Yorkshire Writers' Lunch

A friend commented on our “true British grit” as we set off to camp in the Peak District last weekend. Along with four other families, we defied the amber rain warning and forecast of thunder-storms, and pitched our tents on Friday evening in bright, hot sunshine.   We sat enjoying our first mug of tea, watching the kids ride around on their bikes. Surely the forecast must be wrong? Just after midnight the rain began, pattering on the canvas as we lay snug in our sleeping bags.   Thunder and lightning followed, and we counted between flashes and rumbles, judging the distance of the storm.   At the count of five it started to move away, and I pushed away the niggling anxiety I had been harbouring about lightning and metal tent poles. At 6.30am we were woken by shuffling and giggling, and the boys emerged, hopping across the tent in their sleeping bags like disheveled invertebrates.   The rain was persistent, and we contemplated the dense grey cloud as...

Ork can hear something out there in the pitch black night, some noise behind the buffeting of the wind in the eaves. The bed is almost warm. Reluctantly he heaves off the blankets and walks in his bed-socks to the window, pulling back a corner of the heavy curtains. He is rewarded with a view of complete darkness, not even a twinkle of light to be seen. He hears the sound again, an unpleasant sound. He returns to the already cold bed, lies on his back, covers up to his chin and tries to forget. At first light he is awake again, dresses and descends the steep stairs to the kitchen. He pulls back the heavy oak door and peers out into the yard. The crow is clearly dead. It’s not the first time, but he still doesn’t know the meaning of these messages. He fills the wooden pail, moving the pump handle vigorously, watching the live crows circling the beech copse on the hillside. The axe is newly sharpened and he’s able to split the logs with minimal effort, storing them in the large wi...

‘Where does the time go?’ It’s one of my mother’s catch phrases. She used to say it at the end of the long summer holidays, during my school and university days. She would sing it again, sadly, on a Sunday afternoon when we were visiting each other on a long awaited weekend, in the days when I had an office job. And, when she was at her loneliest, she would begin to sigh it out almost as soon as I had arrived, later than expected, on a Saturday afternoon. ‘The weekend is almost over.’ I would roll my eyes, impatient with her for anticipating my departure on Sunday, rather than enjoying the moment we were sharing. But now I have children of my own - and I have chosen to be a “stay at home mum” and, when I have the time, a writer, and I feel as though I spend so much time waiting - I get it.    I have even heard those same words fall from my own lips, and cringed. I can even predict myself saying them at the end of this year’s school summer holidays. What a...

The town lies below me in the valley, a star-shape of grey slate and stone framed by the green hills. I’m anonymous in the peleton , hidden away by my team. The break-away at the front is just for show, and the task of the moment is a safe, high-speed descent to the ring road and into town. The wind, loud in my ears, almost drowns out the noise of the crowd. I glimpse flags and faces through the pack of riders. Hunched over the bars and hiding in the slipstream of the bikes ahead of me, I rest my legs for the climb that I know will come all too soon. It’s a climbing day. It’s not the Pyrenees, no, but the laws of physics and human biology dictate that I will spend much more time going up than going down. All too soon, I’m on my way back out of the town. The climb starts gently enough, a smooth incline waking up the muscles for the torture that lies ahead. The gap between one bike and another grows, centimetre by centimetre as the strain begins to tell. The nonchalant smiles of t...