Use it or lose it

Last night our local paper reported that over 17% of shops are standing empty in Bradford. That's worse than both Yorkshire as a whole (15%) or the rest of the country (1 in 10).

Things are rather better in Saltaire with most shops occupied, although sadly some change hands rather frequently. The newly formed Saltaire Traders' Association is doing it's best to encourage people to shop locally this Christmas and with all the discussion in the news about the big multi nationals and their tax affairs many people are thinking hard about where to spend their money.

There's no doubt that sitting down after tea with a list and a laptop is a very stress free way to tackle the Christmas shopping and we've probably all done it. But nowhere has the old adage "Use it or lose it" rang truer than the High Street.

I tried to put my principals into action on Saturday and set off into Saltaire with a shopping list, a limited budget and a six year old in tow. By lunchtime we'd had coffee and cake with friends, bought fresh fish for tea from the fabulous Orange Grove, spotted a doll's pram for only £2 (it was top of Santa's list) AND bought 7 other Christmas presents for less than fifty quid. I felt like a 1950's housewife or a Frenchwoman as I trotted around Salts Mill, the Local Produce Market, a Craft Fair and all the independant shops with my basket.

So go on - try it. Shop local. It's fun, it helps keep your town or village thriving and different and it needn't bust your budget.

And finally a plea for hidden businesses like our own. Skyware Press is a small home based publisher of walk guide books. We don't have visible presence but we do have an online shop. Order directly from us and you'll support a local business not a multi national giant.

Save the Date



Setting off on the first walk of Ride2stride 2012

It's just a year since half a dozen of us met in a pub in Skipton to talk about whether there was any point in trying to organise a walking festival along the Settle Carlisle Railway Line. The Western Dales are great walking country, dominated by the Three Peaks and very accessible by train from both Leeds and Carlisle. We decided it must be worth having a go and Ride2stride was born.




Walkers stripping off when the sun came out this year (yes - it did!).

 

Tomorrow the same six are meeting again (this time in Settle) and what a difference a year makes.

No more shall we/shan't we, can we/can't we, will anyone even come?

We know Ride2stride 2012 worked - pretty well really considering it was our first go at it. One or two walks were poorly attended, one or two groups had to leg it to catch connecting trains or buses. A train broke down, a bus timetable changed at the last minute but overall we were pretty happy with the results. Happy enough to have another go.

Ride2stride 2013 is taking place from Tuesday April 30 to Monday May 6.

The programme is coming together nicely and highlights include:

Tuesday April 30

A chance to experience Ribblesdale's industrial and farming heritage with a 6 mile circular walk from Settle, led by Colin Speakman and visiting the Hoffmann kiln and Tom Lord's working hill farm at Lower Winskill.

 

For the more energetic there's a 10 mile circular walk, also from Settle, returning via Giggleswick Common.

Musicians playing in the Station Inn at Ribblehead last year.

Both walks return to Settle station then go on to Giggleswick where there's live music in the Craven Arms from 4pm.

Wednesday May 1

Two great circular walks from Appleby station, a 10 miler along the riverside to Rutter Force and a strenuous 14 mile climb up to High Cup Nick which includes some boulder scrambling. Back to the Midland Hotel next to Appleby station for more live music.

Rutter Force - the upside of all the rain.

Thursday May 2

Repeating last year's popular combo Dr David Johnson, Chairman of Ingleborough Archaeology Group and well respected archaeologist will lead a walk into Crummack Dale followed by a talk in the evening on the archaeology of Malham Moor.

Last year's archaeology walk.

Friday May 3

The great Bill Mitchell, who for many years edited the Dalesman, will give a talk called "Thunder in the Mountains" which tells the story of the building of Ribblehead Viaduct. Anyone wanting to visit the site of the shanty town around the viaduct can do so on guided tours on Wed May 1 and Mon May 6.

Needs no introduction.

For walkers there are 2 walks from Garsdale to Hawes, a strenuous 10 miles and a moderate 6 miles. Both return to Garsdale station by bus.

Saturday May 4

Saturday is gearing up to be very busy with  5 walks planned so far including a very strenuous 19 mile circular from Settle to Malham and back led by the Long Distance Walkers Association. Expect a fast pace.

A gentler option is a 7 mile walk from Horton-in-Ribblesdale to Ribblehead where there's music in the Station Inn till midnight.

Sunday May 5

There's a climb up Pen-y-ghent and a riverside walk from Settle to Horton-in-Ribblesdale. Tonight's music is in the Crown in Horton.

Monday May 6

The last day. Two nice walks planned for today - an eleven mile circular from Settle via 3 waterfalls and a gentler stroll around Settle and Giggleswick following in the footsteps of the composer Elgar.

This is just a taste - there's likely to be over 30 events in all and they're still coming in. There's a draft programme of what's on so far at www.ride2stride.org.uk

In the meantime follow us on facebook at www.facebook.com/Ride2stride and please tell your friends.

It's National Poetry Day...

...so here goes

When raspberries whisper make jam, not make love nor drink wine
When winds sing not of freedom but sheets on the line
When the sun squints your eyes into corners where cobwebs take cover
You'll know, that like me, you've begun to turn into your mother

The last show of summer

Miss Piggy

Last week I had the pleasure of presenting the prizes in the "Childrens Pet on a Lead" competition at Nidderdale Show. Now you can't say that the children of Nidderdale aren't an imaginative lot for among the dogs of all shapes and sizes that were led into the ring were both rabbits and a couple of pigs. Last year, I have it on good authority, there was even a hen strutting it's stuff.



Nidderdale is always the last show of the year in the summer calendar of rural Dales events. It's a traditional agricultural show and because it takes place on a Monday in September it misses out on both summer and weekend visitos so everyone there is from either the local or farming communities - or both.

Handsome chap

and pretty girls

Kids are kept off school to ride their ponies, show their pens of sheep or in my class - lead their pets round the ring.

The 2 classes - under 9's and over - attracted plenty of entries. One dad was roped in to help control a particularly keen eyed collie who set his sights on the rabbits - or dinner as he called them - and one stage mum hissed instructions from the side but otherwise the kids did a great job of presenting their pets.

The judge, a professional brought in from the dog show, treated her task with the utmost seriousness, asking each child questions about their pet then watching as they trotted them round the ring. She chose an Aaaah factor winner from the under 9's group - a tiny girl with an even tinier ginger pig and a very smart  pre-teen with her black labrador from the older class. She did the tricky bit then I got to step forward and pin on the rosettes.

The winner!!

Happy days.

Oh we do like to be beside the seaside....

Taking advantage of the favourable weather forecast this weekend we shot off to the east coast to do a bit of walking on the North York Moors and paddle our toes in the North Sea. Friday found us high on Blakey Ridge wearing bobble hats and thermal vests but by Saturday the promised sun had appeared and we had a glorious day on the Cleveland Way. At teatime we found ourselves in Robin Hood's Bay and sat enjoying a pint or two outside the Bay Hotel while we watched the Coast to Coast'ers finish their walk.

It was a joy to watch their faces as they made it down the steep slope to dabble their boots in the brine and in some cases drop a pebble picked up a fortnight before on the beach at St Bees. I've written before about the camaraderie that grows up amongst long distance walkers and once again it was plain to see as the growing crowd outside the pub clapped each group as they appeared.

The biggest round of applause was saved for a gang of cyclists who'd made the crossing in just 3 days. Their mates strung ribbon across the road and cheered as the first of the Haddenham Hillbillies, all sporting Bradley Wiggins sideburns, even the girls, broke the tape. They were raising money for the Chilterns MS Centre and their JustGiving page says that they've reached £7,311.74, breaking their £7,000 target. Well done guys and gals.

And on a completely different note...

It was all high excitement down at t'allotment this week. Mark Diacono (ex-River Cottage - you might have seen him on the telly) paid us a visit. He's working on a new book called My Cool Allotment and we might be in it. That's the royal "we" of course. I don't think photos of bindweed and scabby spuds quite hit the cool button but my lovely neighbour Alison's pretty herb lined path might just make it.

PS the e-book's out! It hit the virtual shelves this morning and you can take a peek at http://www.skyware.co.uk/shop_eguide.htm 

I'm really pleased with it, especially the way Frank Gordon's beautiful black and white line drawings have turned out.

Boroughgate, Appleby

Thank you Sheila and Frank. It's been a pleasure working with you both.

Lady Anne's Way

Our new project is almost ready to launch. It's got it's feet on the blocks just waiting for the starter's gun (not that I'm missing the Olympics or anything). This one's a bit of a departure for us. It's an e-book.

We're publishing Lady Anne's Way on Kindle.

The Lady Anne of the title is Lady Anne Clifford, a 17th century aristo who spent much of her adult life fighting to regain the family estates which had been left to her uncle. Finally in middle age she inherited a large chunk of the north of England and at the age of 60 set about restoring the castles and churches which had pretty much fallen down over the years.



Sheila and the redoubtable Lady Anne

Three hundred and fifty years later a local walker, Sheila Gordon, became fascinated by Lady Anne and particularly by the journeys she took between the properties to check on the work. In 1995 Sheila created a long distance walk that started in Skipton and went 100 miles north to Penrith calling at the castles of Skipton, Barden Tower (not strictly speaking a castle and not actually belonging to Lady A but she fixed it up all the same), Pendragon, Brough, Appleby and Brougham.



Pendragon Castle today


The guidebook is now out of print and we've been working with Sheila to update and republish it. The print version will be out in early 2013 but in the meantime we're publishing it as an e-guide which can be read alongside OS maps of the route.

Barden Bridge

Carpley Green with Addlebrough beyond

Walkin' in the rain, just walkin'in the rain...

And it IS a glorious feeling - sometimes. A light shower during an evening stroll or even a heavy one on a day in the hills is just fine. With the right gear, a dry berth at the end of the day and a reasonably cheerful disposition most walkers can cope with most of what the weather throws at us.

Still smiling - In the rain on the Cleveland Way

In fact I'd go so far as to say that bad weather makes for good stories. And I should know, I've told a few. From my dad tethering me to him with a length of bailer twine when the wind whipped under my cagoule* and blew me off the top of Wold Fell to my second only long distance walk, the Coast to Coast, 17 years ago.

We'd spent months thinking about when to do the walk. 

March or October - days are too short, July - might be too hot **, and finally we decided on the last week in May and first week in June. Old Whitsun - the sun always shone then didn't it?

We were backpacking. Even the most modest B&B's were out of our price range in those days and the cost of accomodation, pub grub and of course liquid refreshment at the end of the day would have made the 2 week trek a non-starter. We thought the tent was the bees knees. It was just under 4 lbs*** with no ridge pole and so tiny that we took turns to undress outside then did a sort of limbo dance to shimmy straight into bed.

We left St Bees on a Friday afternoon in glorious sunshine. It was to be the last time we saw the sun, or a view or sometimes even each other till the east coast came into view 14 days later. Fourteen days of non stop, unremitting, lashing rain which, just in case we needed a change, turned into sleet on Blakey Moor.

It was one of the best fortnights of my life.

When I think about that walk it's not the rain I remember - it's the vertiginous scramble up Greenup Ghyll and the beautiful isolation of Angle Tarn; it's the hostel warden at Black Sail getting out his bike after tea and pedalling down to Ennerdale Bridge to look for a walker that hadn't turned up (no mobiles or forestry road in those days) and the blitz spirit as we began to recognise fellow c2c'ers;  it's getting my mountain legs on day three and suddenly starting to enjoy myself and most of all it's that fabulous sense of achievement that I could walk nearly 200 miles across my own country with my bed on my back. Take that rain!

So, if you're setting off this weekend on the Coast to Coast or the Dales Way or our very own Dales High Way or any of the other fantastic long distance trails across the UK and you're worried about what the weather will throw at you, don't be. It'll be your walk and whatever happens you'll never forget it.

* does anyone use that word anymore

** too what!!!

*** eat your heart out TGO Challengers with your ultralights and your sawn off toothbrushes

Save the date

Ride2stride 2013 - Tuesday April 30 to Monday May 6.

Here we go again.

So - Will we do it again? Part 2

The quick answer is maybe, possibly, I think so, probably, yes!!

The Ride2stride Festival went better than we could have dreamed of.

Me stood on a bench trying to get a bit of 'ush

When I arrived on Settle station that first morning there were already walkers milling about and an intrepid bunch of singers huddled together for warmth in the waiting room. The train came in - bang on time - and off they poured. Young and old - ok mostly old (er) it was a working day after all, male and female, some with sticks and some with dogs and all of them there for Ride2stride. The singers came out of the warmth and gave us a rousing chorus of "Raindrops keep falling on my head" and off we went. 

Looking for waterfalls

One walk set off to search for waterfalls and the other to head for Elaine's tearoom at Feizor. I was backmarker with the second group and within half an hour had learned my first big lesson of the week. The word "Easy" means different things to different people. In a programme that included a treck over Mallerstang and a 16 mile ascent of Whernside some of us thought that 7.5 miles with a tearoom pretty much qualified as "Easy". To anyone not familiar with the limestone countryside around Settle that first clamber out of Stackhouse could have been the north face of the Eiger.

Second big lesson of the week was that a little more direction to walk organisers WOULD have been a good thing. Ok, I was wrong, I admit it. The walks that followed a very simple pattern - meet at station x off train y and walk to z all worked incredibly well with good numbers and hardly any hiccups (sorry everyone who was on the train that broke down and had their walk delayed by hours). The walks with more complex arrangements of buses and trains or meeting to catch trains to walk back to the number you first thought of were less well attended.

Music at Ribblehead

The music in the pubs was wonderful and turned the whole week into a Festival instead of just a list of walks. Lesson number 3 - make sure that the musicians aren't heading for their break just as the walkers arrive in the pub!

An archeological walk around Ingleborough

What else - well the talks were lively and well attended. The linked events - a walk during the day to look at something followed by a talk about it worked really well - even if one of the walk leaders did spend a bit TOO long looking with the result that his group had to jog the last mile for their train (see what I mean about a bit of direction for walk leaders). The weather improved as the week went on and as you can see we were in fine form by Sunday.

Resting in the sun

Finally the people - walkers came from all over including New Zealand, USA and Stoke on Trent. People stayed in cottages and pubs, in B&Bs and hotels and as the week went on we all began to recognise each other as we met on different walks.

So - will we do it again? It's a big question. Ride2stride is either a one-off or it's an annual event so saying yes to will we do it again is actually saying yes to a lifetime of Settle-Carlisle Walking Festivals. My feeling is that it IS worth making it an annual event but in order to do so we need a little bit more structure and a few more people involved with the organising. Any volunteers? We're meeting on Friday to have a chat about it so I'll let you know.

Where did May go?

It's June 1st today and I last posted on April 30th. What happened to May? 

One minute I was shaking with worry about Ride2stride the next the garden's a hayfield and the festival is a distant memory.

More about Ride2stride later. In the meantime we've had a mini-hols in the Lake Dstrict where I took this photograph of Ennerdale Water. As I walked up from the village I thought I'd take a wrong turn - where was the lake? The reflection of the fellside in the water was so clear the whole valley was greened out

So - Will we do it again? Part 1.

Ride2stride, the walking festival I've been eating, sleeping and dreaming about for the last six months, starts tomorrow and it can't come soon enough.

It's a funny old mix of emotions. I'm worried that no-one will come or too many will turn up. I'm anxious that the memories people go home with won't only be of yomping through mud with a gale blowing down their necks, I'm desperate that this damned rain will stop and of course all I really want is that people will leave loving the Western Dales as much as I do. 

People have already started to ask if there'll be a ride2stride again next year so I thought I'd get some thoughts down now BEFORE it all kicks off.

The HIGHS - well the Festival started off as a twinkle seen through the bottom of a glass and the fact the idea survived until the next morning is a miracle.

We sent out a call for support and that first little group who turned up at the Rendevous in Skipton made it all seem real.

Our criteria for going ahead was that we'd have 12 walks, 2 talks and 2 music events over the course of a week. We've ended up with a staggering 25 walks, 3 talks and music every single day in a pub close to the line.

We didn't want to create a new organisation to run the Festival, instead we've got a model that means 14 different groups are involved. Some, like Friends of Settle Carlisle Line, Yorkshire Dales Society and Friends of Dales Rail are contributing loads, other are leading a single walk and the wonderful 3 Peaks Folk Club is putting on all the music.

We've done it all on a shoestring - Northern Rail and FoSCL paid for the printing of the programme and our business Skyware Press designed the programme and set up the website.
We've kept it simple - no booking, fees only where there's room hire to pay for.

We've only had 3 meetings.

The LOWS - We've only had 3 meetings. Much as I hate meetings there have been times when I've felt a bit isolated.

Fourteen different organisations brought with them 14 different points of view and whilst some of us were happy that the programme reflected that there were others who wanted t'committee to have more control.

Changes to a crucial bus timetable means that the walk I was leading from Malham to Settle along the route of A Dales High Way has had to be changed so it's a circular from Settle. Note to self - don't factor in a train AND a bus in future.
The "no booking" means we don't have ANY idea what to expect so when we stand on Settle station tomorrow morning we don't know if there will be 5 people or 500.

More HIGHS than LOWS then so - will we do it again?

Watch this space.

It's this way...

That's the first 3 miles of A Dales High Way waymarked - only another 87 to go!

That's not quite as daunting as it sounds. We're not planning to pepper the route with little blue and yellow arrows, far from it. In fact there are whole tracts of the walk where there won't be any markers at all. Across the Howgills for example, there's a six-mile ridge walk which relies entirely on the walker's navigation skills without even a drystone wall to follow. 



A Dales High Way crosses the Howgill Fells



And that's what we hope people will like about the route. A Dales High Way is not a wilderness walk but it does take walkers high into the fells from the market towns and villages where they've spent the night - hopefully enjoying some northern hospitality. Fells that none of us want to see covered in hardware whether it's waymarks or wind farms.

The route is not an easy one, there are steep climbs every day and if you take in the summit of Whernside the total ascent equals climbing Mont Blanc. As well as not wanting to add to plethora of waymarks in the Dales already we're worried that too much signage can send out the message that this is a stroll. I once walked a well known National Trail that was waymarked at every bend and turn. By day four my guide book was still in pristine condition in my backpack and my navigation reduced to symbol-spotting. Disaster struck! A multitude of paths and no signpost. Which one to choose? Just four days and all my hillcraft had left me, so soon and yet so deskilled. Don't tell the Duke of Edinburgh anyone!

No, all we want to do is to put up enough waymarks to occasionally reassure walkers that they're on the right track. Oh, and to make the embarrassing slightly-hungover-after-a-night-on-the-Black-Sheep search for the way out of the village in the morning, a thing of the past

And to cheer us all up...

...on this wet Bank Holiday Monday here's a few pictures from a walk we did in sunny Tenerife. We've been back a month now and life is hurtling towards the ride2stride festival. Those few days respite are fading as quickly as the tan so before I forget about it completely - here goes.

We caught the bus to Santiago del Teide, a pretty little town perched high above the coast on the west of the island. Most of our fellow passengers were walkers, changing buses in Santiago to make the vertiginous journey down to Masca to walk the famous Barranco de Masca trail. We decided to leave that for another day and explore the hills around Santiago itself. Our original plan was to return to the town to catch a teatime bus back to the coast but we spotted an information board that soon changed our mind.

An ancient Camino Real track connects Santiago del Teide with Puerto de Santiago on the coast, just a short hop from where we were staying. We could have our day in the hills and walk home. The track was used as a trading route, connecting the fishing families from the coast with the farmers in the hills and produce would be carried the 6 km between the two on a regular basis. Now it's used by local people to take feed to their goats and by walkers like ourselves to see something of Tenerife that's a little off the tourist trap.

We left the town up a short steep path to visit a shrine to the Virgin Mary - the Fuente de la Virgen. The route is marked by 14 crosses, each with a plaque marking a stage of the Calvario or Stations of the Cross. The shrine itself is a flower filled bower, clearly well tended, with glorious views across the valley to Mount Teide itself.

The story goes that when the townspeople of Santiago del Teide saw lava heading down the mountain towards them they rushed to the church to pray to the virgin for salvation. At the last minute the lava took a turn to the left and Santiago was saved. Mary got her shrine but the people from the next village still aren't speaking.

After this little detour we headed out on a rocky track which eventually led to a goat farm. No one lives there but apparently an elderly couple still walk up daily to feed their flock.

Ahead of us was Roque Blanco, a near vertical wall of scree which we decided was not for us. Later I glanced back and watched with admiration as a lone walker scrambled to the top. The marked route back to the valley retraced our steps - never my first choice - so when we came across a little goat track that looked as if it followed a ridge south and might just join the main track in the valley bottom we decided to go for it.

It wasn't marked on the map but it did look passable with care and I convinced myself that if it had been in the Lake District I would have clambered down like a shot. It was fantastic, rocky and narrow with occassional drops that meant jumping the last couple of feet and after an hour or so we were back on the Camino Real and an easy walk down through banana plantations back to the coast and a welcome cold beer.

Taking no chances

snug as a bug

Frost Watch

One flake of snow and I'm off to wrap this beauty in bankets with a hot water bottle at its roots and a cup of cocoa in its twig if needs be. A couple of years ago a late frost took all the blossom and all I was left with were two measley plums. Lesson learned!

Grim up north

One of the joys of working for yourself is the chance it gives you to play hooky.

Today I was on my way home from an early delivery in Grassington when a break in the clouds sent down a shaft of sunlight with my name on it. I quickly turned the van up a Yorkshire Water track, parked, and set off around Grimwith reservoir.

It was 4.5 miles round, mainly on a track, with just a couple of other dog walkers in the distance and the honk of greylag geese for company. It cleared out a few cobwebs, gave me time to think and best of all nobody knew I was gone.





A hell of a walk

And the day started out so well. We were up before the alarm even pinged, shower, coffee and out at the bus stop before eight. We were headed for a day on Mount Teide, at 3,718m or 12,198ft, the pointy bit in the middle of Tenerife is the highest mountain in Spain.

Mount Teide in the distance

We'd planned the day like a military operation: checked and double checked bus timetables, pre-booked permits to allow us to walk on the rim of the crater, packed fleeces and woolly hats along with the suncream and shorts - what could go wrong?

The first niggle of doubt arose when, in my very schoolgirlish Spanish, I told the driver of the first bus that we were planning to connect with the bus to Las Canadas. I dismissed his stricken look as incomprehension and sat down. Thirty minutes later we were still tootling in and out of the resorts and I began to think it wasn't incomprehension at all, more like "not on your nelly". Eventually though we pulled into the bus station in Playa de las Americas at 9.10. Phew - 5 minutes to spare, now where's the stand for Mt Teide? It was curiously quiet, in fact there was nobody there at all. They were all on the bus that had left at 9 o'clock not 9.15 as the guide book, the 2012 bus map AND the bus company's own website had stated. 

Hey ho now what? A quick regroup and we were back on the bus, this time heading for Adeje, a little town perched above the coast. Ignoring the bars with their beers and their cafe con leches (hard to believe I know) we climbed the steep main street to the start of a popular walk through the Barranco del Infierno, Hell's Gorge.

A large sign greeted us - "Barranco del Infierno sendero cerrado" - footpath closed.  NO! Back down the street to the tourist office where a very patient long-suffering woman explained, clearly for the 42nd time that day, that "Si, barranco cerrado" and "No, not because it's Tuesday, peligro de muerte"
What? - danger of death?

"Si, muerte - falling rocks" she explained but then went on to say that even though the authorities had closed the route we could, if we wanted to, enter the canyon at our own risk. Clearly the Health and Safety mafia have only dipped a toe into Tenerife waters.We tootled back up the street and found that sure enough although the entrance gate was shut and padlocked someone had removed a couple of fence posts and we were easily able to squeeze through.

The walk itself was amazing, a 6.5k round trip to the highest waterfall on the island, something of a trickle after the very dry winter. 

It's a walk of two halves, the path follows the side of an arid ravine...

The start of the walk

A little rest

Getting greener ...

before dropping onto the valley bottom where the vegetation gets greener and lusher...

...and greener...

...and wetter...

...and more overgrown...

until finally we came to the end of the trail...

 

El Cascade!

where we joined the other law breakers for a picnic and a last look up

before agreeing that Mount Teide could wait for another day and heading back to those bars.

A great walk on my own doorstep....

 

 

...and it wasn't even me that walked it!

 

Mike Brockhurst aka the Walking Englshman did this walk on Friday. Tony joined him for the first section but sadly I couldn't go. Gutted - I followed every step of Mike's 1,000 mile walk last summer and would love to meet him.

 

Read Mike's account here.

 

 

Des Res

Did you see Restoration Man this week? Gorgeous George was in Settle with Mark and Pat Rand and their Water Tower. If you missed it you can catch it on 4od and if Victorian station architecture doesn't do it for you there's some fab shots of Pen y ghent and Ribblehead Viaduct.