It snowed!
I could tell it had snowed before I even opened the curtains. As soon as I saw the notifications on my phone that the airports were closed, the football matches were considering cancelling and British Rail was sucking air through its teeth at the thought of even being able to lay on a sled pulled by a St. Bernard, I knew there must have been at least eight or nine flakes of snow per square mile.

But lorks-a-mercy, this is proper snow. Remember, like we used to have in the olden days? Snow that would grow into snow-people; that would last for weeks at a time and would become more and more dangerous as ammunition for snowball fights.
Â
Back then it was still possible for snow to close a school, but that was more likely to be because the building was literally under a drift or because the Victorian plumbing had exploded and turned every corridor into an ice-rink. Not like today when schools close because the cold might affect the little dears if the salmon in their sourdough sarnies has fallen below the Michelin recommended serving temperature.
Â
Sheesh, when we bit down on the un-defrosted ice-crunch in our ice-cream scoop served mashed potatoes, we knew nothing more than it was character building. Remembering back to some of my primary school cohort, I’m not sure all the characters being built were strictly healthy.
Â
Let me tell you what is healthy – walking up to Werneth Low every day. Which I started doing just after Christmas. Now, for the uninitiated, the ‘Low’ means 'hill' - by definition, not a low thing. Which makes little or no sense. Werneth on the other hand means - 'the place where alders grow'. Alders Hill, I hear you cry, might have been a rather more accurate description of the place. And you’d be right, but for the fact Werneth derives from the Welsh for alder – which clearly dates back to when someone was drawing the boundaries to Wales on a map, and sneezed magnificently, without noticing the border now encompassed a large part of the Peak District. There’s literally no other possible explanation.
Â
Werneth Low is 279 metres tall. That’s approximately three Big Bens on top of each other. Three! And I walk that every day – without any scaffolding, without a harness of any sort and without anything even remotely Class A running through my veins.
Â
Yes, exactly.
Â
It takes me 25 minutes to get from my front door to the heady heights of the top of the hill – I’d like to see any Father For Justice, dressed up as Batman, get to the top of Big Ben in even twice that time.
Â
I started the walk as a health thing. I’ve always liked walking. Every third or fourth month when Sarah isn’t wowing crowds in some distant corner of the planet, we like to walk whenever we can. A Sarah/Paul walk is a very different beast to a lone walk. Sarah and I talk non-stop. We sort out the world, the internet, socio-political issues, philosophical deep dives, and continue to develop our near-PHD understanding of each other and what makes us tick. Walking and talking can take it out of you, so it’s a wander best enjoyed on a route with a gradient of little more than a speed-calming bump.
Â
Werneth Low is a walk best enjoyed silently, and with highly oxygenated blood.
Â
So, this snowy morning I set out early, to enjoy the mostly-virgin snow and to begin the thought-process of ‘I wonder if I’m the sort of person who will ‘have a fall’ at some point. Climbing three Big Bens in the snow, seems like a likely place to find out.
Â
I wander to the end of the road, take a left into a small field-like area where local kids climb trees and kick footballs. Then I follow the sloped path down to the Trans Pennine Trail. Icy, this is a health and safety nightmare, but in fresh snow, it’s just crunchy.
Â
Across the TPT is an Enchanted Wood. It really is Enchanted – there’s a sign and everything. About 30 or so steps take me down into a small valley, which is lovely. Until I remember there’s not another downward step until I turn round at the top of the walk and wonder if I should have brought an asthma inhaler.

People used to work in this wood. Some of the paths are vaguely cobbled. I’m not sure what they did. They probably had no idea either.
Â
It’s only a 10 minute fast walk through the wood, but it requires a fair few huffs and puffs to make it up to the other side. The incline is brutal!
Â
Then there’s a road to cross and a steep cobbled walkway. Normally I don’t even think of using the handrail that bisects it up to the next road. But today, when there’s no one looking, I keep a hand close enough to it, so if a slip occurs, I’ll avoid casualty. (The NHS sort, rather than the BBC one.)
Â
By now I’m in Gee Cross. It’s like Hyde, but better. There’s a single wavy road from here right to the entrance of Werneth Low Country Park.
Â
Up ahead, a couple. She’s wearing a woolly hat with a large bobble. He has a sledge. Not an old-fashioned one like I had as a kid, made of metal and wood, but rather a plastic affair that seems to weigh about four grammes and is giving him all sorts of trouble every time the mild breeze catches it. I look around for the kid who will be risking hospital in it. But there isn’t one. It’s just him and her. Interesting.
Â
There are no cars so we’re walking in the road. They are walking for fun, I am walking for exercise, so I find myself closing the gap between us rather quicker than I'd like. Even in the snow I can’t ignore my Englishness – the Englishness that knows that in snow I won’t be able to pass them terribly quickly and there might have to be conversation, during which I’ll discover I am indeed a prize-faller and will have to pretend I haven’t broken thirteen bones and laugh it off and offer to give both of them piggy-backs to prove I’m fine.
Â
Damn, it’s tough with English blood flowing through you.
Â
So, like the English gentleman I am, I stop to extract a tissue from my inside pocket. In order to make the process take longer, I actually pretend I can’t remember which pocket the pack is in. Sure enough the couple are getting further away, my ruse is working. Then I realise, I have real need of the tissue as I was totally unaware I have nose dribble cascading down my face like a sort of facial Niagara. Another couple of minutes and I’d have had icicles hanging off my chin. Dear Lord…
Â
However, having a face like a six year old with flu for a few moments has allowed the sledge couple to almost reach the entrance to the country park. Excellent. I set off again at the pace I want, checking my nose every dozens steps or so, in case it needs attention.
Â
Ah, ‘the park’. I’m reminded of Dudley Moore as ‘Arthur’ - a brilliant film, that under no circumstances should ever be compared with that remake atrocity.
Â
‘Bitterman, go through the park. You know how I love the park.’
Â
I negotiate the park, more cobbles, a kissing gate, a field, another gate and then the summit is in sight.

Up ahead I see the couple with the sled. He seems to have decided he’s exactly where he should relive his childhood and hurtle down a fairly steep slope on little more than his ego and his dignity.
Â
It’s been a mostly silent walk so far, but my heart is warmed to hear the woman ahead fill the air with her romantic thrall –
Â
‘For Godsake don’t be a dick!’
Â
Right.
Â
I approach as the chap launches himself down the near sheer drop.
Â
‘You’re not going to be able to stop!’ she shouts after him, just as I arrive within conversational distance to her. She’s in her early 30s. I assume the date on his soon to be chiselled gravestone will be similar.
Â
‘I heard you warn him!’ I josh. For a half second we both shake our heads at her stupid life-partner, but really we’re covering our tracks in the face of any impending Police investigation. It’s small talk, but it seems to make us friends. For a moment I feel guilty I didn’t send her and her soon to be dead partner a Christmas card.
Â
She grins and momentarily considers joining me on my walk rather than trying to restitch her fella back together, Frankenstein-style, when he undoubtedly comes a cropper in a few seconds more.
Â
‘Why is it men always think they know everything?’ she asks.
Â
Now, I know I’m wearing a large winter coat and have recently shaved, but I still can’t help feeling I’m being asked as someone who isn’t one. Which is a shame, because if I were one, and one who spends a whole lot of time trying to decide if I know anything at all – I could have easily refuted her claim with a simple ‘I have no idea.’
Â
Then I realise what she means. She’s seen that I have transcended the cohort of ‘mere men’ to something far more ethereal. Godlike, is probably what she’s thinking.
Â
No, I think you’ll find she probably is.
Â
I leave them to it – watching a relationship come apart moments before a near-(or actual) death experience is no one’s idea of fun.
Â
I venture past the war memorial and head towards the golf course. For a moment it looks like the golfers are out in force. As a golf-orphan who lugged clubs round many a course against his will, and the laws of the universe, I am instantly triggered back to a time of sitting alone outside many a golf club with a glass of Britvic orange, while the old man enjoyed the member privileges that I could only guess at.
Â
A minute later, after scraping ice from my irises, I realise I’m not watching very short golfers on futuristic golf buggies, but kids on sleds. Loads of them. Maybe I should tell that couple behind me there’s a flock of them on the slopes – I’m sure they could borrow one for a bit and look less conspicuous alone with their sled. To be honest, it would be in the kid’s best interests as I can’t imagine it’ll be long before the groundskeepers arrive over the crest of the hill with shotguns. I don’t know any Manchester golfers, but I’ve never met one anywhere who doesn’t take it all very seriously. I mean, hitting a little ball with a stick until it goes in a hole is not an activity to be sniffed at.
Â
Before this bloodbath ensues, I take the lesser trod path that skirts the course.
Â
I can tell from the footprints that very few have ventured this way before me.

In amongst the walking boots, are the footprints of a heavy-footed bird. Maybe a crow. Or a snow-magpie. Or maybe Diana Dors!
Â
Cheap joke there, apologies.
Â
The strange use of ‘birds’ to denote women is something I’ve never fully understood. Is it left over from the ‘Stags and Hens’ brigade? Or is it that birds are often pretty? Although, to be honest, for reasons no one understands, the female birds are often the more ordinary looking, drab even, compared to most male birds - who look like they went a little bonkers in the dressing-up box.
Â
I don’t doubt, some decades ago, that some blokes thought ‘birds’ a compliment of sorts – I mean, let’s think about birds: they’re attractive, have high voices, are covered in feathers and might poop on your car if you leave it under a tree. And they eat worms.
Â
OK, not all the comparisons work. I think maybe my sister ate a worm once, although I may be mistaking that as a thing I wished had happened because it would be brilliant to drop it into this blog right now.
Â
Hang on a minute, maybe this isn’t just a snowy morning – maybe I’ve travelled through a portal to the 1960s. It’s probably pre-golf course, which explains why the kids aren’t target practice, and all my ‘birds’ thoughts aren’t my fault. It’s simply a sign of the times.
Â
That’ll be it.
Â
It’s then I notice that all the footprints are going the same way. A couple of people have gone up this path. Not one has come down. No one has survived this walk. Those bird prints are clearly the culprit. The violent snow-magpie has followed these erstwhile walkers, and devoured them. What other explanation is there?!
Â
I glance behind me. Nothing. But these shifty buggers could be anywhere. You know what though, this far from civilization (30 minutes from my front door) these bird prints could easily be from some flightless, carnivore bird, rarely seen by anyone except their prey, and even then for only a few seconds before the beast pecks out their eyes.
Â
(Aside: I was looking for another word for ‘birds’ and discovered the scientific name is ‘Aves’. Eh? A word I have never come across before. Isn’t it a car-rental place? More interestingly, however is this:

This was the Google suggestion for ‘birds’, proving as I always thought, that the majority of birds are simply one of these in disguise! The talkie bird, the flightless bird, the pet bird and the psychotic killer bird. All the food groups. Damn, it’s educational up here in the snow.)
Â
I reach my half way point without seeing either corpses or the beasts that made them so. Interesting.
Â
At the top is a car park. At the far end is one of those – 8 miles that way is a thing you can’t see, and 20 miles that way is a thing no one has ever seen. You know, tourist information things constructed to give people the feeling their walk has purpose.
Â
More curious is this snow-circle I find bang in the middle of the carpark.

I guess when those two weirdos admitted that with nothing more than a piece of wood, some string, a hat and a couple of hours in a field of wheat, they’d convinced the UK of the presence of aliens, they brought their skills up here. A perfect example of transferrable skills.

It’s a tricky fact of life that when one goes ‘all the way over there’, one must then come all the way back.
Â
Ah well, at least it’s downhill – which makes the walk much easier on the lungs, but increases the chances of finishing the stroll in the back of an ambulance.
Â
Tally-ho!

Whenever I pass these man-made tributaries I always have the same thought – how does the water higher up the hill know to assemble exactly at the right place. Why does it never decide to trickle just to the side of the stone, thus making these optimistic water bridges obsolete?
Â
No idea.
Â
I pass the place where the 30-something chap took his life in his hands and see no signs of either he or his partner. I can’t imagine an Air Ambulance could have landed here, too many trees. Perhaps he’s still descending and she’s gone for a cup of tea and is, as we speak, downloading the Bumble app to begin her search for a man who doesn’t claim to have all the answers.
Â
A mist has descended. I notice a figure in the distance, taking the slightly longer, but more sensible route back to the road. It looks like a chap. An older chap.

I have a strange thought that it might be me. Me in twenty years’ time. Still walking the hill, but with a little more care and attention. I wonder what I’m thinking? I wonder what the last 20 years have been like. I wonder if I’m still waiting for Sarah to return from touring. Older me disappears into the mist and I continue the more treacherous route.
Â
As I arrive at the kissing gate closest to the road, I pause to allow a Dad and his two sons to negotiate it first. Not everyone takes advantage of the kissing gate’s two primary uses:
a)Â traversing
b)Â brief, grinning kisses.
Â
I’m fairly sure this oncoming family will stick to the former.
Â
Both boys are dressed in matching American football gear. My guess is Santa kept things simple by delivering identical tops. Santa hates kids kicking lumps out of each other under the Christmas tree.
Â
The process of using the gate for its kissing potential requires one party to traverse alone and then wait for the arrival of the second and let the grinning commence.
Â
I correctly deduced there would be no such activity from this trio, but I hadn’t expected all three of them to negotiate the gate at the same time. Multiple occupancy traversing is new to me, so I plant my feet and watch to see how it plays out.
Â
Oh, did I not mention that Dad is of an XXL persuasion? Or that his two offspring, although only about nine or so, are not too far off wearing his hand-me-downs? Sorry about that.
Â
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sizeist in any way. But I most certainly am kissing-gateist. There is a right way and a wrong way to behave, and these three are breaking all the rules.
Â
Large father, two large sons and two sleds. It's never going to work.
Â
With the 30-somethings, if I’d actually seen things go badly wrong, I’d have called an ambulance. Or the coroner. Either one. But with this family, I wonder if it should be the fire brigade, or even a lumberjack or two, to cut them free from the wooden straight jacket they are now trying to extricate themselves from.
Â
However, like backed-up ketchup finally leaving the bottle, the kids explode through, dragging their sledges after them, desperate to see which of them will end up in A&E first.
Â
The Dad looks me in the eye and with absolute certainty I know that if he’d encountered Father Christmas coming down the chimney with those two sleds, he would’ve punched him in the nose.Â
Â
Just before the main road, Werneth Low Country Park marks its official entrance with two large stone pillars.

A sign tells me the pillars were donated. I’ve often thought that pillars aren’t donated as often as they should be. Maybe the world would be a better place if we could all find a few pillars and donate them to the entrances of things. Think on.
Â
As I turn, the ice almost gets the better of me. A little bit of windmilling and cold shoe shuffling keep me upright. Up at the side, my future self appears from the safer path. I smile at me. Me smiles back. I wonder if he knows who I am? I wonder what he’s seen, what he’s learnt. Then I glance at his feet. He’s wearing very new, very expensive hiking boots! I look at my own, cheaper unlikely-to-last-two-winters boots and am heartened to know that sometime in the next 20 years I’m going to learn that buying cheap means buying twice.
Â
I smile inside, I shall look forward to learning that.
Â
Heading down the now slushy main road, I’m amazed at how different it all looks now. I’m immensely glad I was out early enough to experience the chill beauty of this January morning before other people trampled it all to mush.
Â
Back down the wavy road, I’m glad to see another young couple walking together, having enjoyed their excursion without the noise and business of kids.
Â
Hang on…
Â
It’s the same couple I saw on the way up! What are the chances? He wasn’t dead and she hadn’t left him for a man who still had things to learn. Then I realise why, because you know what, that guy had learnt something – he no longer had the sledge. (Absolutely true.)
Â

Going down into the Enchanted Forest once more, I glance through the trees and see a small cemetery I’ve never noticed before. That’s very odd. But on a walk that’s involved man-eating snow magpies, learning curves for Millennials and a brief chat with my future self, I guess anything’s possible.
Â
When the graveyard takes flight and the Canada geese wonder if they wouldn't be warmer back home, I wonder if I’m due an eye test any time soon.
Â
Then I hear the reason for their flight – a sound blissfully missing during the rest of my walk - a child actually crying. Proper ‘I’ve hurt myself’ crying. I try and locate the sound through the trees and wonder if the small person is with an adult or whether I will be forced to bring my Cub Scout First Aid badge learnings from 1000 years ago into play.
Â
Thankfully a responsible adult appears, picks him up, checks he isn’t broken and then no doubt tries to explain that going very fast down a snowy bank on a tiny piece of plastic is not now, nor has it ever been, a terribly good idea.
Â
Nor has anyone over the age of 18 ever really been a ‘responsible’ adult for allowing it, I think with a cynicism my future self would be appalled at.
Â
I leave myself a voice note to remember that moment for this very blog. But looking at my phone means, for the first time since I set out, I’m not paying attention to my surroundings. So when I duck under a low-hanging branch, it’s a half-hearted duck at best. The hood of my coat is down. It’s also huge, and, behind me, catches the edge of the branch, and about fourteen pounds of snow dumps into it and begins to slide down the back of my neck.
I don't know if you've ever had 57 Mr. Freeze, Freeze Pops poured down your back? Well let me tell you it's not as much fun as you'd think.
Sigh. Thank heavens I have kittens and coffee at home.
On that field where the kids play, while I've been climbing three Big Bens, there's evidence they've been unusually creative...

I know what you're thinking - the one on the right does indeed look a bit like Sarah.
Well spotted.
Â
Â
Comments