresh tracks in the snow, just those of the mountain hare who looked to have been the only living thing up there.

Once up onto the jutting out section of hillside known as James Thorn it was time to look for wreck number one. It took ages to find it but eventually the single stone monument could be seen sticking out of the ground. This is one of the smaller wreckage sites and not the big one I had mainly come to find, but its sad story made me want to seek it out nonetheless. This is the wreckage of Lancaster Bomber KB993. It took off from Linton on Ouse near York on the 18th May 1945 with 6 men on board. It was a Canadian Airforce plane and had a Canadian goose emblazoned on the side and the words ‘For Freedom’. Ironically the war in Europe had ended just 10 days before this tragic event and preparations were being made back in Canada for the welcoming home of the squadron on 20th May 1945. Unfortunately, these 6 men never made it home. They were just on a routine exercise practicing take-offs and landings. It is thought that they got a bit bored and decided to take a circular tour over the Peak District. Darkness fell and with no navigator on board to warn them of the height of the hillside, the plane struck the side of James Thorn at around 10pm that night, bursting into a ball of flame. Although the rear gunner lived for a short while after impact all 6 perished. Parts of the wreckage still remain along with a plaque bearing the names of the crew and a dedication to them. It really is sad when you are stood amongst it all.

Once you have found the first wreck the second is quite easy to find. It is only 200 yards from the first so once you have taken a bearing you are straight to it. This is the wreckage of a C47 Skytrain (Dakota) US Airforce plane which crashed just a few months later on 24th July 1945. There were a crew of 5 and 2 USAF passengers on board. It was flying from Leicester to Scotland on a routine supply trip. The first Lieutenant had been given an alternative flight path up the east coast and had been warned of bad weather over the Peak District. However, with a navigator on board they decided to take the more direct route over the high ground of the Peak District. They never made it to their destination and the wreckage was discovered two days later by two walkers. They thought they had discovered an old crash site, the Lancaster KB993 of a few months earlier, until they spotted someone they thought was asleep on the grass. It was only when they scrambled over the rest of the wreckage that they found the other passengers and crew, all dead, and realised it was a new crash site.

It was all really quite sad and by this time I needed a moment and was not sure I wanted to find the third site. It got to me more than I thought it would, they were so young. I’d taken my picnic and a flask of peppermint tea so after walking another mile or so onto the top of High Shelf Stones I clambered onto a rock to eat my lunch. It was actually very beautiful, and were it not for the fact that my trousers froze to the rock I could have stayed up there all day.

After lunch it only took me around 10 minutes to reach the site of the wreckage of what I’d really gone to find, the Superfortress 29 ‘Over Exposed’. It was every bit as moving as I thought it would be even though I felt a sense of achievement at having made it up there and finding it in the first place. This area is Woodhead and Edale Mountain Rescue Team’s worst nightmare. Someone in their infinite wisdom last summer put it on TikTok. Subsequently hundreds and hundreds of people completely unprepared (think flip flops, no waterproofs, no map and compass) thought it would be a good day trip. What followed were a few weeks of rescues and public appeals from Mountain Rescue not to go looking for the wrecks unless you could read a map and were fully equipped. So, if you are reading this and thinking it would be a good day out, it is, but just make sure you go prepared to get lost and be up there a while i.e., a good bit of food and drink, map, compass and some warm layers just in case.

This was a huge plane, enormous. It was another US Airforce plane and had previously been engaged in the Pacific as part of the Atomic Bomb unit which took part in the tests on Bikini Atoll in 1946. By the time it crashed on 3rd November 1948 it had been re-kitted as a photo reconnaissance plane. It was only flying a routine flight of what should have been 25 minutes from Scampton in Lincolnshire to Burtonwood USAF base in Warrington with a crew of 13 men. They were told they would experience broken cloud between 2000 and 4000 feet. It is assumed they tried to descended to below 2000 feet to get below the cloud but went crashing straight into the ground which at the summit of Bleaklow is 2077ft above sea level. When the plane failed to arrive as scheduled, an air search was commenced and the blazing wreckage was spotted high on the moor. A mountain rescue team was quickly despatched but it was clear when they arrived there was nothing they could do to save any of the 13 crew. The wreckage and bodies covered a wide area and although the following day the bodies were all found and stretchered off the moor, the wreckage remains. It’s not until you start wandering amongst the heather that you realise just how big the aircraft was. There is just so much wreckage: wheels; engines; undercarriage; side panels. I thought the first two sites were sad but this one is devastating. I think it’s just the sheer size of it. And this one is much higher up, the snow is much deeper, the terrain more challenging and to put it quite bluntly is just such a godforsaken place to die. It’s a well visited site though and they will never be forgotten. There is always a remembrance service up here for anyone daring to brave it in November, with the flying of the American flag, and people will often come up here to plant crosses and just to remember the service of all of the service men who have lost their lives up here in pursuit of our freedom. 122 of the 173 aircraft lost in the Peak District were military aircraft.

All in all it was an epic adventure, but one of very mixed emotions. It was very sad, but it was a beautiful day to visit and I was so glad I made it this time around. All that was left was to do the 5 mile return journey all the way back in the snow down to Old Glossop. I’ve decided 5 miles uphill is easier than 5 miles downhill in snow……..a sledge would have been better for the return. I got down just before dark and was so ready for my usual end of adventure refreshment. Now this being an epic adventure and feeling we needed a little toast to adventuring, a drink to drown sorrows and a dedication to those brave airmen I had no problem swapping my usual flat white coffee for a Raspberry Mojito! Well, come to think of it I have no problem swapping my coffee for a cocktail on any day of the week. Caught in the act again!

I have had two very busy weekends of adventuring. Last weekend I went to the seaside, yesterday I went on a really exciting, very big, amazing snowy adventure I need to tell you about and today I have been to Manchester. I’m exhausted. I’ve done so much adventuring, I’ve not had time to write about it. So, this is just a quick post and some pictures from today and I promise that in the calm of next week I will share with you what I’ve been up to over the last few weekends on my seaside and snowy adventures.

So today, a visit to the big city, Manchester! What for? To celebrate the Year of the Rabbit of course and the Lunar New Year. To say I don’t like New Year, this was good, I’ll make an exception for the Lunar New Year.

I think I’ve said before I’m not a city girl, I go to Manchester, Leeds or London when I need a girly shopping day, want to see a show or some other cultural museum visit, and then I’m happy to come home again. I like the countryside and nature. I do like a good street party though and Manchester and London have the biggest Lunar New Year celebrations in Europe. Each of the cities have their very own ‘Chinatown’ area and are home to a huge East Asian population. It’s a fantastic area to visit at any time of year as there are some amazing restaurants here: Vietnamese; Chinese; Japanese; Korean; Thai and lots more. I love Asian food, particularly Thai, so it’s always worth a visit.

I’ve also mentioned before that I love to learn about different cultures and their celebrations, and I love to join in. The Lunar New Year marks the beginning of the lunisolar calendar year whose months are cycles of the moon. The date changes every year but the East Asian Lunar new year is always on the new moon that falls between 21 January and 20 February. The main celebrations this year are today, 22nd January. So off to Manchester I went in search of a street party.

I went on the train so it was a bit of an adventure as I don’t normally travel by train. There is a good reason for me travelling to Manchester by train. I’m not proud of it but I’ll admit it, I have been banned by the household from taking the car to Manchester on my own. I may have told you that I am a bit of a daydreamer and not always fully aware of what’s going on around me. I think it an age and hormone thing, like brain fog (that’s my excuse anyway). But to cut a long story short the last two times I have been to Manchester alone in the car I have received a £60 fine each time for driving straight down a bus lane! I swear it’s not very well signed and I can definitely blame the sat nav for one occasion but according to everyone at home I’m just not safe to be let out in a city in a car on my own! So, train it was today, in my new hat which according to the household has not been in fashion since Abba won the Eurovision with ‘Waterloo’ in 1974 when Anni-Frid wore a blue one! I could seriously fall out with them sometimes, but warmth was my priority today.

Anyway, it was fantastic. It was loud, it was busy, it was colourful, there were fire crackers going off everywhere and there was the hugest parade going the full length of the city with a 175ft dragon accompanied by drums and traditional lion and ribbon dancers. There were street entertainers, traditional street food vendors, music and just a really good atmosphere and celebration. I ate, I drank and just generally had a really good time soaking up the carnival atmosphere. I just need a rest now to recover from all my exploits and tell you what else I’ve been up to so watch this space!

Oh, and on a separate note, I’ve returned home to an empty house……………..they’ve gone! Back to University! A day of double celebrations, the Lunar New Year and the grand student depart. I just need to get my rubber gloves on and tackle two bedrooms and a bathroom next week. I’m secretly missing them a little bit already, it’s just so quiet, and even though they think I’m the most embarrassing uncool human to ever grace the planet, I can just tell with that last hug that they give you before they leave that deep down, they might be missing me and my Abba hat a tiny little bit too.

What have I been up to now? I did promise myself that every weekend was going to involve a little adventure after my escape this summer. Well, this was the weekend I almost broke my promise to myself. After my Park Run success last Saturday, a very busy Christmas, lots of running, an horrendous first few weeks back at work, two students still at home (the novelty has worn off and they need to go!), I just wanted a Sunday sofa day. I had a lazy lie in but by 11:00am my conscience got the better of me and I was a bit bored, as I’ve mentioned before I’m not good at being still. My legs were aching though so I was trying to think of something that didn’t involve running, walking or leg work. Then I had a flash of inspiration…………the kayak!

The kayak has not been out this winter as I’m a bit of a fair-weather kayaker. However, it wasn’t too cold, just dull and wet and there’s no such thing as ‘bad weather’ in my house, just the ‘wrong clothing’. So, I decided if I got my waterproofs on and went on flat water it would be fine.

I don’t have sea really close to me, it’s a good two hours away, but there are lots of lakes, rivers and canals. I got the kayak when the boys were little as we used to go all over with it in the school holidays. It’s one of those sit on top ones so if you tip up you are straight in the water. It’s made for two adults but when they were little, I could get one adult and two children on it by perching one of them on the front. I used to put their buoyancy aids on and off we went. We had loads of fun. It’s supposed to be quite sturdy but believe me when I say I am capable of capsizing even the sturdiest of kayaks!

The canals are so well maintained in the UK by the Canal and River Trust and the Environment Agency. They are as pretty as a picture in lovely weather as they are lined with riverside pubs and full of canal barges. A number of the barges are lived on throughout the year, others are just hired out as holiday lets. You can even just hire them for the day and we had great fun on one for the day for my dad’s 70th Birthday.

There are hundreds of miles of navigable waterways in Yorkshire including the Aire and Calder Navigation, Calder and Hebble Navigation, Dearne and Dove Canal, Barnsley Canal, Leeds and Liverpool Canal, Rochdale Canal, Huddersfield Narrow Canal and lots more. They have so much history to them too. Most of them were completed between 1750 and 1830 and were built as part of the industrial revolution. The purpose of most of them was the transportation of goods, and in Yorkshire they linked the textile mills, coal mines, quarries and other key areas of production with the big cities during this time. I think my favourite is the Leeds and Liverpool as it goes all through North Yorkshire and is definitely the prettiest. But one of the closest to me without too many locks is the Calder and Hebble Navigation, so this was where I went. Locks are fine on a barge but when you are in a kayak, without the key to the lock gate, they are a bit of a nightmare as you have to keep getting out, hauling the kayak out and then carrying it around the lock to the other side to set off again.

Other than a few spots of rain it was so pretty. Not as nice as when the sun shines but you still see all sorts of wildlife on the water. Birds, fish and lots of signs of spring, catkins and little buds on the trees. There’s something special about swans too and kayaking with them. They are so majestic and peaceful and I’ve got over the time when one nearly took my thumb off on a family holiday to Bournemouth when I was around seven and decided to hand feed it. That’s a word of advice for you, never hand feed a swan, they have a serrated edge to their beak and it hurts, trust me!

However, on a kayak I really am ‘all the gear no idea’. I am hopeless with a capital ‘H’. I could even be worse at kayaking than skiing, and after one torn medial collateral ligament in 2018, I can safely say I’m pretty bad at that too. I get full marks for trying though and I’ll have a go at absolutely anything. I really enjoy myself kayaking, it’s is just something that I don’t excel at, but I keep going because I love it and that’s what life’s all about, enjoyment! And I love water so I’m always eager to go.

I think the problem is the fact it’s a two-person kayak. When I’m in it on my own there is no problem whatsoever. However, you do not want to be in a kayak with me! It’s a no-win situation really. Firstly, the person at the back steers it and needs to paddle in sync with the person in the front. I don’t mind being at the back because it means I can have a little rest and hope the person on the front does not notice! However, I cannot steer it, I have no co-ordination and end up everywhere except where I should. I’m also that busy looking around and noseying that I’m not concentrating on where I am going, or the paddle stroke of the person at the front. So naturally, I’m usually placed in the front to avoid any collisions or arguments. Apart from the fact that I can’t keep stopping for a rest because I’m easily seen, I like it at the front. However, the issue is then created for the person in the back. No matter how much instruction I get, I don’t know how I manage to do it but I get so much water inside the boat and all over the person sat behind me that it has to be seen to be believed. Whoever comes with me has to wear full waterproofs and today I even had to empty the water out of the boat before the return journey back down the canal in the opposite direction! I just can’t get the hang of it. I get ten out of ten for enthusiasm though.

A lovely afternoon on the water and a bit of Yorkshire canal history for you. Like all my adventures this one ended in a café too, and this week’s treat of choice was a good old Yorkshire Cream Tea otherwise known as a scone, strawberry jam and clotted cream!

But first things first, before I tell you about my lovely last Sunday wandering I need to share my achievement of this Saturday before I burst with excitement! I’m definitely getting ‘Faster at Fifty’! Dragging myself out with running club on what is normally a wet and windy 7 miler on Tuesday nights is starting to pay off. I went to my first Park Run since October (the week after the thorn in the shoe incident) and not only did I knock another 30 seconds of at 26 minutes 39 seconds and get a new personal best, I came first place in the over 50’s ladies category (and yes, there was more than one running if that’s what you are thinking!), there were five. According to Strava, I achieved five ‘best efforts’ including my fastest mile at 8:04. I know 8:04 is not like lightening, but for the girl who hid down the ditch in school cross country and has eaten half her body weight in mince pies over Christmas that’s good and I’m going to blow my own trumpet while I can because it’s unlikely to ever happen again!

Onto last Sunday. Well, what a glorious day! Wall to wall blue sky and sunshine. Ok, freezing cold still, but just the perfect day for a long walk of just over 10 miles. I’m still a little bit tired from my Christmas running efforts but last Sunday was just too good an opportunity to miss a little adventure and explore.

I was also desperate to try out my Christmas presents from being on Father Christmas’s ‘nice’ list, my new down coat and bobble hat! I’ve had a bit of an accident with my old down coat and I do lots of outdoor adventuring so decided it was time for a new one. The old one needed a wash and although I’ve followed the instructions and washed it in the right stuff it’s done that thing where all the down clumps together and it’s just not warm anymore. No matter how many times I put it in the dryer it just won’t puff up again. And, as for the bobble hat, they are like Christmas tree baubles, you can never have too many. I have a reputation for being cold all the time, I am truly not made for a British climate which is why I think I like to travel a lot, I need warm and sunshine! I am very rarely seen outside between October and March without one of my infamous bobble hats on from my ever-growing collection. A new bobble hat is always a safe Christmas present for me.

Sunday saw me go to the beautiful village of Malham in North Yorkshire for a long walk, taking in Janet’s Foss waterfall, Gordale Scar, Malham Tarn and Malham Cove. I love it up there and it’s a couple of years since I’ve been to this side of the county, being a South Yorkshire girl. So here we go on a little tour around this part of Yorkshire.

I like this walk because it sets off from the beautiful village of Malham where there are two lovely pubs and a selection of cafes. There is also lots of water alongside the route and I love being beside water. The village is well known for its natural limestone pavement and other geological limestone formations.

The first part of the walk sees you walking alongside the beautiful Malham and Gordale becks until you reach the quite spectacular Janet’s Foss waterfall. It is a small waterfall but in the most magical setting in the middle of a wood. The water tumbles over a limestone outcrop into a really deep pool. In the summer it would be ideal for a dip but much too cold on this day. It really is a magical place and legend has it that Jennet the queen of fairies lives in a cave at the back of the waterfall, hence the name of the waterfall, ‘Janet’s Foss’, with Janet being a derivative of Jennet and Foss being from the old Norse language for waterfall. In days gone by the pool under the waterfall was used as a natural sheep dip.

The walk then takes you across meadowland to the quite spectacular Gordale Scar. This is a hidden gorge over 330 feet high and includes two waterfalls. There are a couple of theories for its creation, either water from melting glaciers or a cavern collapse. The right of way is actually straight up the middle of the scar but involves climbing up 10 metres of unprotected tufa limestone directly over the lower waterfall. It is a favourite of local scramblers and it will be no surprise to anyone that last time I came I did just that and scrambled straight up the middle of the waterfall and gorge, telling my mother after I’d done it, not before! However, with the torrent of water coming down today following lots of heavy rain, my still tired running legs and still being a bit precious about my new hat and coat I decided that today was a bit too risky to attempt it and took the long route around.

Then it was a glorious climb over the hills and meadows and time to get the flask out for a cuppa at the side of the river. The scenery in this part of Yorkshire is just jaw dropping on a day like this, a never-ending landscape of rolling green hills and vast blue skies.

The path just goes up and up until you reach the large limestone pavement of Malham Cove which was full of climbers on Sunday. After around two miles you come to Malham Tarn, a glacial lake. At 377 metres above sea level this is the highest marl lake in England and is one of only eight upland alkaline lakes in Europe. The tarn is a designated protected nature reserve and a site of special scientific interest and is home to lots of unusual flowers and fauna in addition to various birds, animals and fish. The site was the inspiration for the 1863 Charles Kingsley novel ‘The Water Babies’. On a day like Sunday, it is quite a sight.

Time for my picnic, sat on a bench at the side of the hare sculpture, and then the return 5 mile walk. The return walk was just as beautiful as the way up to the tarn. You take a slightly different route back and have full view of the setting sun. I think I captured what is probably my favourite picture of the day on the way back. It looks almost like an Ashley Jackson landscape painting rather than a mobile phone photograph. The shafts of the last bit of sunlight were piercing the clouds and lighting up the limestone pavement and in the middle of the skyline was the skeleton of a lonesome bare tree. The photograph probably does not do it justice but it was one of those moments where you just have to sit and rest a while to take it all in.

Another lovely day of wandering!