A walk with Jen along the lane to Old Town, then down past the mill, through Nutclough Wood, to Hebden Bridge for a lunch and a crossword at The Stubbing Wharf. The word ‘grenadier’ turns out to be an anagram of ‘re-reading’: who’d have thought it?
A few autumn-tinted leaves drifted slowly down the canal. I love autumn, but I don’t particularly like where it ends up. I’m currently reading a review copy of Horatio Clare’s The Light in the Dark: a winter journal, in which he tries to be more positive about our most difficult season. Clare lives in Hebden Bridge, so I recognise the landscape and weather he describes so beautifully. Our paths have yet to cross—although we did somehow become ‘friends’ on Facebook. The book documents the winter of 2017–2018. I was amused to see Clare’s journal begins on 16 October 2017: a year to the day before I began writing these Sidelines, which I suppose have turned into a journal of sorts.
Is it really getting on for a year?
