Dear Blog,
Monday:- Driving up the M1 in driving rain to Yorkshire, the car wipers were scarcely able to cope, it seemed that the idea of a few days camping in April on the moor top near Haworth was not one of my best. Pitching in the said rain, confirmed my belief that the idea of a few days camping on the moor top in the Pennines in Yorkshire was not one of my best. Still, it does have its compensations ….. as I sit here writing to you Blog, I am trying hard to work out what that are but that is what all the tits say when it is patently obvious that a serious error of judgement has been made and the perpetrator of said error is in denial of the fact that said error has been perpetrated. The curlews sat laughing at me. The blackbird nesting in the hedge behind the tent dropped all his worms while sniggering at me in the rain. His missus sitting on the nest gave him hell when she didn’t get her dinner.
Tuesday:- 7:15 am and the rain continues to fall on the tent as Yorkshire tries to solve the national water crisis all by itself in the shortest possible time.
7:15 pm and the start of the Bunny Run. My daughter was running in her first fell race to see what the experience was like. Blog, I speaketh the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me Godiva. It seemed that it was not one of her best ideas. The 301 runners were chaffing at the bit waiting to get away and the drizzle of the day turned into hail falling from a leaden sky; starting to fall bang on time as the bang from the gun started the race on time. Blog, I kid you not. It did not last. Only the first couple of hundred yards. Yards, Blog, are what we call metres in Yorkshire. The Fell Race was only 3 miles, a small lap followed by a large lap and the run into the finish, all around the Penistone Park Country Park. When I were a kid, it were nowt but an abandoned quarry. It were nowt now but an abandoned quarry with a few paths surfaced with quarry waste, a couple of car parks and a very large millstone grit sign telling visitors that it weren’t an abandoned quarry but it were Penistone Country Park. So there you have it Blog, written in stone, so it must be true. The field of 301 fell runners consisted of school kids who didn’t know better, middle aged kids who though they knew better and pensioner kids who should have known better …. And all the entrants to the Bunny Run got their Easter Egg before they started. Now Blog, that shows REAL Yorkshire common sense if you ask me. My daughter got round, clearly not having the faintest idea of how to commit suicide on the steep downhill sections of the course unlike the other 300 fell runners, and not having the slightest idea how to push and shove her way past the other competitors on the uphill sections unlike the other 300 fell runners. She received plenty of support all the way round with shouts of ‘Come on Pudsey’. She didn’t have the time or the spare puff to stop and tell all the well-wishers that Coventry Godiva Harriers had their kit more than 100 years before Pudsey and Bramley pinched the same design!!!! Interesting points (1) runners of ALL ages competed together (2) a wonderful sense of camaraderie before, during and after the event (3) the amazing ability of the kids of all ages to scoot up and down the precipices and cliff faces of the abandoned quarry read Country Park (4) the excellent organisation … all entries were taken on the night, not a computer in sight and the results were out 30 minutes after the last competitor with Easter Egg and Chocolate prizes in every conceivable category (5) the packed pub after the race, the video of the race, the banter, the bread roll and soup (6) Only 4, four!, dropped out in the large field of 301 (7) Dave Woodhead for Elected Mayor of Bradford???
My daughter finished 14th women, beaten by a couple of kids in a pram and another still in nappies. With so many prize categories she ended 8th senior woman and so qualified for an Easter Egg Prize. BUT so desperate were we for food (for food read ‘fish and chips’ with a capital ‘F’ and a capital ‘C’.) that we left before the prize presentation reached the 8th woman as there were so many prize categories. We could buy chips at the bar but without the obligatory fish … and it was so packed in the pub that we would have died of starvation before being served. We went in search of a chip shop.
8:50pm: A chip shop on a Tuesday night in a mill town in the Yorkshire Pennines? Looking for said chip shop on a Tuesday night in a mill town in the Yorkshire Pennines was not one of my best ideas. Haworth Main Street … chip shop closed …..and we could have stopped at the pub and had chips and a chocolate Easter Egg .
8:55pm 1 mile: Down the hill to the Spar shop opposite the Haworth Station of the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway to ask where another chip shop was. ‘Just round t’corner’. Goes ‘just round t’corner’ to find it shut. Back the the Spar shop. ‘Aye if nowt much is doing like, he shuts up shop when he feels like it’. And ta to you too ….. and we could have stopped at the pub and had chips and a chocolate Easter Egg.
9:03pm 2 miles: Drive up the valley to Oxenhope to the chip shop near the terminus of the said Keighley and Worth Valley Railway. Chip shop shuttered ….. and we could have stopped at the pub and had chips and a chocolate Easter Egg
9:14pm 3 miles: Down to Cross Roads. SHUT …... and we could have stopped at the pub and had chips and a chocolate Easter Egg
9:19pm 3 miles: Down Halifax Road to Wesley Place Chip Shop, Ingrow. Shut ….. and we could have stopped at the pub and had chips and a chocolate Easter Egg
9:21pm 2 miles: Up Ingrow Lane to Broomhill Chipshop ‘Closed all day Tuesday’ ….. and we could have stopped at the pub and had chips and a chocolate Easter Egg
9:24pm 1 mile: Down Queens Road … A chip shop. A real chip shop with DOORS WIDE OPEN. Park up. ‘Solly. Wheel shlut. We open to kleen. No not others’ …... and we could have stopped at the pub and had chips and a chocolate Easter Egg
9:33pm 1 mile: Down into Keighley town centre. Lawkholme Lane Chip Shop … burnt down two weeks previous, Blog, I kid you not, check in the local press, the ‘Keighley News’ with pictures, if you doubt my word!! Ask a passerby about the location of a chip shop in town. ‘Nay lad, not on a Tuesday. Nowts oppond on Tuesdays.’ ….. and we could have stopped at the pub and had chips and a chocolate Easter Egg
9:37pm 1 mile: Up Oakworth Road to ‘The Oxford Fisheries’. Closed at 9pm …. and we could have stopped at the pub and had chips and a chocolate Easter Egg.
9:47pm 2 miles: Continue up Oakworth Road to Oakworth. Chip Shop on the corner. Shut for the night ….. and we could have stopped at the pub and had chips and a chocolate Easter Egg
9:54pm 2 miles: Back down and up into Haworth, Down the hill to the Spar shop opposite the Haworth Station of the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway to ask for a packet of sausages, a packet of bread rolls, and a tin of beans ….. and we could have stopped at the pub and had chips and chocolate Easter Egg
10:10pm 1 mile: Back up onto the moors to the camp site to the tent for a packet of sausages, a packet of bread rolls and a tin of baked beans ….. bugger this idea of stopping at the pub and having chips and a chocolate Easter Egg
Bygum, didn’t I sleep well …..
…. and if my daughter decides to run in the Bunny Run Easter Egg Race next week, a mun tak me oin chips.
I mentioned to you last time Blog, that we could make our fortunes with the brilliant idea of beating the hose pipe ban with my car washing scheme. With hindsight that was perhaps not one of my best ideas. To make our fortune is simple, however. Easi peasi. All we need to do is open a fish and chip shop in a West Yorkshire mill town in the Pennines. Tuesdays only; six days off – one day on. Simple. Make a fortune, Blog.
Wednesday:- and the rain it did rain and rain and the tent it was sorely wet. But the curlews continued to call. They breed ‘em tough up in God’s Own County. The blackbird concentrated on feeding his wife and ignored both me and the rain. 5 miles that felt like 10 in the wet, what a trudge. Then in the afternoon, collected carpentry tools / joinery tools from my Uncle’s. When I was six, he bought me a set of joinery tools for a Christmas present; a saw, a hammer, a set square, a gimlet, a screwdriver. I still have the set square, screwdriver and gimlet; the gimlet is probably the most useful thing I have ever been given; Blog I kid you not. A bit blunt now but still serviceable. It has been invaluable. And so, sixty years later, I collect all the tools he used in a life time of carpentry. One of his jobs a few years back, was to build all the pews at the refurbished church of St. Mary and St. Cuthbert next to the ruined Augustinian Priory of Bolton Abbey on the Duke of Devonshire’s Cavendish Estate in Wharfedale. My mother used to wax and polish each pew as he finished them.
Thursday:- and the rain was so heavy on the M42 that the car wipers were unable to cope and the traffic slowed to a crawl and it gave me time to think that perhaps the idea of a few days camping on the moor top in the Pennines near Haworth in April was not one of my best ideas.
Colin
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