On the same page
We’ve moved to ‘Dent’, apparently a Viking stronghold in the day. Now it’s a sleepy village in a beautiful valley brought begrudgingly to life by bucket loads of tourists. Having said that, it’s not too busy. We ran yesterday and today climbed Whernside, the tallest mountain in the Dales (not Ingleborough as we previous thought, although with Pen-y-Ghent they make up the Yorkshire ‘3 Peaks’). At 750 metres it is technically a mountain, I think (the US tell me anything about 1000 feet is a mountain). It was much less of an issue for us than when we did Ingleborough earlier in the week, which is 20 metres shorter … but we tried that climb in 29 degrees, rather than the 22 of today. And the walk in 10 miles, not 7.5 miles today.
The climb was delightfully peaceful until we reached the top when we hit the M25 of walkers, many doing the three peaks for charity (25 miles and 5,000 feet of climb – bless them). It was the best of both worlds. A good chunk of tranquility and then a frantic episode of lots of walkers getting to the top. I love that. I love seeing all shapes and sizes and colours out and up a hill for the day. But I also love the silence …
… which allowed us time to reflect on where we are and where we’re going. We got news of pals of ours selling their place in Lincolnshire and moving to Dorset (he’s a sailor). All our other friends are heading for some form of retirement in homes big enough to entertain all of their family, and more. You know where this is going. Thankfully, we both came to the same conclusion. Travelling is what we do. Experiencing things, walking, cycling, meeting new people, seeing new places … that’s for us. Big house means a big investment of time. And we’re not ready for that (yet). So that was a relief.
I also got round to thinking about the plot for book 8 in the Sam Green thriller series (the second and final chapter of The Belmonte Paradox). So that’s coming together. I’ll start writing that in September.
And I also tried to not think about politics, although talking to my mate Richard this afternoon we both got round to the fact that we believe climate change is no longer creeping up on us like a sniper, but the recent floods/typhoons/wild fires/record temperatures are a precursor to something much more unpleasant, which is going to hit us much sooner than we think. Like a tank.
Thankfully we have Boris Johnson in charge. He and his backers won’t shirk from their responsibilities.
Stay safe everyone.
