hillsides – derrickjknight

This morning our friend Giles visited to collect me for a walk. Unfortunately his idea of flat terrain varied a little from mine.

The footpath from the Taddiford Gap was so narrow that when we met oncoming traffic, unable, like crows, to perch on a post, we needed to squeeze ourselves into rather awkward spaces.

Barbed wire fences lined either side of the path, so there was no point in grabbing theirs.

We walked along the path, watching others on the hilltops

and eventually arriving at the path alongside the clifftop with its view

across scintillating seascapes to the Isle of Wight and The Needles.

There we had the option of turning left

or right. This seemed the gentler route.

After we had passed the time of day with the walkers in the above two pictures, knowing that I had my limitations,

my concerned friend asked when I thought we would reach the halfway point of my capacity. “We’ve passed it”, said I. After a brief discussion we decided that turning back would involve slightly less distance than pushing on to Barton where it wouldn’t be very easy for him to pick me up.

It was no easier for him to pick me up outside the car park that was our starting point. At one point he suggested I rested on a tussock. “I wouldn’t be able to get up”, I replied.

Back I staggered and eventually with the end in sight, like the wobbling Italian Dorando Pietri in the 1908 London marathon, I fell over. And couldn’t get up. Considering the number of people we had met along the route, it was something of Sod’s law that no-one was around then.

Giles went hunting for a car driver while I turned myself onto my front, abused the knees of my pale fawn trousers and the elbows of my equally light hued linen jacket, and dragged myself to the the concrete post at the entrance to the car park. My hands clasping the top of the bollard I struggled, without success, to haul myself up.

Welcome voices heralded the arrival of my friend with Damien and his dog. The dog was confined to his owner’s car. The two men each took a hand and heaved – successfully. Back on my feet I was OK.

Now, when posting our trips over the last twelve months, I have not dwelt on the gradual decrepitude that has crept up on me. My knees really don’t work at all well, and remain painful, so any use after about twenty minutes is really tough. For “walk”, “stagger” should sometimes be substituted.

Today’s final photograph is of one of the last 6,000 surviving pillboxes of the 28,000 placed at strategic points across the country in anticipation of a German invasion during World War II. After that I needed all my concentration to end our journey.

You don’t have to know me very long to know that giving up is not in my repertoire. So I will continue to do what I can, but accept that I shall never take on such a walk again.

It was good to have done it again with my friend of more than 50 years.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s mild chicken jalfrezi, pilau rice, and parathas, with which she finished the Sauvignon Blanc, I drank more of the Fleurie, and Flo and Dillon abstained.

This morning we prepared the rooms upstairs in readiness for the Christmas hoards. The first task was replacing the towel rail and cabinet and cleaning the bathroom that Aaron has redecorated. Our friend, who is A.P. Maintenance, would have come back to carry this out, but we encouraged him to stick to his well earned holiday. The three spare bedrooms were then cleaned and their beds all made up. After this came the hoovering. My role could best be described as supporting and carried out somewhat tardily.

After lunch YouView stopped working on the TV. I grappled with it for a while, then calmed myself by scanning sixteen more colour negatives on Agfa film from the 1983 holiday in North Wales. Fortunately, the equipment required for this functioned satisfactorily, and whilst I was working on this, Jackie informed me that the BT service had returned to normality.

We stayed in a farmhouse near the home of our friends Ann and Don whilst their own property was being renovated.

Hills like this were all around us.

Here is a broader view of the houses lying beneath the heaps from the discarded slate mine featured in ‘Aberfan’. As always, clicking on the images gives more detail, such as that of the children’s playground indicating the family nature of this fairly remote community near Cerrigydrudion in Corwen.

A second picture shows rugby and soccer pitches alongside each other. I wondered which was the more popular game here.

This view looks across the further side of the valley,

above which nestles the farm at which we stayed. In the first of these two pictures Becky and Matthew approach the cattle. Jessica replaces them in the second,

The farm was approached from this rough track.

Louisa made the acquaintance of the inquisitive local fauna,

and tried her hand at bringing life back to the train in the disused mine.

Barbed wire attached to a weathered wooden post in front of a large boulder exemplified the rugged nature of the landscape,

to which plentiful spiky thistles spoke,

and in which foxgloves managed to survive.

This evening Jackie cooked a chicken jalfrezi for the eighteen people she will be feeding on Boxing Day. Eyes streaming until she created a through draft by opening the kitchen doors to the 40+ m.p.h. prevailing winds, I peeled and chopped the onions.

Hordle Chinese Take Away provided our own dinner with which I finished the malbec and Jackie drank Hoegaarden

Tag: hillsides

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