It didn’t seem possible the forecast could be right for morning. A clear day ahead, it said. Light cloud. Sunshine. But the wind was howling, there were flurries of snow, and heavy rain. I took the little blue car out the evening before to fill her up anyway. Well, I put enough in for the trip. At £1.48 per litre, my local garage is one of the cheapest, but that’s still a record high for me. I reckoned it would break £1.50 by morning.
It did.
But the weather had also changed. The wind had dropped, and it was looking like a dry day, as the forecast promised, so here we are, driving north, to Settle. But the heart is heavy, and the usual thrill at heading for the Dales is lacking. The news from Eastern Europe, this morning, is deeply unsettling.
Traffic is heavy, morning commute time. It takes half an hour to travel five miles, then an hour to cover the remaining forty. In the meadows north of Long Preston, the Ribble has flooded out, and several trees are down. The region has suffered a battering of storms, like everywhere else, these past weeks. But there are snowdrops by the wayside, radiant in the sun, offering glimmers of hope. Ingleborough, is white capped, and gleaming in the distance, a beacon drawing us in.
Settle is bustling, mid-morning. I’ve always like this town. In common with other places in the Dales, it refuses the overt touristification so many other places in national parks, like the Lakes for example, succumb to. As a consequence, it retains its authenticity, its soul. People still live here. I could live here. It is a town contained to the east by high fells, bordered by the Ribble to the west. My home village has few choices for walking, and all are dull. Here the choice is endless and grand.
It’s a good day for a walk, good light for the camera. We pick up the Ribble, and head upstream to Stackhouse, and the weir. The river is lively, and thundering. There’s a backdrop of finely textured cloud lit by a bright, low sun. Penyghent is peeping at us, snow still lying in the gullies on its western flank. The grasses are impossibly green, glowing with a promise that seems somehow inappropriate.
Then it’s Langcliffe, and the path through Dicks Ground Plantation, up the hill to Higher Winskill. The light intensifies, the clouds are moving, and the dale begins to breathe. Back in the summer, I sat here for ages, just watching the light change over Dick’s Ground, with its crazy patchwork of meadows. I try to tease back more of that memory, thinking to regain my centre by it, but it’s elusive. Finches duck about in the thorn tree at our backs. They’re telling us spring is coming. I hope they’re right. But spring will be late in the Ukraine this year, if it comes at all.
We skip Catrigg force. I never could get a decent picture of it anyway. Instead, we head up the track towards Langcliffe scar. We’re looking for the Norber Erratics, and find a good one, a huge gritstone boulder atop the limestone. They call this one Samson’s Toe. Perched here for twelve thousand years or so, it’s seen a lot of history, most of it before we ever learned to read and write. It came from the Lake District, carried by ice. There were people around in those days, of course, but it’s anyone’s guess what they were up to, since they predate even our earliest myths. It’s likely they were making war, as we still are. Was there ever a time when we were not dangerous to one another? I presume not, but we were never so dangerous as we are now, so many ways of raining down fire on innocent heads.
We pick up the line of the craggy Attermire Scars, follow them south, towards the more gently rounded Sugar Loaf Hill. The way is of a sudden boggy here, a ring of gaspingly beautiful high dales draining into a broad, squelchy hollow, churned to a deep slime by heavy beasts. We find a dry nest of rock, and hunker down for lunch. Sugar Loaf is to our backs, the line of the Warrendale Knotts, stem to stern, for our view, and the light playing tunes along the length of it.
Back home, I’ve got more fence panels hanging by a thread. It’s been getting me down, this tail end of winter, but today I don’t care. Today I’m lucky my world is so safe I can be derailed by such trivia. The car ran well, made me feel good, actually, the snarl of it. Plus, of course, it’s a beautiful day, a beautiful view, and my boots haven’t leaked, yet. Still, there’s this shadow hanging over things. We think it’s one thing or another, but the shadow isn’t always a material thing. It comes out of the psyche, sometimes too out of the deeper layers, through which we’re all connected, in which case there’s a lot of people feeling the same unease as me, right now.
We pick up the ancient ways from here, beginning with the Lambert Lane track, and we come back to Settle, approaching from the south. The tracks run deep between dry-stone walls, and are flooded out in places, seemingly impassable. Walkers have taken rocks from the tops of the walls and laid them as stepping stones. These too are submerged now. The boots will surely leak at this challenge, but we arrive back at the car with dry feet, and no complaints.
Seven or eight miles round, still early in the afternoon, we top the day off with coffee, and a toasted bun, at the Naked Man café. Face masks have mostly gone now. Covid scared us all witless, two years ago. Suddenly, no one cares about it, any more.
The Rivendale Review 
Poignant and scenic, Michael. We’re all feeling that ‘heaviness’, aren’t we? On the plus side, the world has never acted with such unit, before – at least in the modern era. And the world is changing, forever, that’s for sure…
Thanks, Steve. You’re right, that is a plus. Hopefully some good can come out of it.
Unity is not a virtue but a curse.
The German nation was unified behind Hitler.
“Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.” ~
Mark Twain
“Monarchies, aristocracies, and religions are all based upon that large defect in your race — the individual’s distrust of his neighbour, and his desire, for safety’s or comfort’s sake, to stand well in his neighbour’s eye. These institutions will always remain, and always flourish, and always oppress you, affront you, and degrade you, because you will always be and remain slaves of minorities. There was never a country where the majority of the people were in their secret hearts loyal to any of these institutions.”
I did not like to hear our race called sheep, and said I did not think they were.
“Still, it is true, lamb,” said Satan. “Look at you in war — what mutton you are, and how ridiculous!”
“In war? How?”
“There has never been a just one, never an honourable one — on the part of the instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful — as usual — will shout for the war. The pulpit will — warily and cautiously — object — at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, “It is unjust and dishonourable, and there is no necessity for it.” Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers — as earlier — but do not dare to say so. And now the whole nation — pulpit and all — will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.”
Mark Twain
The Truth is that Russians-speakers were being slaughtered by the Ukrainian regime for 7 years and the world ignored the genocide.
The truth is that USA tried to pull off 6 ‘Maidens’ in countries on Russian border and only Ukraine was successful.
In the end everything is resolved by violence or the threat of violence. This viewpoint is unpopular and not at all ‘PC’ but it is true.
A bully will continue until someone stands up and says STOP.
Gandhi himself advocated violence when it was necessary.
Unity is fine when it is based on “Right and Wrong, but despicable when based on lies and greed.
–
Balfour: We are probably fools not to find a reason for declaring war on Germany before she builds too many ships and takes away our trade.
White: If you wish to compete with German trade, work harder.
Balfour: That would mean lowering our standard of living. Perhaps it would be simpler for us to have a war… Is it a question of right or wrong? Maybe it is just a question of keeping our supremacy.
Too true,
And I stand as an individual, an eccentric, but it is all done in my name, and through inaction, with my blessing.
I meant to a say, and cannot edit, “my inaction”.
Beautiful terrains. By the way, have you been to Ireland? My wife and I were there in 2006. In County Clare (Clair?) there’s an amazing hilly area called The Burren.
Hi Neil. I’ve yet to visit Ireland, hopefully as things open up a bit more. I’ve read County Clare is one of the jewels there.
I share your enthusiasm for Settle.
Attermire was a favourite climbing venue of mine, That view of Warrendale Knotts greeting one on the walk in from Stockdale Lane.
Coincidentally I’ve recently returned from a week spent in Settle, a place I’d only driven through before. So I now recognise the places you describe having discoveeed them for myself!
I agree with your comments about the little town. It does feel like a real place. And great surrounding countryside as you describe. And it has a good little independent bookshop too – always a plus for me – even though a costly one 😂