Today the change in the landscape through which I’m walking became even more noticeable.
The hills are more gentle, hedgerows rather than walls are starting to separate fields, and farmhouses are starting to be built of brick rather than stone. I am leaving “the North”, and entering the Midlands: definitely a softer and greener landscape.
There is one particular memory of Yorkshire that came back today. Yorkshiremen are notorious for being tight with their “brass” – money, that is. A few days ago I had stopped in a pub for lunch. It was a slow day, which the landlord was spending by hiding just inside the door, waiting for people to park in his roadside parking area without coming into the pub. When they did, he’d go out and shout at them. As I left, he was grumbling to another customer that he was having to pay to have the lines in the parking area repainted because people were using it to turn around: “and ’tweren’t my customers wearing off t’paint – they knows t’ park between t’lines”. When I had arrived some muck came off my boots, which he insisted on throwing on the fire. I had thought he was just being tidy. It was only later that it struck me that perhaps he was hoping for a free bit of peat.
With the change in the landscape, there are more signs of the change in season. Spring is definitely on its way.
Day 7 Route: Bollington to Rudyard via Gritstone Trail and Staffordshire Way. Terrain: rolling hills, fields, tracks, former railway. Weather: sunny, breezy, cool. Daily distance: 28.5 km/17.7 miles. Cumulative distance: 175.4 km/108.7 miles. Accommodation: Hotel Rudyard, Rudyard
Come Wind, Come Weather 
Hello Simon , this is Kirsten,
I love the sound of the whole walk. Again, I wish I was with you. I really like the 17th and I didn’t want to bother doing it all over again!
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Hello Kirsten: You would have been a big help if you had been with me today – I took a wrong turn at one point. I’m sure you would have stopped me!
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