I got a call from Helle in Utmarken that prompted me out in the evening air, she with a foot of snow and here with snow on the way, a scattering probably midweek, before the rains come again. I enter the Glen to the raucous sound of dirt bikes searing the sky and blasting us all into their orbits. Big men on small bikes thrusting throttles to make a point as they pass. I see spillages, not just the oil from their engines but something nostalgic, days of the cinema, a family box of Malteasers with escapees in the puddles that are soaked in oil. I crunch one underfoot for Helle to hear and she responds with snow.
The dusk darkens as I reach the grassy knoll and see a sleeper has been installed by some enterprising walker or admirer of views, this is beyond the norm in accommodation requisites and it warms my heart to see it here, I look down at the path, kept live by a walker down to the bridge – in summer this hill will be filled with briars and foxgloves this path will add some adventure to the walkers topography. Behind I see the other path newly beaten out, the one I took for the first time on Friday, and feel the growing connectivity on the ground and in the bodies of fellow walkers. I take the route back to the waterside and head in the direction of Blackpool, still talking to Helle on an island in Sweden in the snow. She knows the park here from old. I go back after nightfall and pass the oooooo shadows of the low gate in the red light leading homeward.