In his latest book The Stress Solution, Dr Rangan Chatterjee describes the ‘Micro Stress Dose’ that you’re likely to get when you check into your Facebook feed and see your friend enjoying the holiday of a lifetime, when you’ve recently returned from yours. There’s your friend, sitting by the pool with a pina colada in their hand, […]
Category Archives: Walking
The Stile at Coxley Dam
In the spring of 1996, I took my easel to the car park at the bottom of Coxley Lane and painted, in acrylics, a small canvas of this stile. I like the informal way the stile invites you to step over and explore. As a subject, the variety of simple shapes is appealing to draw. […]
Four Hundred Miles with a Fitbit
For the past few months it’s been rare for me to settle down to do a drawing but on Monday morning we had a longer than usual wait at the doctors’ so I had time not only to draw my hand but also to add some colour. One of the reasons that my drawing time […]
One Step at a Time
Drawing maps for my booklets makes me want to go out and walk the route again. After nine years it’s time to revise my Walks around Newmillerdam, not just because there will have been a few changes to the footpaths but also because the Friends of Newmillerdam and Wakefield Tree Wardens have been making all kinds […]
Winnats Pass
11.50 a.m, 60ºF, 15ºC: It reminds me of being in Austria or Switzerland, sitting here with a coffee in the beer garden of the Castle Inn and drawing craggy summits. An energetic group of school children climbs the zig-zag path to Peveril Castle. 1.15 p.m., 52ºF, 11ºC: We’re back at the Rose Cottage Tearooms for lunch, […]
From the Riverside to Rose Cottage
Our favourite book delivery: after dropping off a consignment of my walks booklets at the distributors in Orgreave we make our way across Sheffield and, via Ringinglow, up onto the moors. At the Riverside Café near Hathersage there are plenty of siskins on the bird feeders this morning. There must have been more rain here in the Peak District […]
Hope Valley
After a weekend working on the Waterton comic we head off for the Hope Valley in the Peak District. After a coffee break at the Riverlife Cafe we walk from Hope to Castleton through sheep pastures. The lambs are less playful than they were earlier in the spring. They’re looking quite solid now and are either […]
Back to Langsett
There are patches and small drifts of wood sorrel alongside the path through the plantation alongside the reservoir at Langsett. On a tree-stump there are discarded scales and the nibbled core of a pine cone, left there by a squirrel. We hear our first willow warbler singing as well as a resident wren. A mallard […]
Wakefield’s Old Park
This walk, which starts and finishes at Wakefield cathedral and passes Pinderfields, the Old Park and the Chantry Chapel. There are a number of Robin Hood connections, including a sculpture of his sparring partner George-a-Green, the Jolly Pinder of Wakefield. On 25 January 1316 the maidservant of Robert Hode, was fined two pence for taking […]
Langsett September
A perfect September morning to walk around Langsett Reservoir; through the conifer plantations, across the river Little Don and up onto the moor. Not such a restful day for the red grouse and the brown trout though. The gamekeepers and beaters were getting in place (you might spot them moving through the trees on one […]