Just returned from a week in The Canaries, and having become used to the heat and the all-inclusive food and drink regime at the hotel, I thought the day after the flight home would be an opportunity to join in a Probus walk and to start eroding the excess weight (not the luggage, unfortunately!).

It was one of my favourite extended walks in upper wharfedale, starting from Kettlewell
With a prediction of light rain later we set off through the village en-route for Hag Dyke. The higher we got up the side of the valley, the stronger the wind, and subsequently the rain, arriving earlier than expected. This was a harsh test of legs, and even more drastically of my nose – which had been scorched in last week’s sun and was now frozen in wind driven hail!
Hag Dyke, not an attractive term, means an enclosed area of land at the edge of a mountain. The stone buildings are now an attractive youth hostel, but they date back to the 1680s when the lead mines opened.
Reaching the hostel, some 1525 feet above sea level – and it felt like it- we could see patches of snow above the hostel, on the slopes of Great Whernside. Had the weather been better we might proceeded further, but instead, guided by Bill our walk leader, we descended back towards the village by the ‘steep route’, as opposed to our outward leg which was apparently the less steep route. Really?
Buffeted, on or off, all the way down the steep valley sides until we reached the shelter of Kettlewell. At this point I received an unexpected ‘Facetime’ video call on my phone from my sister in Western Australia, proving that distance is no bar to communication these days – even in the Yorkshire Dales, where one might have thought that a mobile phone signal would be something miraculous!
The Racehorse Hotel provided us all with the obligatory steak and ale suet pie, and all was well with the world.
In spite of the challenging weather, I prefer Yorkshire to Fuerteventura (ironically meaning ‘strong winds’), except for maybe one week a year when it is nice to get an early dose of more predictable sunshine. Oh, and the winds are a darn sight warmer!