Boy, did it rain last night! The noise of it hitting the roof woke me up in the early hours of this morning. Thankfully, with it being Sunday neither of us had anywhere we needed to be so having a lie-in seemed like the best idea. Eventually I rose but had no intention of venturing out at first. Coffee and picture editing felt like the best option, but eventually the wind and rain subsided enough that I thought ‘sod it’. Besides, I’ve a full set of waterproofs and actually I rather like these wild conditions. Besides, I wasn’t going to venture out with the full camera kit, so what the hell…
I ended up getting in a really good walk that took in the the heights above and then the valley floor below. Here’s a small selection of pictures to illustrate my perambulations…
Once the rain had cleared we had these rare patches of perfect weather. Here’s the Rochdale canal in central Sowerby Bridge, just before the wharf which is out of sight behind the trees to the left. A Squadron of the local peripatetic Geese are enjoying themselves here, in between a constant stream of narrowboats returning at the end of their hire period. Some have been gone for a fortnight, one group I talked to had hired a boat for the first time – just for the weekend and only gone as far as Hebden Bridge, but thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Here’s the river Calder about half a mile East from the last picture. The river’s high because of the torrential rain, but nothing like flood levels. I’ve added an arrow to the left to show you how high it got a couple of years ago. That was scary! The road behind the building was completely flooded and you worried about the strength of the bridge I’m stood on to take this picture. Continuing my walk along the Calder and Hebble Navigation (as the canal East of Sowerby Bridge is called). I passed this lovely little canalside garden and motorboat. I always chuckle when I pass here as the boat takes me back to my childhood and a kids programme called ‘Tales of the Riverbank’. It used models but real animals. The ‘star’ was ‘Hammy the Hamster’ who’d often go sailing off on a similar boat, or have ‘adventures’ in all sorts of strange things like Jeeps or hot air balloons. You’d never be allowed to make a programme like that nowadays because of the stress the poor animals must have been put through! God knows how many ‘Hammy’s’ they went through making it! Even so, I can still hear the theme tune and the dulcet tones of Johnny Morris in my head every time I walk past. After my stroll along the canal I headed back uphill and towards home. You know the tower you saw on the horizon in the first picture? That’s just to the right of me in this shot and almost on the same level. The arrow shows you where I’d walked from in the previous pictures of the valley floor. At this point the sun’s buggered-off again and the next set of rain’s rolling in over Sowerby Bridge. Still, it was a good day…
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Paul Bigland 