Evening Walks

At this time of year, when the lighter nights are here once again and the weather has warmed up, evening walks become part of our routine. That's not to say we don't still walk during the day, we do, but there's something about being out after tea. It's more peaceful somehow, it's when we most often see wildlife about too, and there's definitely something magical about that. We occasionally see deer in the fields at the top of our street, there's always rabbits about in the evenings and sometimes even hares. It feels good to walk our evening meal off and it's also a time when we're able to really talk and listen to each other without other distractions. 

We like to vary the places we walk and we're very lucky to have so many lovely places we can go to do just that. I thought you might like to see some of the walks we've been on over the last few weeks.

Lotherton is a favourite, not only for us but for Archie too. A country house and estate, it's less than ten minutes away by car so it's really handy. We have annual membership and we definitely get our money's worth visiting at least a few times every week. It can be a bit busy during school holidays but even then, it's so peaceful on an evening. With woodland, formal gardens and a perimeter walk to choose from, we never get bored.

The Fly Line is where a private railway once ran serving the nearby collieries. It links Garforth to Aberford by way of a three and a half mile route through Parlington Woods and it's the route by which you can find Nellie's Tree which was voted Woodland Trust's Tree of the Year in 2018.

We usually walk at the Aberford end and double back rather than walk the whole route, it's much too far for Archie these days. The path starts out through farmland before opening out into woodland.

The woods at the back of Temple Newsam can be accessed from a road very near to the area where I grew up. I used to play in these woods as a child. There's so many different pathways to take through the woodland with a central path leading right through to Temple Newsam House. At the time we visited, preparations were underway for Live At Leeds In The Park, a music festival which was held at the end of May. You can just see the stages which have been set up in the distance.

The Aire and Calder Navigation is the canalised section of the Rivers Aire and Calder which was built to connect Leeds to the Humber and the North Sea. The part where we walk is about a ten minute drive away and it's a lovely destination on a sunny evening. I always think that walking by water is calming so it's a good place to walk if you want to relax. This part of the navigation is right before it comes together with the River Aire.

Beck Wood is another lovely walk when the sun is shining. A little further away from the places we usually visit, it takes about twenty minutes by car so it's not somewhere we go weekly or even monthly, but it's somewhere we visit when we fancy a change, and it's so worth the extra ten or fifteen minutes in the car on a summer's evening. There's walks through woodland at the side of the beck and it opens out to the banks of the River Wharfe with a riverside beach. We didn't see a single soul on this occasion until we returned to the car park and saw another family who had just arrived.

I recently wrote that The Azaleas Are Stealing The Show when we visited Temple Newsam and found that the rhododendrons weren't doing so well this year. I thought we might be a bit early so we returned the other evening but as you can see, there was just the odd shrub flowering at the start of the rhododendron walk, and the shrubs which line the pathway are usually a riot of colour at this time of year but they're well and truly green, hardly a flower to be seen. I expect they've had a hard prune at the expense of the blooms. It will be interesting to see how they recover next year. We walked down to the lake where quite a few people were enjoying the sunny evening.

The place we walk most frequently is at the top of our street. Not only is it convenient but it's a lovely place to walk. The lane runs alongside farmland with houses and stables lining the other side. It's not busy with traffic but there is the odd car so we keep Archie on his lead here but he's able to come off at the end of the lane as we enter a woodland track, still bordering farmland. 

This track takes you right through to the area where I grew up, though it's changed dramatically since then with a motorway, a retail park and a new housing development now occupying the fields where I played as a child. Isn't that sad. It's what they call progress. I just hope that progress doesn't spread as far as where we're living now.

Thank you for coming on our evening walks with us. I hope you enjoyed them just as much as we do.