Sunday

Rivelin Valley view showing the water treatment works

Well, it was little Margot's second birthday today. She shares November 2nd with the legendary blogger - Steve Reed  - and I guess a few million other people. She wasn't feeling too well as last week ended - perhaps it was COVID - so celebrations were low key. For instance, she did not go out to a fancy  steak restaurant in London's Docklands to spend a king's ransom - like the aforementioned Steve Reed.

For once, it was not down to me to prepare the Sunday dinner. Instead Stew was doing it to mark Margot's birthday. This meant I had some free time and co-incidentally, I needed a good long stroll so I drove over to the Lodge Moor suburb to the west of this illustrious city and parked Butch - the new car.

Path above The Rivelin Valley. It skirts Hallam Golf Course.

I had a circular walk  worked out and the weather was good. It was typically autumn with the leaves of deciduous trees revealing an array of vivid colours that ranged from red to green to burnished gold and bright yellow.

By one path, I watched a small moth secrete itself  amongst beech leaves that were the exact same colour as its wings and I again passed the sad  memorial bench that pays homage Sheffield's only 9/11 fatality - Nigel Bruce Thompson. Then I descended to the woody dell that contains Blackbrook stream where the rebellious Sheffield poet Ebenezer Elliot would often sit and ponder.

Soon I was heading across Hallam Golf Course watching out for flying balls and listening for cries of "Fore!" before  heading down Crimicar Lane. I passed "The Shiny Sheff" pub that was named after the battleship H.M.S. Sheffield. Nearby, I noticed the old gates to a former isolation hospital that closed in 1956. Through walking, one can often notice things like that that you simply miss when driving a car.