Today has been one of those cloudless but cold winter days which you long for through the almost endless grey cloudy dreariness of January. The sun seems shockingly bright, especially as it hangs low in the sky, dazzling your eyes and making you squint. The morning started with a slight frost and the temperature barely above freezing. There was a think layer of ice on the puddles and a real nip in the air. A sharp wind occasionally added to the chill but as we went for a walk the sun soon warmed us up as our dark clothes soaked in its rays.
Our walk wasn’t too long, only four miles but it gave us some different views of our local area, having not walked any of the particular paths before. The wildlife was quite quiet but for a flock of winter thrushes in the fields joined by some starlings and an occasional sky lark.
After what seemed like a long and dark week, getting out into the bright daylight was a bit of a tonic – unfortunately back to the greyness tomorrow.
With the weather finally giving us some relief from the seemingly endless rain of the past many months, I’ve started to explore on my bike some of the off-road routes in the countryside surrounding my home.
I tend to be a road cyclist these days although in my younger years I did enjoy mountain-biking but trips were few and far between. Where I used to live in Cheshire, it never really crossed my mind to search out alternatives to the tarmac country lanes, save for the occasional ride down some of the nearby canal towpaths. However, here in Northamptonshire where I now live, it seems there are more opportunities to get off the roads and onto routes away from the traffic.
A mile or so from our village is the Brampton Valley Way which is the former railway line between Northampton and Market Harborough. It provides a 14-mile off-road route through the countryside with fairly frequent places to join or leave it. This route is a spine through the area which I’m now using to link to other traffic free corridors.
Now that we’ve had a reasonable amount of dry and warm weather, the off-road routes are starting to become less muddy, opening up more choices of route. I’ve been looking over the Ordnance Survey maps of the area and it seems to be cross-crossed not just by footpaths, which can’t be cycled on, but also by bridleways and byways, all of which provide possible cycle routes.
So, over the last couple of weeks I’ve tried out some new routes and have been rewarded with some little hidden gems of vistas, some lovely moments with wildlife, and more peace and quiet away from the roads.
If the rain keeps away sufficiently, I’m hoping the summer can be one spent finding more quiet corners and less visited corners of the countryside.
The weather yesterday morning was absolutely lovely for what is approaching the latter end of January. It wasn’t warm, far from it, but the bright sun and the clear skies made the world around me a lot happier and colourful. For the first time this year, in fact for several months, I got my bike out and went for an easy pedal around the area. This part of Northamptonshire really is a pleasant place to cycle, there isn’t much traffic on the small country lanes and there’s plenty of choice in avoiding the busier, more major roads. The countryside is hiller than I was used to in my former cycling area in Cheshire but they add more challenge and interest, once my legs have got back into the swing of things. There is also quite a lot to look at as I pedal my way past, whether it be the great array of country houses and village churches, the scenery in general and, of course, the wildlife, of which there is nearly always something to be seen.
By the time of arrived home, surprisingly less frozen than I was expecting, the skies were starting to cloud up and by the time we went out for a walk in the afternoon, a dark, overcast murk had descended. This was a bit more like it for January, these last two weeks of which month, along with the first two of February, being statistically the coldest of the winter; and it really did feel cold with the sun behind the clouds. We went for a walk along the Brampton Valley Way, the former Northampton to Market Harborough railway line, which is a great place for wandering, running or cycling, with various points of access along its 14 miles. We decided to join at Hanging Houghton and northwards but only went about a mile before turning back. However, during that short walk, despite the gloom and presence of winter-visiting redwings and fieldfares, it did seem like there were some of the first signs of spring in the wildlife. A pair of buzzards were calling to each other within the way-side woods, pairs of red kite circled above the village and a woodpecker could be heard hammering, a little tentatively perhaps, on a nearby tree. These sights and sounds were coupled with us seeing blue tits prospecting our garden bird box earlier in the day, to give the impression that the new season might not be far away. However, I had to remind myself just how long we could have yet to go in winter. Iin two week’s time, it will be a year since we moved into our new house; it was a snowy and icy day and that weather stayed around for the rest of the week and it certainly wasn’t the last time we saw that kind of weather.
Daft Mumblings 