Derbyshire 122 - Chesterfield /Day 68 - the end of week 10 , the last night of the clap /Boris still speaks and we don't listen

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Day 68 - another day of semi -lockdown . Test and Protect has started in Scotland . Track and Trace has started in England . Will that work ? Somehow we doubt it . Walking round a supermarket who have I been next to? I will not know them. How can I tell the NHS who I walked by, who I stood by, their names, their addresses and their phone numbers . It feels an ill thought out scheme . Premier League Football will be starting up again in a few weeks . After yesterdays news on closed dentists it seems they are opening on the 8th June . On the balance of probabilities do I believe any word that comes out of BoJos mouth ? No I don't especially when he brushes off questions when he does not want to answer. Tonight is the last night of the NHS clap . The last time we will wave across to our neighbours. The last time we will hear the dustbin lids and the klaxons. We can have BBQ's from next week as long as we keep socially distanced . I wonder what will go on in English gardens.

It was another hot hot day. The sun was up early as I set off on my walk . I had a map burned into my brain . I planned the route up the local bridlepath. I saw no-one. Last night a horse or horses must have walked this way . It is the end of Week 10 . I walk where I have walked before. I probably walked it many times over in the last ten weeks. It has changed. The birdsong is no longer as shrill. Not so many birds filling the air with song. They are there but not so loud. The hawthorn has gone over . Replaced by so much green and the odd flash of white from the elder flowers. The large spikes of the Foxgloves have started to open. The fields are now green as the farmers crops grow.

I reach the stile . If I walk straight on I can end up in Old Tupton . A walk I did a few weeks ago. Turn left and out onto the A61 . I am going right . I have never been this way before . The last time I was this way I spoke to a couple walking their dog . They walked that way and told me it would bring me out at the top of Bole Hill. A longer walk than I wanted today . Today being a work day and I needed to get home for a Skype call at 10. I knew I had to walk through two stiles so off I set . First stile ticked off and on to the second . In the distance I could see a man walking across the fields . I was not going his way . This path would take me further towards Ashover and a long way home. Instead I walked into the woods . Tall trees again with a thick canopy. Bluebells gone over . Ferns replacing them . Brambles starting to cover the woodland floor .

I had assumed that if I carried on down the wide well walked path I would drop down to the stream . The Trickets brook - the one I cross many many times in my walks . It is narrow and dry due to the lack of rain . I thought that if I carried on to the top I would be able to turn right and come round full circle . However that did not happen - at the top the trees ended and the fields opened in front of me. The path headed off in the opposite direction . A direction I did not want to walk . Perhaps another day.

All that was left to me was to turn round and retract my steps . Back down to the stream and to cross it . Through the dark cool woods before coming out in the sunshine on the other side . I never saw the path I thought would join . When I get home I need to look at the map again . I am sure there are plenty of walks in that direction I can follow. On my way home I passed a man walking a dog . "Lovely day " he shouted to me. I agreed smiling as I replied . It was indeed a lovely day . The weather is due to continue . June is just around the corner and for the next few days we have more of the same . A young man passes . He too speaks to me and finally a bike rider rides past me .

It is another sunny day and a day where I could sit outside in the sun whilst working drinking my coffee or Aperol Spritz.

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