Tag Archives: walking

City Unseen, From here to there, Writing cities

A Classic Bristol Story

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The weekend was golden, skies smiled blue. This was a while ago now, times have been busy. We were walking into town.

Coming towards us ever so slowly and creakily down the middle of the road, a woman rode her bicycle. Her left hand rested on a handle bar, her right hand pressed her phone into her ear.

As we watched, she slowed even more. Then slowly, so slowly, she toppled over to one side.

Just.

Toppled.

Over.

Without a move to save herself or break her fall.

The strangest slow motion accident I have ever seen.

She wasn’t so old, but not so young either. She lay there on her right side, unconcerned and still straddling the bike, its wheels slowly spinning. Her right arm bent beneath her still held her phone to her ear, and she continued talking as though nothing at all had happened.

We hurried to her side, asking if she was alright. As we stood there, she looked up at us, told the person on the phone she needed to go, but she’d call back. She hung up. Seemed to notice she was lying on the ground.

We helped her sit up. She insisted she was ok and didn’t need any help. We weren’t all that sure.

A white, middle-aged and highly-lycraed man pulled up on his own bike. We thought he was there to help. His beard made him look like more of an adult than us. He stood there straddling his bike in manly stance, looking down at her.

‘You see this?’ he asked her, tapping his helmet. ‘Never leave home without it. It’s dangerous out there. Your head can crack like an egg. You should never cycle without a helmet.’

You see this?’ he asked, tapping his leg. ‘A pocket for my phone. That phone never leaves my pocket while I’m cycling, never. It stays in there at all times. You need to keep your phone in your pocket. Someone calls me? I pull to the side of the road to answer.’

‘It’s all about road safety’. He said, smiling, his teeth white.

She smiled back, nodding. We all nodded.

He rode away. We stared after him.

We helped her stand up, walked her bike over to the little grassy bank for her. She sat down, refused any further help. Said she’d be ok and asked us not to call anyone. She repeated this several times, and told us she just needed to sit for a bit. So right or wrong, we didn’t. We continued our walk, though with some misgivings. She sat on the bank a while, talking on her phone again. In our last view of her, she had restarted her wobbly ride, on a sidewalk this time.

Walking

Bristol Autumn

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It is actually winter I think, 4th December…winter, right? It’s winter in Manchester. It snowed and everything. I take the train south and time moves backwards to an earlier season.

Autumn is one of my favourites. Crisp air and blue skies with a hint of gold, the glow of changing leaves. Ashton court was beautiful. Open space, I desperately needed open space. Ancient oaks. Deer. It was warm enough tucked into the back of the golden stones collecting the sun to enjoy an ice cream.

We walked home across Clifton bridge, down through town. We passed hundreds of bikers dressed as santas (and elves, and reindeer and assorted holiday characters) driving jubilant and loud through the streets.

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Archaeology, Country Walks Without a Car, Walking

Priddy Nine Barrows and the Priddy Circles

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Os map of Chewton Mendip to Priddy to Wells walk

This walk was splendid, one of our best yet. We caught the 376 to Chewton Mendip (site of an earlier not so great walk before I knew you should never go anywhere without an OS map or you will get lost and miss all the things), stopped at the Mendip Pantry to pick up some incredible pies, scotch eggs, lush baked goods of all sorts. Highly recommended. We ate our first pie alongside the church, which is so unexpectedly grand. It has Saxon origins, was rebuilt in the 12th century, most of what you can see was built in the 1400s by Carthusians and patched and rebuilt again across the centuries and into the 1800s (but look at the door, I mean just look at it)

Be still my heart. The tower is from the 15th century.

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Country Walks Without a Car

Malham Cove to Flasby

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A most glorious summer day, a second glorious summer day in the Dales and we did the famous walk to Malham Cove, carved out by water and ice. My pictures make it look empty, but it was full of people. We did, of course, have lovely moments of emptiness, but it was so busy we didn’t walk in the file of people going to the bottom of the cove. We didn’t do more than pause a moment at Janet’s Foss, but it was lovely to see the families enjoying the water.

We also had ice cream. Glorious.

But best of all were the limestone pavements up above Malham Cove, I had never really seen such pavements before. Not like this.

An image of the limestone pavement at Malham Cove

It wasn’t until later that I read more about how these formed–the geology of it is quite amazing.

Karst is defined as a landscape whose features develop are dependent on the presence of efficient underground drainage. Except in deserts, this is only completely achieved where there are caves large enough to carry streams and rivers, and cave passages are only formed naturally in soluble rocks where the groundwater can dissolve away the walls of narrow fissures to turn them into large caves. So karst is a feature of soluble rocks, of which limestone is by far the most important (but is not the only one). Named after the Kras of Slovenia, karst terrains are found all over the world, and the Yorkshire Dales has one of the finest. (102)

Karst is defined as a landscape whose features develop are dependent on the presence of efficient underground drainage. Except in deserts, this valleys is only completely achieved where there are caves large enough to carry streams and rivers, and cave passages are only formed naturally in soluble rocks where the groundwater can dissolve away the walls of narrow fissures to turn them into large caves. So karst is a feature of soluble rocks, of which limestone is by far the most important (but is not the only one). Named after the Kras of Slovenia, karst terrains are found all over the world, and the Yorkshire Dales has one of the finest.

… most Dales karren are much more rounded, in a style that makes them known as rundkarren. The rounding is normally developed when they form underneath a soil cover, where the soil and vegetation keep percolation water against all the limestone surfaces. In few places, notably at the top of Malham Cove it can be seen that soil has recently been stripped off the pavement along the back margin, so that these rundkarren appear to be true sub-soil features. (104)

This is difficult language to piece together, but I love how unfamiliar words like karst and karren fit this landscape. I love how it opens the earth up to understand the coming together of sea and sand, water and stone over the millions of years since the sporadic violence of tectonic movements first cast these ancient seabeds into the sky.

Waltham, Tony (2007) The Yorkshire Dales: Landscape and Geology. Ramsbury: Crowood Press.

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Country Walks Without a Car, The Wilds, Walking

Kingussie to Glen Banchor

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Our first day, a lovely bright summer day. We were so very lucky with the weather. Not so lucky in other ways maybe. This would have been so much better split into two, not least because we found out at the end that the trains have been on strike every Sunday and we had a last three miles to walk (16 miles…my poor partner). The loop up from Newtonmore was the best and I wish we had started there to walk further up the Glen, though Gynack Burn out of Kingussie is quite lovely.

Gynack Burn is, of course, the falling water that the Duke of Gordon planned to harness to his industrialising schemes, powering factories for flour, wool and linen. One mill still stands — now The Cross, a most lovely, delicious (and expensive) restaurant that I recommend highly. But up the burn you can see worked walls of stone that once served as dams, attempts to wrest power from the water.

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City Unseen, Country Walks Without a Car, Walking

A hissing of Geese: Rochdale Canal Walk

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Geese everywhere. Big. Mean. Angry. The collective noun is supposed to be a gaggle, in flight it is a skein a team a wedge a plump. None of these terms capture the absolute terror of geese protecting their young on a narrow canal path. Hissing bastards. Look at its tongue, my god:

We got past these but not the next. Four hissing adults square in the middle, a bunch of heedless goslings along the far edge. Maybe if we still had some of our pies left, but no. We beat a retreat. Less than a mile to go around, and we didn’t mind that the older gent and his young grandson we warned about them on our way back got past without a problem (the geese had obviously taken to the water, or they are as afraid of small boys as we are). I got this picture though, probably didn’t mean much to Mark, but it was a win for me. I love these contrasts of Victorian/Edwardian industrial architecture.

Just look at these enormous old mills.

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Country Walks Without a Car, Walking

Walking to Pemberley

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We took the train to Disley, and from there walked over to Lyme and back again. A glorious walk, highly recommended.

Lyme is, of course, the house used as the outside of Pemberley. Pemberley! The home of not just any Mr Darcy but of Colin Firth playing Mr Darcy in the 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Oh my days.

I saw Pride and Prejudice for the first time in 1998. I lived in LA, alone, just off Sunset, in a tiny studio in a back second floor of an old apartment building. The front faced Los Globos (Los Globos! Cabron, que lugar but still not as bad as the bar just across sunset with its incredibly large women in incredibly little clothing who were playing pool and killed me with their eyes the one time I walked in one Sunday afternoon trying to find somewhere to watch the World Cup).

This particular night a woman was off her meds or on the wrong ones or enjoying some kind of crazy cocktail in the dirt parking area, started screaming and screaming at someone in the building. Started throwing rocks. I looked out just to see it was just her, if she was all right (I mean, as all right as she could be) and she seemed to be so I didn’t think there was much to do. But she saw me looking and then started screaming at me. Awful. I debated getting the manager but thought surely someone else had already tried. A huge rock came through the window, almost hit me, scattered glass across the bed. Still screaming but the shattering glass must have got through to her she needed to leave. Good thing, because the manager made me call the police for the insurance on the window. They took hours to arrive of course, she had plenty of time to get away, and did nothing but fill out the report.

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Building Social Spaces, City Unseen, From here to there, Planning, Walking

Vaccination walk – Or A Beginning Typology of Ways in which Manchester Pedestrians are Screwed

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About 6 weeks ago I got a text from my GP saying I could make THE appointment and I was surprised knowing it was early but so happy, not least because my GPs were administering the vaccine themselves ten minutes walk away. Brilliant. Within hours a number of other texts arrived from another number saying cancel that appointment immediately, there is no vaccine for you.

I’d just seen the news about vaccine shortages, the hold put on the roll out.

A real fall after something of a high. Of course I knew full well the vaccine roll out hadn’t even (hasn’t even) started in some other countries. Even disappointment carries its privilege. So many here means so few there. Things beyond my control but that I hold in my heart.

I finally did get to go get my vaccination last Thursday — freedom day. Of a limited kind still I know, but still. Sadly, the closest available location was Etihad stadium, home of Man City. I cannot afford to get there to see football of course, very sad indeed. Knowing it was a stadium I also knew the whole experience would be a little bit of a fuck you to pedestrians. My theory was the newer the stadium, the more of a fuck you. I was not wrong.

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Country Walks Without a Car, The Wilds, Walking

Wild Walks: Buxton to Whaley Bridge

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Another escape onto the moors as lockdown eases. Still glorious. Today was an effort to do better than our last attempt at these particular moors, walking from the station Buxton. That was a grim, cold walk and no mistake, and a closed pub at the end of it. I almost cried.

This was a beautiful sunny day, we sat on a wall eating pasties and taking in a view of the now-open Crescent Hotel (I rather fancy staying there when things open again), bought ice cream as we walked through the Pavilion Gardens. My last memory of it I was tired, hungry and bedraggled. And there were mummers. I never know what I think about them. But no mummers today.

This was lovely, a bit long to get out of Buxton maybe, but then a swift climb up hill, over an old rail line, and up where you feel on top of the world. Across the hills in sun and shadow. A brief encounter with a geezer in a tweed waistcoat, awesome. The lovely blue waters of the reservoir. The ruins of Errwood hall and a brief wish we’d arrived a little later to see the hillside of rhododendrons in full bloom. Exhausted stumble into Whaley Bridge. Home.

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