Summer Days

Peace Artistes in Bradford

Last Saturday

A big treat to see the Peace Artistes in Bradford City Centre entertaining the local crowds with their unique style of musical fun. They make a big sound and present a positive image of joyful culture. I love their cheeky musical jokes and the fact that every musician gets a turn in the “limelight.”

Walk from Ilkley to Addingham and bushes in our garden

Yorkshire countryside

Following on from my last blog, I will miss summer days as much as summer nights. One of the greatest things about stopping full-time work is the opportunity to spend time discovering walks right on the doorstep, walking along the Rivers Aire and Wharfe.

Walk to Barden Bridge from Bolton Abbey

Walk to Barden Bridge from Bolton

City dwellers or country dwellers....

In As You Like It, one of the Shakespeare plays consistently in my "top ten", the father of Rosalind, Duke Senior, asks whether the life of the countryside is not

                                                                more sweet 
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?     

I love walking in the countryside, but I am always happier when the path is clear. Woodchip is my favourite path-material! And I stay calm when animals are not so close! And the tracks are poo-free! Our friends in Badby are definitely rural and countrified but I am undoubtedly a city boy. Concrete and neon help me feel secure - I want easy access to a trainline, a cinema and a theatre.

Walk to Top Withins, the moors above Haworth

Sweet are the uses of adversity

And yet.... and yet.... walking on the moors above Haworth to Top Withins - with a picnic - must rank in the top five things to do in life for me. Apart from following in the footsteps of Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne, the walk and the purple of the moors have regularly provided comfort and solace. Later in the speech of Duke Senior he speaks about how the countryside - even when it bites and blows upon my body, then it can still feelingly persuade me what I am. Although this blog is titled Summer Days, I will still find myself visiting the Haworth Moors, Bolton Abbey and the Dales and Moors of West Yorkshire in the Autumn and Winter. Even a city boy needs some country in him....

Goodbye summer, welcome new neighbours, take care, Mrs Tiggywinkle and Emily in Harriet in Paris, photo by Harriet

And this our life exempt from public haunts

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones and good in every thing.