Impressions

Coming to grips with West Yorkshire.  Well for a start it means train rides and bus rides, especially through large busy towns. That was the first thing that struck upon coming to this part of Yorkshire.  Rows and rows of houses with no back gardens but a small thoroughfare lane behind.  As we travelled from Shipley through Bradford to Halifax (it took a helluva long time) my first impressions of a bus load of students, all from different ethnic countries was such a surprise.  I sat next to a girl playing Arabian music on her phone, she was shy and sweet and tiny.  The students got off the bus at the university and then we went through that part of town, that is a mish-mash of Indian restaurants, barber shops and small supermarkets.  The terraced houses were like rabbit hutches, a picture image of one door and one window repeated endlessly.  People got on and off the bus.  Properly equipped bus by the way for mobile wheelchairs and mothers with push chairs.

This was the second bus, did I say we spent two hours on this single journey! The first bus took us on a tour of suburbia land, way up on the surrounding hills.  The inhabitants allotted living space somewhat larger, tiny patchwork gardens, the front often paved over. Poor bees I thought won't find much up here.  My thinking said, poor people live in the valley bottoms, whereas those that have achieved more move out and up the hills.  Not many live on the moors, mostly farms and many are deserted.

Bradford was a rich town and had beautiful municipal buildings from better times.  We shopped in Halifax, I had a birthday voucher to spend in M&S - black lace knickers and two t-shirts, then we had lunch in an old market place, egg and chips with toast.

All so different from North Yorkshire market towns.

I have said I am not going to travel on a bus for another year, trains it must be.  We did not do Salt Mills, Andrew's new flat, is in a quiet corner overlooking the canal.  You can sit in an armchair and watch the people walk past, even saw someone on a unicycle.  There is a feed for the birds on the balcony rail, and a little flock of sparrows in the brambles below, empty it hungrily through the day.

I have never experienced flat life so am quite excited by the prospect of staying in them.  It was also an experiment to for Andrew to try out the enormous camping bed in the sitting room, they are going camping in April.  He has got rid of his car, joining the family in a no car status and will rent a car for travel, anyway this is also an experiment as well - our carbon ration should be low for the future.

Andrew lives on ' Edgeland' he was somewhat surprised to know that fact!  That land that falls between urban and countryside.  A liminal space, where you find nature hiding in hidden places and land that has the detritus of earlier industrial work.  Wander along the canals or river in this country through town or countryside and their usefulness as waterways, now long gone.

To be cont; coffee break.