Eccles Pike. One of the local hills. There are plenty round here with names like The Pig’s Back. Every day you see German bikers or people in recently bought gear standing around working out where to go. I’ve even seen paper maps. Remember them? It still isn’t illegal to have an A to Z open on your steering wheel as you try to work out which road connects to which with your bobbly compass badly stuck to the dashboard so you have some idea which way is north and nobody is gonna knock on your window at traffic lights and say “I see you’re consulting your map,” even if your map is taking up most of the windscreen.
Walking. Cycling. All of this is happening. But also “this is a commuter town,” someone said last week. And it makes sense. I hadn’t thought of it. Half an hour to Manchester. Half an hour to Sheffield.
This evening I went to see my cousin outlaw who happens to live in the same town as Liz. And we hoofed it up Eccles Pike. I knew what to expect having done it before with her. She’s a fast walker, surprised if you keep up without complaining. I’m happy to go go go. But I realised immediately that over this week of nothing that I’ve been enjoying, various muscles have atrophied.
It is glorious up there, and we are much like cars – we get worse if we aren’t used much. I was coughing exhaust fumes and leaking oil by the time we got to the top. But this week is about getting back in the world. What a glorious walk.
Gwyn slept on my feet all night last night patiently as I rolled around. She’s used to me now so she tries to lie about her food so she gets fed twice. She reminds me so strongly of Carlos who I looked after in Rye.
The guinea pigs are still an anomaly to me. They are just fluffy conduits. Is it a coincidence that their pellets look like their pellets? Their digestive cycle is so quick and they eat everything. They kinda show us what we are doing by doing it so quickly. Consume voraciously. Shit everywhere. Consume more. Shit more. Wait for someone else to clean up.
A very happy and slightly more active day. I’m gonna start weaning myself off this lifestyle now as London and Canterbury are stacked up for my attention and I really really shouldn’t have said I’d do the OH play.
