I’ve just breezed up to Two Lads and back down this morning. It’s the middle day of the Easter weekend and compared to the hordes that would have been up there yesterday it was quiet. I saw two other people and they were indistinct shapes on the horizon. I did think about waiting around for one of them to reach the cairns so we could discuss the amazing strength of the wind up there but then I decided that they, like me, may want to be alone with their thoughts.
I feel that I have fallen out of love with the moors at the moment. They are so battle-scarred from the wheels of mountain bikes, quads and scramblers as well as the inevitable fly-tipping that takes place up there. I’m like a shallow person that no longer feels the same level of affection now that my loved one has grown old and weary. Or maybe I’m just disheartened because the moors seem to be losing the battle with the abusive biking fraternity. Is that too strong a word? Many of the people who now use that landscape for recreational purposes seem to have little appreciation of the damage they are doing. Most of the paths are worn down to the boulder clay and in some places even to the bedrock. The peat is not going to be replaced, it won’t be laid down again in my generation or the next or the next. It probably took a thousand years to develop the bogs on the hilltop to the depths they are now.
Still, I do continue to find it startling up there. This morning as I tramped up the last leg of the footpath above George’s Lane, small insects kept flitting down the wind. I was surprised to see so many as the weather is very cold then I realised that they were tiny snowflakes being blown from the other side of the hill. By the time I had reached the top there were flurries of snow and the wind was so strong that you could barely breathe. I climbed right up to the cairns and leant back into the wind feeling again that childhood joy that something invisible could support your body weight so reliably. I did wondered, as the wind whipped the spit out of my mouth and across my face, if I would be able to get back down but once I had struggled the first few yards of the descent I was back in the shelter of the hill.
I decided to risk falling branches and walk through Wilderswood. The treetops clacked together like so many old skeletons as the wind tossed them to and fro. Some trees have come down at the lower end of the wood but not as many as I would have thought considering the weather over the last two weeks.
One last thing of interest happened on the way home. I met the old man and after the normal greetings he told me that he had seen a dead badger on the lane we were standing on. He said that the body had been tossed onto the banking and did not show any outward signs of damage. We wondered over this a little then went our separate ways.
