A view from somewhere in the Goyt Valley. Its late evening, the curlews would be coming back to their nests and the owl would steal silently over the brow of the hill.

Bank Holiday Monday Part 2

What sound does the rain make as it falls from the clouds and strikes the ground. Does it strike the ground or does it encounter it gently? I suppose it depends on what sort of rain. It is raining now. Heavily! A remorseless, battering sound! I am sitting writing this listening to the rain. Add in the wind. I am sitting here listening to the wind and the rain. Now it only spots with rain. More gently, soft pattering on the sodden ground. Before it was raining cats and dogs. Streaming down the windows. Occasionally the grey clouds scud across the sky peeling back small patches of light blue before closing them up again, as if to say there you are! If only we were not here you would be enjoying a lovely sunny day. Instead you have got us. We are going to rain on you intermittently throughout the day. So don’t try and do anything outside.

It’s a bank holiday and the day stretches ahead seemingly endlessly. Hours of opportunity to say, no I don’t want to do that but I don’t know what I want to do! Suggestions? A walk? To wet! Cinema, nothing on! So it will go on throughout the day, until eventually as the evening draws in you will look back and think bugger, I have wasted another day. The trouble with a bank holiday on a Monday is that it is effectively two Sundays in a row. That’s an awful thing to have to endure. The key is to do nothing. Do nothing and do not feel guilty about it.

I can hear the fish behind me picking up the stones from the floor of the tank and dropping them back down again. It makes a sort of clicking sound. What are they doing? I guess looking for food, for those odd scraps, which go missing during the main feeding frenzy, and are often the most interesting. The Fish are actually quite intelligent. They recognise individuals and will get quite excited when you come into the room as they are expecting to be fed. They also sleep. If you go into the room at night you will find them floating near the bottom of the tank, sleeping. I suppose they have to, like anything else. Do they dream? Do they get fed up when I turn the lights on at three in the morning, or does the erratic length of the days and nights in their world perpetually confuse them? I don’t suppose I will ever know! But at least they don’t have bank holidays to get through.

Bank Holiday Monday.

So there we are. Alex is out in front. Hoodie up and baseball cap planted firmly on his head, hands thrust deep into his pockets, walking just far enough ahead to be not with us, and just close enough to make sure that he does not miss out on anything. Lucy is behind, smiling as the wind whips her hair across her face, enjoying the view, the air, the feeling of freedom that being out here, in the Goyt gives you. Trisha is behind. No hint of teenage angst, just trailing along behind mum. I am last. Limping a little from a knee injury. This is my walk. I do not share it with others easily. It is special and needs to be enjoyed in a certain way. It is a walk for contemplating the future, for imagining how the present could have been different maybe. A fine landscape, that lets in some light onto those seemingly intractable problems. It is a magic place. But no matter how brilliant your thoughts or the solutions that you conjure to solve your problems, the moment you leave here, they seem less brilliant, soon to be forgotten.

There are no curlews visible or audible today. Throughout the summer, I have watched and listened to them as they raise the young and defend their territory. Maybe they have sought shelter from the wind and occasional rain shower. Maybe they are already at the coasts? Too early I guess. In fact the only sign of life is a dead frog! Last time I was up here, just before we went on holiday there was a dead mole. I wrote a poem about it, but now, today nothing comes, no lines to inspire something more.

When we left the car park the grey clouds had parted, peeling back to reveal a little patch of light blue sky. My grand mother used to say that if you could make a pair of sailors trousers from the available blue sky then the day would be fine. There was not enough evidently, as ten minutes into the walk, down came the rain from a leaden sky.
As we near the end of the walk there is a family trying to fly a kite. We exchange a joke about the wind and walk on. Alex and Trish go and stand by the ponds edge where a few weeks ago there were ducklings. The pond is quiet today. Maybe they have gone, flown the pond? Or perhaps they are sheltering in the reeds at the waters edge. The mother duck had done well, raising two broods through the summer. I hope the second one made it safely!
I always feel better after a walk. The air, which up here appears to be clearer, cleaner and fresher, wakes you up, blows away the cobwebs as Lucy says. It does not last though. Soon back to the real world and all the stresses with it return. But at least it is there, a ten-minute drive away. Not just for bank holidays though.