Reflective Times

In hindsight it was probably a mistake to put a whole chilli in my stir-fry. Even roughly chopped it has left a moderate to fierce after burn, though luckily didn't overpower the other ingredients..... 

 

Being brought up in a place, or more broadly, in an area that people seem to regard as "nice" means that it is easy to start to take it all for granted. You become blind to such charms as there might be, in old abandoned industrial bits, in open fields, with tumble-down walls and spring wild-flowers, although the ever present symphonies of tiny birds force you to at least some awareness, unless it's a particularly internally "dark" day.

 

Such days are few and far between now thankfully, though when they do come they are nowhere near as bleak as at one time.

 

I'm still mates with the lad who I used to go messing around with in this old millrace, trying hopelessly to tickle trout, retrieve conkers, and old rusty bikes from out of the often funny coloured waters...... Nearly 40 years ago now......

 

The old mills were mostly still working, or at the very least standing back in those days. I bought some heavy wool, dark green 8 oz from this one for example...the old cloth warehouse is a row of cottages now...which I took to a tailors in Hebden Bridge to have made into my first hunt coat.....they let me have a small remnant of red to have built into a waistcoat, which I didn't straight away as my uniform then was a buff coloured waistcoat, maybe they had some foresight......

 

 

I've long thought that the majority of trees have some female air about them, beautiful shapes and curves, a deep sense of time hangs in their foliage, of continuity and belonging. Many conifers are grumpy old men though.

 

About two thirds of the houses in this picture didn't exist back then, a huge part of my heart wishes they still didn't, and there are now plans for another 27 in the fields behind the trees in the top middle....

There are many such places to wander in, and more likely than not the mood is mended during and afterwards, even if the joints and muscles aren't quite what they once were all those years ago...... I don't need a stick yet thankfully......