Longest day of the year. Adventures on public transport. House hunting. Bridle paths. The market.

 Summer solstice today. The longest day of the year. The sun should set somewhere between 9.30 and 10.00. It’s a bit damp here - showers and sunny periods - so it doesn’t bode well for any sun-worshippers. It’s all downhill from now on, of course, but it will take a while before we start to notice the nights drawing in, as they say.

Most of my time this week seems to have been hijacked by family stuff. Monday I accompanied Granddaughter Number One to the doctors. Tuesday we went off to look at a possible house for her to buy. We are making a concerted effort to find her a house within her price range, meeting her requirements as regards size, availability of public transport, outside space and goodness knows what else. I say ‘we’ are making a concerted effort but in reality it is my daughter who is pushing matters forward as fast as possible. Because she works as a teacher as well as running her children’s lives, she was unable to be a family taxi and go house visiting yesterday. So Granddaughter Number One and I went on the bus - not an easy matter and not pleasant in yesterday’s rainy weather. And we arrived on the last minute and then the house was something of a disappointment. 

Today we did a repeat performance in a different part of town. Granddaughter Number Two, who now works for Transport for Greater Manchester once again, helpfully organised our itinerary for us. Really good, except that we discovered that one of the buses only runs on a Tuesday! What sort of bus service runs only on a Tuesday? Investigating it further just now I have discovered that it’s a service that runs from Ashton to fairly distant Holmfirth. Well, that explains the one day a week service. There’s a similar one that does Saturday only between Uppermill and Holmfirth, taking in the delightfully named Upperthong en route. Today is Wednesday! No bus! We caught a taxi.

The house, when we saw it, looked quite promising, public transport problems aside. We caught a different bus back down the hill, one that runs every hour, a big improvement on Tuesdays only! We’ll see how things go. Once we swopped buses again, we managed to catch one that went past Granddaughter Number One’ current house and then continued on it’s way to go through our village. So I threw Granddaughter Number One off the bus close to her house and went on to shop at Uppermill Market on my way home. 

The market was sadly depleted but fortunately the fish-man was still there. The fruit and veg man had almost run out of stuff to seem which must have been very pleasing for him. He’s getting on a little now is our fruit and veg man. Whereas the fish-man has a daughter who seems to be being trained up to help out and maybe eventually take over, the fruit and veg man seems to be on his own. I wonder what will happen when he grows too old and infirm. Will the market eventually dwindle away.

As I said earlier, today is a bit damp. First thing this morning however when I set off to Granddaughter Number One’s house it was fine and sunny. I was running earlier than originally planned and got off the bus well before arriving at her house and took a walk along the bridlepath. This is another path that once was a railway line, now long closed and taken away. All that remains is a tunnel and the old railway station building. I have some fine photos of the tunnel.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!