Collected Musings of a Hill Wanderer

Those of you who are regulars may note a certain change in the colours around here. Another bit of electronic fiddling was the cause of bringing the background colour to my notice The new year has yet to see a proper piece of outdoors action. That's not to say that I didn't go inspecting the recent snow, especially given how much of of it was plastered on the hills between Macclesfield and Buxton. That viewing took place on the second Saturday of the year from the confines of a warm bus rather than in an attempt to flounder through fields hosting feet of snow. Hearing and seeing how much was up there, thoughts were attuned to the need for snow shoes in such circumstances. It's little wonder that folk took to skis and going downhill on unexpected slopes like those of Kerridge Hill near Bollington. Drifting snow was starting to impeded traffic while I was on my little excursion and it later closed the A537 Cat and Fiddle road next to completely. Buxton looked very pretty in its white coat on a bright day but things were duller by the time that I reached Bakewell. It all made for an enjoyable spot of reconnaissance but a fuller bout of hill wandering is in order now that things are calming down though there is more snow on the horizon for the middle of the week. It would appear that 2010 is getting an interesting start.

We have had the cold winter mixture of snow and ice for so long now that it almost is no longer newsworthy. It was there before I set off on a winter airborne crossing of the Irish Sea and remained to welcome me back on my return. That's not to say that it isn't causing disruption with travel being a casualty from time to time. It also explains why I was out on Christmas Day and the day after (Boxing Day to some, St. Stephen's Day to others) breaking ice to clear tracks so that those with older bones than mine didn't go breaking them. There was a useful thaw thereafter that allowed things to dry up before the next round of frosts and I took my chance on an afternoon stroll around by Springfield Castle in the winter sun. Traffic thankfully was light on the roads that conveyed me much of the way and most of the ice had gone. In fact, I found more of that on the back avenue of Springfield Castle than anywhere else, including the front avenue. The latter allowed me to escape from a sizeable bunch who were engaged in pucking sliotars (hitting hurling balls with hurling sticks to the uninitiated) along the road from Broadford to Dromcollogher. Apart from that collective, places were otherwise quiet with only the occasional soul encountered along the way. It was a useful escape from worrying about the effects of slips on those who really could do without a knock.

The only other trot of note was an afternoon jaunt around by Kilmeedy on an increasingly foggy New Year's Day. Though I gained some height, the lack of visibility meant that wide ranging views were out of the question so I contented myself to decent progress along largely ice-free and dry roads with little or no traffic on them. It was but an unremarkable few hours out in the cold air apart from the sight of a pair of swans in the River Deel near Belville. Even so, it was a good way to let the mind loose to lose any stresses and strains that had been collecting.

Apart from those bursts of road walking, the countryside journeying was largely virtual with some books capturing my attention. The first of these was found around my parents' house and caught my eye. Tales of canal boating do not normally attract my interest but Gerald Potterton's In the Wake of Giants kept me occupied for a few hours with its mix of modern day anecdotes and historical interjections. Ostensibly, it is a tale of someone fulfilling an interest in journeying along the Grand Canal and the River Barrow with its numerous canal cuttings for the avoidance of weirs. Naturally, this took me around by locales that wouldn't have crept too high up my list of places to visit and told me a little about them too, adding to my knowledge of the "Old Country". The tale may have stuttered to life like a marinised old Ford diesel engine that is used a power unit for a canal boat but the narrative soon got going in its own inimitable manner and went to show that there can be more to tillage farmers than meets the eye.

The second occupier of any free moments was a volume that I picked up a while back and lay on my reading list before I got around to it. Joseph Murphy's At the Edge does fit in rather better on a blog full of walking trip reports than a tome on canal boating and it has its own soul too. The backbone of the thing is a walk along the coasts of Ireland and Scotland from Kerry to Lewis made by someone who feels that he has lost a little something of his Irish heritage. Along the way, he gets to pondering Gaelic culture and the differences between Ireland become apparent with the emptiness of Scotland contrasting with an Ireland peopled with obliging folk; interlopers who fail to engage with their Scottish surroundings stick out like sore thumbs later on in the narrative. It may be that I have developed a beady eye with all my online scribblings but there were times when typographical errors intruded on any sense of reverie (I know that I'm only human so please let me know privately about any failings of my own making). Clearly, a spot of improvement on the proof reading side is needed on the part of the publishers and the author. Even with intrusions, the explorations of exile and connectedness drew me in as the journey continued; I suppose that my being an Irishman living and working in England had something to do with this though my affinity for the places visited along the way may have helped too.

Just as there are Irishmen in England, there are Englishmen in Ireland and Tim Robinson has been one of the latter since 1972. On the return trip to Cheshire, I felt the need of a book and his Stones of Aran: Pilgrimage became my accompaniment as I left the branch of Easons on Dublin's O' Connell Street. It's an intense piece of writing that needs to be savoured away from the vacant prattlings of drunken folk on trains. Quite how he can make so much of coastal explorations with only the occasional diversion inland is surprising. Until a few years ago, it was out of print but Faber & Faber brought out a new edition with a forward by Robert Macfarlane. There is a companion volume called Stones of Aran: Labyrinth that also was out of print until the New York Review of Books addressed that situation last year. More recently, he wrote a counterpart pair on Connemara with titles such as Connemara: Listening to the Wind and Connemara: The Last Pool of Darkness, both published by Penguin Ireland. The latter of these is in my possession and remains unfinished but it very typically was on the wrong side of the Irish Sea when it would have been continued. Of course, that's a human failing with my not thinking that I'd not be reading that much while ensconced in West Limerick. It's also an unusual one for me but carriage of paper items is sure to add weight that can prove expensive if indiscipline is allowed to reign. In that light, the extra purchase can be seen as a comparative bargain.

With all this reading about a country to which I haven't done justice in walking terms, you might think that 2010 is set to be a year when Ireland might see more of me. That, however, is not mine to see. The start of any year usually is like beginning with a blank slate but 2010 seems to be more wide open than other years. While grand designs are not my style, I am more inclined to avoid them this year than I otherwise might do. It is going to be a case of meeting the future one day at a time and seeing where things take me from here.

Last year, postings on here were beginning to look like a daily winter weather report for Macclesfield and its surrounding areas. As it happens, it now turns out that the inaugural post of 2010 is much in the same vein. Such an amount of snow turned up overnight to join what awaited my return from Ireland that I think that I never saw so much hereabouts before. The trees are almost white, whatever about the several inches covering the ground; anyone who engaged in clearances and gritting yesterday has their efforts undone. Mind you, grippy snow can be negotiated with decent footwear and us hill wanderers should have plenty of that so we should with snow easily until a freeze-thaw cycle starts to bring ice. My normally resting pair of Scarpa ZG10 boots was pressed into service and has done sterling work for me as I wondered why anyone would try going anywhere in normal shoes if they had anything better to hand. Everywhere looks pretty in white though it's all monochrome in feel with the equally white skies overhead. All in all, it looks as if more practice in full winter conditions lies ahead with the current run of weather likely to last for a good while yet.

In those rare times when snow pays a visit, thoughts can turn to going elsewhere. So it was on Monday after with Sunday's snow covering. In the end, I wisely stuck with enjoying what lay on my doorstep and spent and afternoon among Macclesfield's nearby hills. Traffic may have been free-flowing and public transport running well enough for an excursion to the likes of North Wales to have worked but it would have been shameful to ignore the wonder that lay near me.

The route that I took was a familiar mix of roads and other rights of way. To start, I found my way onto the Macclesfield Canal via a very attractive Victoria Park and followed it until I reached the road near Sutton Hall, a pub near Gurnett, having taken in a section that was close up to October. Having missed out on one or two public footpath options, I followed the road around by Lyme Green to Sutton where I made photographic use of the local parish church. After that, it was more roadside footway travel until Langley where I picked up a bridleway by Teggsnose Reservoir. As I shortened the distance to the visitor centre and car park at Tegg's Nose Country Park, the views opened up with Shutlingsloe being backed by a bank of cloud. From there, I joined the Gritstone Trail through snowy fields with the hillsides developing an certain alpenglow in the late afternoon sun. On reaching, the A537, the ridge that is Kerridge Hill lay tantalisingly before me but I tamed my ambitions to content myself with a road walk to Rainow, avoiding the steep up and down of the Gritstone Trail alternative. An untrambled public footpath beckoned but a tight stile persuaded me to stay on tarmac. From Rainow, it was roadside footway travel all of the way home in the declining light. There was a tempting bus option but I stuck with the plan of a circular walk from my own house with the street lights coming on as I went.

All of this was on familiar turf but that made it no less wonderful; never discount snow's transforming powers. There was a mixture of uninterrupted reverie interspersed with encounters with snowball throwing and sled riding that remained of the detached observation variety. Everyone was out enjoying the results of the previous days hefty snowfall in their own way, no bad thing though there's something to be said for leaving things where they have fallen for the enjoyment of others. After all, the chances of replenishment are not so high these days. In a way, that may make us all make more of what comes when it does and that applies to me as much as anyone. Then there's the chance to add to your experience of winter conditions too.

I cannot say that I ever remember to have seen as much snow fall as I have seen today while finishing off those Christmas communications (all the best to you and yours, by the way). So many showers were coming in that it was next to constant. There were some thoughts about an outdoors outing but I reconsidered the sense of such a venture with what was falling outside. Visibility looked ropey atop the hills that lay outside my window so it might have been best to await clear day with snow remaining on the ground. Any plans for a stroll cannot assume the usual pace of travel though. Buses were travelling but tomorrow will tell its own story as to the transport system copes with everyone being out and about.