Looking across the Calder valley over Horbury Bridge with Smithy
Brook valley and Thornhill Edge in the distance. |
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There are flakes of snow at breakfast-time. A heron
settles on top of a densely clipped evergreen shrub in next door's
garden and looks around as if it's assessing the possibilities
of a raid on our neighbour's well-stocked garden pond. It stalks
awkwardly across the top of the hedge, like a pantomime villain
tiptoeing across the stage. When I go to fill up the kettle at
the kitchen sink, it spots me and flies off up the valley. My
neighbours carp are safe for this morning.
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Home Patch
 We
walk across the valley to wish my niece Hannah a happy birthday - my brother's
upstairs flat has views south across the Calder valley; part of the valley
that includes Addingford, Hartley Bank and the entrance to Coxley Valley.
These are the places I wandered as a boy and explored with a sketchbook
as a student and struggling artist.
I've never quite got beyond the struggling artist stage but I still sketch
the valley when I've got the time, such as while we're sitting chatting
with my sister-in-law Michelle over a mug of tea.
Love it or loath it (and it's more the former, despite all my grumbles
about what's happening to it), it's my home patch and I have my roots
here. 
Richard Bell, richard@willowisland.co.uk
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