It really is wonderful to be walking every day and blogging again. I'm having great fun. I'm finding as well that it seems to be even more important to make myself go outside now that it's dark and cold. It would be so easy to just cosy up indoors, with The Crown or any other binge-series of choice, and veg away the winter. But now that I'm an outside person, I can feel my mood depress a bit when I do that. Go outside, spirits lifted – bosh, nice one, job done! Of course, I already knew this because the mental health benefits of exercise have been well researched. But, when you're an inherently lazy person, there's a world of difference between knowing something is good for you and forcing yourself off the couch to actually do it.
But here endeth the PSA section of the blog.
On Friday, my mother accompanied me and Freya on our walk. This was in compliance with current lockdown regulations, which stipulate that we are allowed to meet outdoors with one person not in our support bubble. I don't have a support bubble because I don't need one. But anyway, no rules broken.
We thought we might go to the Favourite Place again, since Freya hasn't seen it yet. But when we got there, to the bridge where Matthew and I once saw someone get out of their car to pee in a bush, it was so utterly pitch black, drizzly and windy that we decided against hiking up to the bench on the new road. (I've just gone down a Google rabbit hole, searching for the blackest thing – it's Vantablack, in case you didn't know.) We were parked on Barley Cop Lane, so we decided to just have a skip as far up there as seemed sensible for Freya. Obviously, because my mum and I are both chatterboxes, not much photo snapping went on, and we were at our halfway point before I remembered that I needed a couple of pictures to prove I'd walked. Here's Noel Road, where my mum lived when she was a lassie:
All the chat this evening was about Freya because my mum hadn't met her before. And also about Thomas, James and Matthew, because they're teenagers, which means they change from week to week. I think I did almost all of the talking, but I think this was alright because my mum knows that I don't really have many people to talk to, and she did keep asking questions. She always used to say that a person should only take up their share of the conversation, so that, if there are four people, one should only talk for a quarter of the time. I definitely talked more than half. I'll shut up more next time!
Ooh! We interrupt this blog entry to bring you a wonderful '80s power ballad. I'm listening to Steve Wright's Sunday Love Songs on Radio 2 as I write, and I had to pause to sing Chicago's '
You're the Inspiration' at the top of my lungs. You should too – blasting out a tune for no good reason is very good for you.
Anyway, back to the walk. You'll have noticed as well as we did that Christmas has started even earlier than usual this year, which I think is perfectly understandable and reasonable given that people are probably a bit bored of baking sour dough loaves by now. What else can we do in lockdown? Aha, paper snowflakes! We have a couple of reams of paper, so I'm going to do this while I watch the aforementioned The Crown. Any teens in the house who wish to join me are welcome to do so. This below isn't our house – I don't know whose house it is, but I liked their tree, so I snapped it. Hilarity ensued here when I reminded my mum about those gigantic and garish garlands that everyone used to have in the '80s – maybe they started in the '70s. They were so huge that they filled the whole of the living room ceiling, and everyone had them because we thought they were so pretty. Interesting how collective tastes change, isn't it?
Noel Road was our halfway point. We thought that was plenty for Freya. She still had a ton of energy, but we were prepared to carry her a bit if she started to flag. She didn't. Here she is outside the shop with my mum, straining on the lead a little bit because she still finds it a bit strange when I wander off without her. But I must say that she was beautifully calm for the whole walk – my mum was impressed. I know this because she said as much several times. Didn't you, Mother?
Natter, natter. We (I) talked all the way back to the cars and forgot to take any more photos, but it was just a normal street anyway, so you've not missed much.
We stood here for a while, still nattering. I tell you what though, I wouldn't have stood here in the dark by myself for any length of time at all. You know my phone by now – it was much darker than this in real life! Well dodgy for ladies alone. That's the trainline going under the bridge, by the way, did you know? Seconds after I took this photo, a passenger train whizzed past just yards from us. Pretty cool.
In the end, Freya started whining because she was hungry and tired, and she'd covered my jeans in wet paw prints by jumping up to tell me she'd had enough. A lovely walk on what turned out to be quite a mild and still evening. No amazing panoramic views or anything; just ordinary streets with lots of memories. Still very nice indeed.
Until tomorrow, funny friends.
WQ+F+D
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