Thought i'd just share my day with y'all.

As you might've picked up from previous posts, Monday is both my main writing day as well as exploration day. So given that the forecasters were suggesting a warm, dry day I thought i'd kill two birds with one stone, have a bit of a hike and do some writing at the same time. I devised a plan to get me out to the edge of town a bit quicker, no, not by bike but by bus!

For those of you who don't know, the city (it does have 2 Cathedrals!) I live in is one of the largest in the UK but it's the greenest by a long chalk. This is in part due to something like a third of its area being either woodland, parks or fields stretching into the Peak District to the north and west and attaining over 350m up on the open, free access moorland.
My destination today falls right on the Derbyshire/Yorkshire border, still within Sheffield but you'd never know. I set off fairly early, after the commuters were safely at their desks, two buses and over an hour later.I was at the start of today's walk.
I seem to have picked up a sore achilles over the weekend so my pace was a little slower than usual as I set off climbing up to the top of the Moor. It's a mix of bracken, heather and bilberry with of course reeds and other grasses adding to the diversity. I started out using some well used trails before kicking out across the already purple Heather to the summit.

From up here the views are impressive and immense. The next ground at this Altitude going east is beyond Moscow in the Urals. Often in warm weather you can't see so far but today I could pick out the Cathedral at Lincoln fifty miles away as well as the power stations along the Trent and Aire rivers up to sixty miles distant.
I moved off the very windy summit and found a more secluded area to set up writing camp for the day. And so I started best part of five hours of Gaby writing under the blue skies, pausing from time to time to look at the views, eat my picnic and just enjoy the day.
I could've stayed forever!

I had to head back eventually, reluctantly I gathered my stuff and headed off the Moor via the delightful Strawberry Lee Lane and then Penny Lane, past the Cricket Inn, site of the first Gabycon dinner and on to my return bus.

A great day out, I returned with almost two chapters written and I must admit a bit of sun/wind burn! Tomorrow it's the turn of the bike to take to the hills, get a bit further afield - the weather is predicted to be much the same!

Enjoy your summer
Mads