Another week has slid by . Another deadline passed . The exchange on the house did not happen . wont either . We are still in lockdown. A dim and dismal place to be . The weather has turned cold . A chill air greets me on my morning walk . The sun is not making any appearance and the grass is covered with a silver covering. It was the first frost last night of the Autumn . What would I prefer ? I asked myself this question as I set out on my walk . Cold with a hint of frost , frozen grass or rain . Endless rain and mist . I opted for the first choice . Frost anytime . Would frost kill Coronavirus ? I suppose at the back of my mind I hoped it would . Would Coronavirus disappear just as quickly as it appeared in this cold weather. I hoped it would but I did not expect it to.
Another week of the same old , Same old . Another two weeks before England opens again and Boris tells us what we can and cannot do . Another two weeks of walking
. I should be used to it by now but it still irks. I still want to be free and that is not happening . With each step I found myself disliking the process of selling homes . We were ready in week five . Why does it take so long I wondered ? Why cannot we shake hands and that is the deal done? Too easy that one . We wont be going anywhere next week . We will just fester and fester . Hating the process and hating just about everyone involved . Living out of boxes is not easy .
I have walked these roads so many times now I feel fed up of them. I need a new challenge . A new view . New anything . As I walked the same old road I failed to find anything worth looking at . I did not stop once to take a photograph . I saw nothing that inspired me to write about it . I headed over the park . The swans were on the Lido . The seagulls were swimming in the water . Must be bad out at sea . I could hear
mum say that one . She always said it when the seagulls came inland for the winter . Now they live inland all the time . Noisy creatures . They fight with each other . Birkenhead pidgeons I thought . That is what we used to call them .
I headed for Swarthwick Lane . The local pub is still baking bread and selling it on the doorstep . Over the months as I walked this road I had searched in vain for a milestone . I knew it was there between two farms but I never could find it . I did not know which side of the road it was placed . Over the summer the grass was too high. The hedges too full . I was never going to find it . Now I hoped as the grass had died back and the leaves were off the trees that I might just find it today . I found it . A small round topped stone with nothing carved into it . It gave no name of the village nor any number to suggest how far I was from Chesterfield . I guessed it might have been
the three mile marker . Or perhaps it was a mile out of the village . I will never know . All I know was that perserverance is key . I found it in the end .
I walked as far as the gates . I had passed them times many in the car but never walked that far . They were substantial and I guessed part of the Hunloke Estate which stretched from here down to New Tupton and the Avenue . I was standing at the top of Harper Hill and the pair of gatepiers turned out to be listed . Grade 2 listed and were erected in the 18th century . They were built of the local Ashlar gritstone and were square in shape , And a bit wobbly too . They were 3 metres high and had a cornice on the top . It was hard standing by them to see any path or road that went anywhere . I guessed though had I worked along the field edge in the direction of home I would have found myself back at Stubbing Pond and the Hall.
It felt good to have eventually found a quiet place to work . No walkers , no dogs, very few cars . A view across the fields to Chesterfield. That funny tree . In the summer with all the trees covered in leaves it would have blended in . Now leafless the green coniferous looking tree stood out like a sore thumb .
