Wednesday evening at around six o'clock I was standing outside the Farmers Arms with a glass in one hand and a song sheet in the other, reflecting on the day and at the same time explaining to my friend and those around us how when I drink Black Sheep Bitter I come over all emotional. They were having none of it but at that precise moment it was the only excuse I could muster.

Ayup had a good day? haven't seen you since New Year, how yeh keeping?  Very well, how about you, been to the show? Of course, great as usual despite the weather but look the suns coming out just in time for the singing. Did you manage to get to the bar? Only just, I see the police have set up a temporary contra-flow to get the cars through. As usual the entire village was heaving with people surrounding the Muker Silver Band, and my farmer neighbours had smiles on their faces and rosettes in their pockets after a successful day's showing gimmer and tup lambs.

Muker show is always special and no more so than this it's centenary year. Pens full of Swaledale sheep, marquees full of handicrafts, baking, preserves, flowers and vegetables lovingly presented and all begging to be judged the best thus proving their artisans efforts. The day long sheep dog trials, the quoits and of course, the fell race where rumours were circulating that the record of a little over eleven minutes would fall this year but in the end it didn't.

So if I had such a great day, why was I on the point of blubbering? I tell you after a couple of hymns with The Once a Year Muker Choristers, the band's conductor held up card number 8.

I can never claim this hymn as an incomer but when ever I read its words or get the opportunity to sing it along with the rest, I give it all my worth and believe me I am no singer (ask my friend). It stirs memories of not so pleasant things in the past but how lucky I am now, to land here and share all these good things and the honest to goodness people that this dale quietly propagates. The song is Swaledale and I defy anybody to stand in the dale and sing it with out being moved. However hearing my singing, being 'moved on' by the contra-flow cop is more likely! Here are the words.

 

                        1.      I'll sing of a place to my heart very dear,

                                A place where I always would dwell,

                                And if you will kindly lend me your ear,

                                A few of it's beauties I'll tell.

 

Chorus

 

                        2.      T'is far, far away from the noise and the din,

                                Of collieries, factories and mills,

                                From the bustle and stir of town life, shut in,

                                By verdant and radiant hills.

 

                            Chorus                            

 

                        3.      O Swaledale sweet dale thou closely art bound,

                                To our hearts by the strongest of ties,

                                That ever in human heart can be found,

                                The source of our greatest joys,

 

 Chorus

                                          

                        4.      How often as boys have we wandered along,

                                 By the side of the river so clear,

                                The birds never failing to tell their sweet song,

                                 And lend a charm to our ear.

 

Chorus

 

                        5.      And if fate compels me to leave this dear spot,

                                 And in other lands far away roam,

                                 My earnest wish what e'r be my lot,

                                 Is to end my days here at home.

 

                        Chorus

                                 Beautiful dale, home of the Swale,

                                 How well do we love thee, how well do we love thee,

                                 Beautiful dale, home of the Swale,

                                 Beautiful, beautiful dale.

 

                            ______________                             

 

                       

Just West of Reeth village centre before the school is Skelgate Lane, a narrow track that takes you out onto the moor above Healaugh. If you join this up with Arkle Beck just below Langthwaite ( Walk 5) it makes for a very enjoyable nine mile circular walk. I mentioned this to my friends of mature years who at the suggestion of some dales walking are down from north of the border in a flash.

So we three set off on the Skelgate Autumn Trail or at least that is what we decided to call it for the day's outing.

The path climbs steeply away from Reeth, and its not long before you are looking back at the village green over the house roofs. Stone walls abound each side of the path affording protection for plants that grow within and there's no better time than now to sample their autumn fruits, and we did. Blackberries as big as your thumb nail. There's also blackthorn bushes covered with sloes so if your partial to gin then you will know that an infusion of sloes, sugar and gin makes for a marvellous drink. Discovering the big red rosehips also started a conversation about 'itchy backs'. I had to explain that as kids we would pick a ripe hip, squeeze it till it burst open and deposit the contents down a mates collar.

In Ray Mears terms I suppose this is Natures Kitchen but it wasn't long before we left it behind for the paths and bridleways to Fore Gill Gate and doubling back for a lunch stop at the old quarry workings, spying a lone buzzard being mobbed by Rooks along the way. From here we dropped down to the road for a short distance before going through the cluster of houses and the old grave yard at Arkle Town to join the beck.

I have for a while been intrigued by these old headstones just there in a field! but I know now that this was the site of the original church before being washed away by a flooded Arkle beck. A new much larger church was subsequently built upstream at Langthwaite.

Back to Reeth and beer in the Buck Inn, we all agreed this was a really nice walk and a contender for the top ten, I can see several more detailed walks appearing on the site in the next few months as well as an article on the Country Shows. Busy, busy. 

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Rowans and Hawthorne's are heavy with berries and haw's, and hedge bottoms are full to bursting with plump red rosehips shinning like jewels in the autumn sun, proof that summer is well and truly over for another year. So what's happened to all those walks I intended to report on. Well as you know I now have a full time job and working  Monday to Friday only leaves weekends free to indulge my passion for the fells but this has to be shared with all those domestic activities such as shopping and housekeeping and ironing. I'm not complaining though my new employer is ten minutes drive from home and there's none of those endless queue's of commuting traffic at each end of the day.

My trip to work consists of a thumbs up to the odd driver as we pass each other, and a wave to the handful of school children as they wait at the lane ends for the bus to take them to Richmond. I check the river level of the Swale as I cross an old stone bridge that tries to launch me into orbit every morning. Designed and built for horses and carts, it has you sat on the edge of your seat and pulling on the steering wheel to see over its crest for a possible meeting of radiator's with a keeper's  landrover.

As each week passes I have been able to observe the pheasant poults as they've grown and moulted into their adult feathers, nurtured by these keepers. Normally with age comes wisdom, in the case of the pheasant this is not so, their road sense doesn't improve with maturity and many a morning will see me straddling the centre of the road to avoid them. Thankfully most drivers are aware and mortality is low, not so the rabbits though, the autumn outbreak of mixamotosis  takes its annual toll and there are many road kills that mysteriously disappear to predators overnight. This is such an awful disease but the local rabbit catcher still struggles to suppress their large numbers at this end of the dale.

 

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They say that your past has a habit of catching up with you, a cautionary phrase that I heard on many occasion whilst sat in a meeting pressing home decisions to my team and our customers. Usually something to do with finding savings and cutting back on services or just a difference of opinion. A sort of mini Labour Party conference. I use this analogy because very often the now defunct ODPM was the reason for these charged meetings and difficulties with their ever changing policies. And JP's announced this week that he's leaving too, and getting rid of the two jags! .

A car full of my former colleagues came over from 'Sunny Donny' for the weekend to see where I actually live now and to check what I've been up to, thankfully not to dig the boot in!

Although we've kept in touch by phone and email, it's nearly three years since we said our workplace goodbyes. So starting with a main course of locally sourced produce, and followed by a sweet of blackberries picked from Stang Forest the previous day buried into an apple pie, topped off with cream, there was no better way to kick off the weekend than dinner around the table with everyone.

We had so much to catch up on, new and growing families, (photo's passed around) what everyone's been up to and invariably what's happening on the work front at the ALMO in the south of the county, proving that old habits still die hard ! All are younger than me and actively pursuing successful careers with the same old passion as always, but the stark reality is that they have to live their lives in the fast lane and  soak up the pressure to achieve. So a weekend in the country was exactly what they needed. They enjoyed it so much that they're coming back with their families in December for the Christmas bash at Tan Hill Inn.

Some days I do miss the old job, the rush it gave and certainly the people, but those thoughts are normally short lived, and this last weekend has seen them buried for good now. Just like me these old friends and colleagues have allowed work to tip the balance away from quality time. However if they can find some solace in the natural wilderness of Swaledale periodically, then I'm sure it will help redress the balance and I can still find out what's been going on in the corridors of power!!!!