We were in Yorkshire late in November, staying up in the Wolds. Not the Dales or the Moors; the Wolds. We have hopes to move north to Yorkshire and we’d found a cottage in a village not too far from the market town where we think we might settle. It meant we could explore the area and look at a few properties, but also relax with our old dog Duffy.
It had been a busy few weeks and then we’d driven to Yorkshire in instalments; Cambridge, Lincoln, over the Humber, the Wolds. We arrived in the dark, ready to step in to a warm kitchen and hopefully close the door for a while on a world falling over itself in endless calamity. On our journey, chatting or silence had won out over a radio that did nothing but fill the car with bad news, some far away, some home grown. The darkness came on early this late in the autumn. After unloading the car, it was good to push home the bolt, pull across the curtains and sit together in the gentle light of a low burning fire. It was hard to ensure we remained undisturbed, though. The modern world invites itself in, notifies us, like a busybody neighbour knocking at the door, keen to share fresh news, whether it’s good, bad or utterly irrelevant. I should have turned off my phone, the ever-expanding annex to my mind.
This year, so many people have told me that they’ve stopped following the news altogether. It’s hard to find an even mood and settle into committed writing. I’ve found myself attending to the more procedural and often mundane tasks; switching my website host, developing marketing plans. But over the next few days, courtesy of our temporary home, we managed to decompress a little. This was helped by visits to my daughter and little granddaughter in their new house, walks along the canal, communing with the friendly folk of Fridaythorpe in the pub up the road. Duffy made the introductions.
Duffy dog is nearer sixteen than fifteen now. Walks are short and mostly slow. Our village had an ancient and well populated duck pond. A few turns around that, remembering duck chases from her youth, was enough. The ducks quickly took her measure; she wasn’t going to trouble them. I wanted a longer walk though, to explore the dry valleys of the Wolds. That would be too much for Duffy, but my wife had to work online on the morning of our last full day, so Duffy stayed in the warm with her while I headed out onto the hard frost just as the sun came up. Fridaythorpe is the highest village in the Wolds, which are cut deeply by dry valleys left over from the last ice age. As I approached the lip of my first, Brubber Dale, three red kites rose from the copse below, working hard for height in the cold air, like tired Monday morning commuters. Being above the kites for a few moments was special. There was no one else to witness.
The walk dropped down and along the dale, barely a sound but for the crows and the pheasants, before climbing steeply back out. Here the path was lined with trees, giving up their leaves to the still air after the first proper frost that had arrived late in the autumn. I stood smiling in the sunlight for I don’t know how long, showered in yellow and orange, the leaves falling so thickly I just had to hold my hand out to catch one and win a wish. A miracle just for me.
Over the ridge was a dew pond above the drop into Thixen Dale. Beyond the pond the path descended to a point where two valleys meet. Rivers flowed here during the ice-age. Over ground frozen solid for thousands and thousands of years, hidden beneath the ice sheets, they carved out the valleys. There are no rivers now; any Yorkshire rain drunk deep by the chalk. At the point where the ancient streams and the ice would have met is an earth sculpture called, ‘Waves and Time’ by Chris Drury. A mazy eddy of circles nest on the valley floor as if conjured there by some ancient wizard. It’s a beautiful spot. A hare watched me as I approached, adding its magic to the morning. I stood and tried to solve the maze with my eyes but somehow could never reach the centre. So instead, I found the outermost furrow and followed that until it took me to the middle. It seemed important to get there. As if I was six again.
No people, no roads, barely a sound. I’d not seen a soul for two hours. Just the birds and the hare, a few quizzical sheep and a deer with her fawn. All for me, or so it felt. Of course, I took lots of pictures, but even that risked stepping out of the enchantment and my meditation on a world that had unknowingly shaped itself before people had a say. It set me thinking on how to contour a happy life in a less than happy world. To opt out, to step sideways, seems utterly wrong. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. But while circling out of Chris Drury’s perfectly placed swirl, I at least gave myself permission to recline into the comfort of my blessings, and resolved that as often as possible, I’d seek out the solace of a country walk, and a little outer peace.
Shire’s Union
PS. My thanks to the Bill and Mrs M Club for posting details of this walk. https://walkingthewolds.co.uk/fridaythorpe-to-thix-memb
Shire's Union 
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