Going adventuring. Thinking about trees.

Yesterday got off to an inauspicious start weatherwise with the rain falling down on me as I ran around the village. Later in the day, however, when my four year old granddaughter decided she wanted to go for a walk with grandma, the day had settled down into simply dull and cloudy. So we decided to go for a walk anyway, taking our waterproofs as an insurance policy.

The first plan was to walk to a children’s playground on the other side of the village and then see where we would get to after that. Because we might choose to go onto paths that were not very buggy-friendly my daughter asked me to dig out the baby-carrying backpack. 

And so we bundled the 20 month old into the backpack, organised some snacks and set off. That’s a good 10 or 11 kilos of toddler she was carrying on her back. When we got to the children’s playground, we unloaded the toddler and my daughter made some adjustments to the backpack to make it more comfortable to carry. And then, sand play and running around over and done with, we set off down the valley in the direction of Denshaw. We were not planning to walk to Denshaw but we did want to go through the valley.

We used to walk the path on a regular basis when we lived at Slackcote, half way to Denshaw, but we hadn’t walked it for at least a year.  It used to be possible to walk straight along the bottom of the valley but some 35 years ago we discovered the path blocked by fences. Someone had decided he wanted to make that bit of land private and we had to follow a path up the hillside and then down again. Our 18 year old granddaughter remembered this bit of path from last year when my daughter and I went round on the road with the buggy but she, her older sister and Phil took the then three year old on the adventure path - or as the 18 year old remembers it, “Grandad risked our lives on a steep path”! 

 

 

Today she managed the path without complaints. So did the four year old. 

 

We went past the vintage car, still parked outside the house at the top of the hill. It was a little dustier than last year but still impressive. 

We stopped to admire the old industrial ruins that our son years ago christened Jim’s House, in honour of a soft toy. The valley was quite overgrown - maybe it doesn’t get walked often enough. And my daughter was attacked by biting flies! She was not impressed!

After tramping halfway to Denshaw, we decided it was time to turn round and make our way home. We have a sort of family tradition that we don’t like to retrace our steps and so we made our way up to the main road, crossed over to the row of houses known as West View and back down the hill from there. We had some good views across the valley. Phil met us along the way, having spent most of the afternoon working on a translation. 

 

 

At the bottom of the valley, in a field where we used to have to avoid the bullying horse who would only let you through  you fed him apples or carrots, we noticed that masses of trees have been planted. So far they are just supporting tubes for very young saplings. It will be interesting to watch the development. 

It’s amazing what a difference trees make. A group which posts pictures of Old Saddleworth on Facebook recently posted a photo of a steam train on the Donkey Lone, close to the stop called Measurements. Not a tree in sight. That stretch of bridle path is now shaded by quite tall trees. Such a change.

 Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone.