As I write this, I'm sitting in Michelle's office (she'll wake up shortly and demand her seat back, kiss me and request (another demand really) that I go and make her a coffee), wearing nothing but tousled hair and my big blue dressing gown. And my glasses.
My limbs are all slightly achey, but the worst is my arse (is it an appendage or a limb?). I slept really well last night.
Yesterday, Michelle, Anna, Simon, Rich and I did the Waterfalls walk at Ingleton. We set off from here around 12ish (after a few cups of coffee and driving around Leeds getting everyone's kit together) and got to Ingleton around 2.30ish. We stopped at the Inglesport Cafe for a preparatory breakfast, and lit out on the walk after Michelle had to dash back to the booth to get her change, at around 3. It was one of those crisp and sunny winter afternoons, we didn't really need all the layers we were wearing, let alone our waterproofs (I hate mine anyway, so left it at home) and the walk is only about 4 and a half miles, so it was a mere amble compared to, say, crossing Jura.
We got up to the top just in time to catch the long shadows and golden light on the Pecca falls. There were the remains of the clouds from rain which we struck in the valley as we headed up from Leeds, and they turned pink, orange and purlpe as the light sunk out of the sky, but mostly we were under a bright blue sky.
I was shooting for the first time in ages, starting in b&w, taking the sun on the water, deciding it was too late to give life to any shots of the falls 'cos the sun had left the valley and the woods before we got there, and then changing to colour for the descent. I hope my shot of us all against the orange sky comes out. And I'm looking forward to my shots of Michelle ("This will be the jacket shot on your first book!*snap*") because she looked really cute.
We needed to get out. I've put on a stone since Michelle and I got together - too much good food and alcohol, and not walking the daily 45 mins to and from work I used to do from Burley when I was full time. I've come off prozac now, and need to be getting regular exercise to keep my brain chemicals from giving up completely, and I noticed yesterday that my running injuries from last year, however tiny and annoying they were then, are still annoying now. Michelle, meanwhile, has lost weight. She was tiny to begin with, but hasn't been too well - lost her appetite, sleep pattern and the urge to do anything. If she could just do any one of those things, the rest might fall into place. So when Simon and Anna asked if I fancied it whilst we were drinking at last orders at the Grove on Monday night, I jumped at the chance, and talked Michelle into it as well.
She swears she hates walking, as though it's her duty, an article of faith. She has spent the last 6 months telling me how camping is fine as long as a sensible proximity to porcelain is maintained (i.e. it's less than 100 yards form a toilet). So I was surprised and delighted when she suggested returning to Ingleton with a tent in a few weeks so that we could get a good start on the walk and take some better photos in the light. It was so good to see her out, active and happy.
I got a proper endorphine rush as we emerged from the woods on the way down, and felt the evening air and the quiet. Except, what really kicked it in for me was that the "quiet of the woods" is anything but. Rich and I were talking about the shots we'd got, and we were being marked by a cock robin just checking our passage through his territory. A pair of blackbirds were fighting over a female and sending the dry leaves flipping and swirling like a miniature whirlwind ("My black feathers are better than your black feathers" "Not when they're broken they're not!") I decided to walk on ahead by myself just to be selfish, wishing the others were all further behind so I could decide to stop and wait for them if I wanted. The fact that they were never more than a minute behind was starting to annoy me when we emerged from the woods and I found myself standing above a clear, slow part of the river, after the gorge. The air was different, the sounds were different, I'd earned myself a good heart rate, had a great day out, and really felt at ease. I was standing there enjoying the relief of not being anywhere but there, and Michelle was the next one out of the woods, and she came to kiss me to say hi. Absolutely lovely. I couldn't help smiling. I'd even taken photos of people - these ones, anyway - because I wanted to, to remember the day, and as I did it, I felt excited and relaxed, not nervous or guilty or detached. How many years since that's happened?
As Simon drove us back in the pitch black, I was the only one apart from him awake. Rich had first nodded off with his head hanging down, and then thrown it back into the classic fly-catching mode. Anna was lolling in the front seat, and Michelle had curled up in her coat, leaning her head against my shoulder, which eventually went numb under the weight. A quiet sleepy ride in the dark, watching the streetlights and headlights, after a good tiring walk. Again, a treat.
We picked up Fagin from mine, to move him here permanently, settled him in, ordered curry, had a bath and then hit the sack by midnight. Fagin woke me up a couple of times in the night, and a spring has popped through the old mattress on our bed and left a puncture in Michelle's bum, causing her to wake up shouting, but otherwise, we slept like logs.
I'm about ready to get up now, and we have stuff to do today, so I'd better get 'er nibs moving. I bet she'll be stiff as a board. Poor love.
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