Winter's Sunday afternoon walk

Horses munching in a Hessle field with a vista of Hull in the background

Her indoors is not well today, woke up with a frozen shoulder and for no other reason that she must have slept awkwardly on it. I exercised for the first time in a week this morning because of my cold and it felt fine. My wife and son went visiting the out-laws this afternoon and considering I was going to be on my own, I thought I would go out for a walk on this glorious winter's day.

All wrapped up like Nanook of the North with thermal gloves, thermal hat, padded jacket, scarf, robust boots, within 50 yards from the house I was boiling! There has been no breeze today and in the sun it's been great. My walk took me through Hessle and through the residential area. North facing roofs still had a full covering of frost and the remnants of the snow is everywhere where the sun hasn't melted it, and where it has, frozen pools of water lay undisturbed and a reminder we are in the middle of winter.

There were very few people about today walking, but the roads were very busy with traffic. I walked through the mostly deserted shopping streets one of which is a pleasant pedestrianised road to see some empty shops and one or two with 'closing down' signs. It's a while since I've walked there and I noticed how many fast food shops there are operating now. I bought my lottery tickets from the paper shop (don't forget, the Euro Millions is worth £85,000,000 or Euro97,750,000 this coming Friday - get a ticket, and if you win, don't forget who reminded you!). I also bought some Fisherman's Friends which cleared my nasal passages within seconds.

The start of my gentle climb up this country path toward the west and home and within a few yards or so, this is the start of the Wolds marking the divide between the flat lands of the Holderness Plains and the Wolds

Turning north, I passed through a cul de sac, then a passageway and spotted the house I used to live in between 1980 and 1996 where we lived when the children were born and where they were brought up in their formative years. Strange to see it close-to again, it hasn't changed much at all. Footpaths here that never see the sun in a winter were treacherous with ice.

Back to the main road and out towards the edge of the village took me to the public footpath which starts to climb to the west and back toward home. This is a rugged path between fields and there were some dog walkers way in front of me heading in the same direction. The path was a little rough which didn't do my knee much good but apart from being a bit slippy in the muddy bits, a steady climb to the horses field at the top saw the gentle climb come to an end.

Looking into the low late afternoon sun toward the end of the gentle climb with the horses in the distance.

The fields still have bits of snow spotted around in the furrows not touched by the sun. The horses were literally steaming in the cold, but they seemed happy enough and some of them were chomping on freshly deposited straw (or is it hay?) They did trot towards me and unfortunately, I didn't have any nibbles for them and I didn't think a Fisherman's Friend would have gone down well! Next time I'll take some carrots.

There was an unusual weather vane (pictured right against a clear blue sky) I spotted on one of the old houses in the quaintly named 'Jenny Brough Lane' and then after two hours trekking, I arrived home to a welcome cup of tea and a hot soak in the bath.

Don't forget (I always seem to be saying that - sorry) say 'white rabbit' three times for luck tomorrow, the first day of a new month.

Chat soon

Ta-ra.