Photo of the Week 2 - Leeds Canal Basin

Leeds became a prosperous cloth market town in the Middle Ages due to the fact that the Aire river was navigable along much of its length. Cloth and other bulky goods such as coal and limestone were gathered in from the surrounding areas into the huge warehouses along the river front owned by major merchants before being shipped onwards.

In the eighteenth century, the Leeds & Liverpool canal was built to make shipping these bulky and heavy goods over the Pennines to the port city of Liverpool possible, as well as shipping them down the Aire. It took 46 years to build in its entirety. This is the very end of the canal, the basin in Leeds where it was joined via locks to the Aire river.

This area has recently reopened after redevelopment. Sadly, this translates as 'one of the few central green spaces in the city now has a blocky ugly hotel and an apartment tower on it, with a few benches and tiny patches of grass left over to keep the public quiet'

However, many other redevelopments along the canal and river front in Leeds are a lot more sympathetic to the history of the area. Expect a great many other photos of the waterways in the future. This picture was taken from the bridge near the Canal offices, looking towards the Aire river. The new hotel is on the left.

Inherent Contradiction the First

I am a lifelong barefooter. I have wonderfully healthy feet and ankles as a result - they're broad, well shaped, not deformed from ill fitting shoes or heels, the nails are healthy. My preferred footwear for years was a good pair of hiking sandals, year round.

So, why is my time so taken up these days with the knitting of socks?

Perhaps I'm just an awkward sod.

But no. About a year and a half ago now, my trusty hiking sandals failed me. A strap broke. Being Autumn, sandals were thin on the ground (see what I did there?) so I was forced to fit my feet into shoes. Literally in years, the only shoes I'd worn had been a pair of 'high days and holy days' black heels which covered both funerals and job interviews with aplomb, and now I found myself with a pair of black Birkenstock mary janes.

I found out within 15 minutes that my normally tough feet did NOT have the required calluses to go bare in Birks, and found out within days that the commercial socks I bought were NOT fun to wear on a daily basis.

And, well, come on! Knitting is what I do. So, armed with a pattern, yarn and needles, I set out to self sufficiently clothe myself.

Eight pairs later, I have enough sock yarn stashed, and patterns bookmarked to keep me going for about 5 years, at the rate of one pair per month. And I do not knit that fast.

Self sufficiency in socks has been achieved!

And, you know something? For the past two winters, my feet have stayed warm and dry. And I end up wondering how come I didn't do this sooner? Sometimes it's okay not to be superhuman tough, it seems.

But I still call myself a barefooter. Because I'm an awkward sod.

Inaugural Photo of the Week

Ingleborough in the Peak District, taken on a changeable day in the first half of May this year.

One of the mountains that make up the Three Peaks Challenge. Along with her sisters Whernside and Pen-y-Ghent, Ingleborough in this picture shows everything I love about my corner of the planet. Solitude, space, a sense of monumental time passing...

The Three Peaks are limestone country, and as we all know, limestone is made of the shelly remains of sea creatures, deposited, laid down and compressed over millions of years. Now, think of the preceding sentence and look at that picture again. Sea creature shells make up that entire landscape. Look at the size of it, and think of all those countless billions of little creatures, over millions of years.

Time passing.