The art of drystone walling - by the path to Totley Bents
On Tuesday morning, I undertook the same circular walking route that I have followed four or five times a year for the past thirty five years. According to my "Casio" calculator's advice, that means I have completed the circuit around 150 times. It is located on the southern edge of Sheffield - by car, less than ten minutes from this house.
The weather changes, the seasons change and the walk is never quite the same. In those thirty five years there have been many physical changes too. The wooden stable from which two horses used to peer at me has now fallen down and mosses clothe the rotting timbers. A large brick garage has been turned into a swish house down by Blacka Brook. The boy who used to play in the tree house is now most probably a man, building a new tree house some place else for his own children while the old tree house collapses, forgotten.
As I walked, I sang a made-up song that is gradually emerging from deep within me, forcing its way to the surface:-
Oh where have you gone my bonny lass
And where have you gone my darling?
These questions hang upon the breeze
Like kestrels o'er the moor
Fortunately perhaps, nobody was passing by to hear me. I had the route to myself apart from a solitary jogger.
At Lenny Hill, there's a brand new memorial bench. Who was Trish Brooks?
Perhaps it was this Trish Brooks - a local primary school teacher who died from cancer just last September at the tender age of 63. It makes sense that it should be her. "We will love you and miss you forever"...
Anyway, it is a good place for a new bench - replacing the one that went before it. Hopefully, Trish's bench will last thirty or forty years as her loved ones themselves grow old. Nothing lasts forever - even the drystone wall at the top of this blogpost is impermanent, ephemeral.
Trish's bench on Lenny Hill
How clear and fresh was the air on Tuesday morning as I strolled along to Totley Bents. I halted once again to take my millionth photograph of "The Cricket Inn" and this time I also snapped a picture of the new pub sign on Penny Lane...
Then along to Avenue Farm and by winding Redcar Brook - back to Shorts Lane. To my right there was a sheep pasture but I had to do a double take. Standing there amidst the sheep was a deer. They are skittish creatures but slowly I took out my gun camera and managed to get some rather unsatisfactory pictures of the misplaced animal before reaching Clint, parked against the new drystone wall south of the Far Nova mansion that has replaced Shorts Lane Stables... now consigned to local history...
from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/ogX9YQm
