06/08/21

 Today we went to Hebden Bridge and it rained all the time but we had an enjoyable time.  The bus journey takes you along the narrow valley of this area, lots of traffic, but also lots of terraced rows of houses, some with weaver windows.  The houses are often bang, slap up on the road, and the windows reflect the dirt.  We passed the scene of the water burst, which left us with a mere drizzle out of the tap yesterday, 'famine or feast' my daughter said.

She had returned from her London visit to see Matilda and Ben, sadly Matilda was confined to her quarters at the university as one of the residents had come back with Covid.  Karen says that the amount of beggars and people on the street far outstrip Manchester, where at least there is a definite movement to house the homeless.

Arriving in Hebden Bridge, the rich hippy town round here, we went for a coffee at Leila's, an Iranian cafe, with a delicious slice of cake, going back for a meal soon.  In the family we always call Iran, Persia a hangover from when my daughter's grandfather worked there for Unesco in the time of the Shah  As we sat and chatted she remembered her grandmother's best friend, Leni, who lived to be a hundred and died in Switzerland.  Leni was a dancer and taught dancing but had married a German and found herself in Tehran.  Apparently the husband had developed a tumour on his brain and had gone slightly mad. So one day he had taken Leni out to the desert and left her to die, there is a donkey somehow mixed up in the story but I know not where!  Anyway she did not die and went on to marry someone else. So a happy ending, I still have her silver fish forks as a reminder.

We wandered round the town, it is very picturesque, wait till I get my camera, with the waterway tumbling through and the ridges of trees above the town.  Not many tourists, though it is a tourist's spot.

It is town full of restaurants and cafes, and shops that sell trinkets, we bought fresh baked bread for lunch and made our way back home.