Slyne But Longer

Oh my goodness, poor Matthew's feet! We walked seven miles on Sunday, but I'm not sure how it was that far because it was only six the last time I walked to Slyne. I must have taken a slighty different route. 

I think you know this way by now ... past the cricket club, down to my favourite place ...

A very small rest at the field that used to be a pond ...

And over the hill to the path that leads to Slyne. You could walk all around this area now and not get lost, couldn't you? In fact, some of you do, but that's because you've walked around here for far longer than I have already. Actually, it's striking me as quite weird that I've never bumped into any of you down here considering that there are so many of us walking. We must just all be choosing slightly different times of the day.

I didn't give Matthew a choice here for a shorter walk or to turn back. We'd already agreed that we were going to Slyne, and he already knew it was a long walk. Good man, he didn't balk at the distance at all – mind you, I didn't mention that it was six miles.

It was easy peasy at first because we had had a nice lie-in and some breakfast for a change. The weather was very nice – quite warm, but with a little bit of rain to keep us refreshed. We got to the next bit of road pretty quickly. Time for a little sit in the rain. Nice. Do you ever sit in the rain? I can recommend it. It's just a bit of water. 

Look! Crops! My dad says the crops at the favourite place are corn (he's seen it because he's one of the people who walks there sometimes), so maybe this is corn as well – I think it looks like corn, but what do I know? I'm not a farmer. But we'll find out in a few weeks.

It was on this walk last time that I decided that I quite like cows after watching some in a field for a while, but there weren't any in that field this time, so I couldn't show Matthew how pretty they were. 

It was quite fun when we stopped under this bridge to look at the really old brickwork and hell and damnation descended on us from above! We both screamed at the same time and looked at each other in complete confusion because we couldn't see any cars in the road or work out what the deafening din was ... until it had gone past and then we realised that this is a rail bridge and a train had just gone over. Scared the life out of us.

Next on our adventure we saw a cave – I'd completely missed this last time. There was an ancient mattress in the cave, but it didn't really look as if anyone had ever lived here because there was nothing else apart from a paint tin and an empty can.

Just a little bit further along we found a definite home in the wall, though whether for rabbits or a fox or something else, we didn't know because we're not Springwatch-type experts in these matters. What type of little burrowing animal would make a home right next to a road? Anyone know? It definitely wasn't a bird, I can tell you that.

Half a mile up the road and it was time for another rest. We didn't feel like we should have too many rests, and we agreed that they should be very short ones, otherwise the walk would take all day and we always have important weekend lockdown things to do like lazing about and watching Vikings on Amazon Prime, which is the the best series that's ever been made. If you don't love Vikings, we probably can't be friends, that's all I'm saying.

Matthew's hair is this turquoise colour now, in case you were wondering.

Anyway, we chose the canal bridge for our little rest. Do you get that thing when someone else leans over a great height and you get a little electric shock somewhere in your stomach because, even though you know they won't, they might fall? I do. I can lean backwards over this canal bridge myself, as I did here to take this photo, but when Matthew leaned back, my stomach gave that horrible jolt, even though I knew he wasn't going to fall. Because we've become strange little thrill seekers through our walks, we did this for a few minutes until we both felt a bit dizzy and decided it might be best to move away from the dangerous bridge.

You'll recall that this road is called Hasty Brow, which is a splendid name for a winding and long road that takes you to a village at the top of a hill. But it was around here that Matthew started to slow down, poor lad. He didn't whine at all, and if I hadn't asked I don't think he would have mentioned it, but it did start to get a bit difficult here. It was quite hot now and we were a bit sweaty, but the road is also very slightly hilly. We were almost halfway through our little journey – no point turning back because it was a long way home in either direction. Matthew knew all of this, of course – he's a sensible young chap; but he did look ever so slightly worried, as though he was thinking he might struggle to make it back.  

I tried to gee him along by pointing out the very pretty views, but, erm, he's not quite tall enough to see over the hedges properly yet, so that didn't really work. Poor lad could only see the road stretching out before him for probably seventy-five miles – no wonder he was looking a bit sad.

We had a very brief stop to see if the phone could take a picture of a poppy being blown about in the wind – it could! Well done, camera. 

'Look, Matthew!' says I, in what I felt was no time at all really but seemed like seven days and seven nights to my weary son. 'It's Slyne.' 'Is it,' says he, 'is it really?' And it really was, just a little bit further. We never look at Strava (measuring our walk for us) until we get back home, so I couldn't really tell how far into our walk we were, but it felt about halfway.   

A good place for a proper sit and a rest. We planted ourselves here for a good fifteen minutes because we'd earned it. We congratulated ourselves for reaching the halfway point, roughly, ate some grapes and wished we'd brought a more substantial snack, and admired the patchwork fields. I always enjoy the mid-point sit. That's the meditative bit when you have a little think about what you've seen and what you'll see next. 

Signposts are always nice, too. Isn't it interesting that signposts in different countries have different styles? You can tell, say, an Austrian signpost from a British one very easily, and not only because of the place names – obviously, those are a dead giveaway.  

Patchwork fields. They fit together seemingly quite randomly, and very few of them are exactly square or exactly rectangular. I wonder who decides the shape of a field. Also, in the distance there, you can see those fells that we now all love very dearly, don't we, since I walked up one of them just over a week ago? Nice.  

We set off again and interrupted some cows. I just peeped over the wall to look at them as they were sunbathing and they all scarpered. 

So, I've just learned something. I thought these were all boys, but apparently, young heifers don't have visible udders, so I don't know if these were boys or girls. 

They didn't go far, anyway, and when we waved a bit of long grass at them from our side of the wall, they showed a bit of curiosity, but they wouldn't come close enough to take the grass. Actually, they were very curious and stared right at us for ages. I could quite happily have stayed there for a good long while, chatting to our new mates, but the grapes hadn't really filled us and we were pretty hungry. 

We'd already had a sit just up the road, but Matthew seemed to be struggling quite a bit now, poor fella. Happily, we found this little garden, called a 'pound' I think. There was a sign telling us about it, but I instantly forgot what it said as soon as I'd read it. I had a headache. I think it was from squinting into the sun (not directly – I'm not Donald Trump!) and not having sunglasses – I need to remedy that for sunny days, because headaches suck.

Anyway, we sat on a little bench in this pound thing and that was lovely. I hope the sign was referring to this particular spot, otherwise we were sitting in someone's garden. 

There was quite a way to go still, so I looked at Matthew and he looked at me. There was an understanding. Some digging in was now needed to get home, me with my sudden headache and Matthew with his tired legs. 'Come on then, son,' says I, 'shall we get this over with?' So we did. And in very little time at all, we'd done a quick half mile and were at the new road. To pass the time a little bit more, Matthew decided to do some maths. You'll recall that last time I was here, I told you that Matthew used to sing his little song about counting the number of days until the next school holiday. So he did that – he had to remember what month it was first off, and that took a bit of time because he doesn't even know what day it is most of the time now. But he got the right number of days until the summer holidays in the end, and that took us another mile.  

Okay, we cheated a little bit. That mile brought us to the Spar shop near Matthew's old school, so we stopped for fizzy pop, chocolate and hand sanitiser to clean our purchases because we'd forgotten to bring some with us. We sat on the grass opposite the school and had a little feast (don't worry – we took treats back for Thomas and James), and Matthew reminisced about his friends and some of his best times. That was really nice. Also, we admired the school signs, which were installed by my brother Terry because that's his job.

On the way home, Matthew led the way and wanted to show me the route he took when he walked home on his own in Year 6. Down the shortcut called Dog Poo Alley. Yes, that's what I said. And it's well named. Amazingly, Matthew never came home with dog poo on his shoes.  

Although it seems like we sat a lot on this walk, we did spent most of it actually on the move. However, Matthew fancied a quick chat with his dad, so we gave him a call and sat in the park for a little bit, admiring the loveliness of the grass again. 

We made it home eventually, stumbling and limping and ready for our tea, which the lazy ones had not made for us again. I have failed as a mother!

Until tomorrow, ye wee heathens.

WQ