Missing the Goyt!

Pressure of work during the week and rugby commitments at the weekend has meant that I have not been walking in the Goyt valley for a while. I drove past the turning today and was sorely tempted to drop out of range for a hour. Evening was drawing in though and it was drizzling , and I did not have a pair of decent shoes (what a fair weather walker!) so I thought better of it. I shall have to keep a pair of boots in the car just in case I happen to find myself I the right place at the right time.

Summer Memories

Outside, the wind rattles the windows
Driving sleet and snow against
The panes. Warm inside I take down a map and
Sitting by the fire, remember before drifting off
The summer’s walks and rambles.

Familiar routes, condensed on fragile
Paper, the landscape reduced to lines
And symbols, I trace with clumsy fingers
The paths I took,

And wonder when I will take them again,
Smell the bracken after rain, feel the
Dry grass under foot or sense the stolid rock
Beneath my boots.

I wake, weary of dreams, and folding the
Map; place it back where it belongs.
Outside the wind rattles windows
Driving sleet and snow

Against the window panes,
And I am glad to be inside,
But happy for the journey too,
For memories of a summer gone

And hopes of many more to come.