What a stunning day! Just like on Tuesday, the weather was almost wall to wall sunshine with temperatures that crept up to be the highest of the year so far.

I tried sticking to my plan and routine by working in my office, sorting through paperwork, emails and scanning old slides, then decided to break the routine whilst still sticking to the Government guidelines. I’ve mentioned before that we’re fortunate to be on the edge of some great countryside, which means it’s easy to socially isolate when getting out for the daily exercise. I’ve really been missing walking as I’ve been sticking to my minimum daily target, which is half of what would be my norm – and I’m starting to feel it physically, even though I’m using weights at home. Today I decided to go solo, extend my walk, tackle some more challenging terrain and take the camera.

Starting from home I walked down to the valley floor, across the canal, under the railway, over the River Calder and clambered up through the woods and the steep paths to the ridge above Copley. As the crow flies it’s little over a mile. I can even look back at the house, but on a hot day it’s cracking exercise. Here’s the view looking across the Copley viaduct on the railway between Halifax and Sowerby Bridge with the Wainhouse Tower above.

The path I’m on at this point runs along a cliff that’s actually a geological fault line. Not that you’d know that it’s there as the area’s dense woodland, similar to the opposite side of the valley that you can see in the picture above the viaduct to the right, which is our local Scarr woods.

I’m a long way from any roads here and I only saw a handful of other people out running, or walking. Keeping your distance is easy akthough this being Yorkshire, most people acknowledge each other and say hello when they pass.

For a brief period (in splendid isolation) ot felt like normality had returned. The feel of the sun on my skin and the breeze through the trees was gorgeous. Only two things gave the gane away, the infrequency of the trains and the lack of traffic noise from the (normally) busy road along the valley floor.

Having achieved my aim and even managed a couple of pictures I reluctantly headed home, retracing my steps back to ‘my’ side of the valley. Despite passing two pubs in the way there was no chance of giving into temptation to nip in for a swift one! It’s going to be a long time before that pleasure returns…

Back at the ranch the weather was simply too good to hole up inside scanning slides so I brought a bunch of paperwork downstairs and sat outside on the bench to soak up the sun and top up my vitamin D levels. With not having my usual 1-2 months away in Asia last year or a foreign stint this year I’ve really missed the sun. I don’t think I’ve been this pale-skinned for years!

Our evening was spent much like many others as I tried to keep up with world events via social media and also catch up with a bit of blogging before sloping off to bed for a relatively early night.

We’ve another day tomorrow that breaks up the routine as we’re on our weekly ‘mercy mission’ to shop for Dawn’s parents over in Huddersfield. Funny how you end up looking forward to simple things like that…