Wrexham County Borough 9 - Bangor on Dee /do a kind action /Torville and Dean impressions/Blwyddyn Newydd Da

---

Happy New Year - Blwyddyn Newydd Da to everyone . To anyone who reads my ranting and raving . And it has been a year of more ranting and raving than travelling . Looking back at 2020 it started well. We felt uplifted after Christmas in France . Yes we would do it December 2020. We even felt cold but happy to be in Gabby in February overlooking Hadrians Wall . And then it all went downhill .

Spring found us in lockdown . In a world of silence. We could hear nature . We could hear the birds . I enjoyed exploring . It wouldn't go on for long would it ? Well that is what I told myself . I spoke to people I had never met before . I stood on the doorstep and clapped the NHS. I got used to not going to the doctors. Doing everything by email and phone call. I never missed the dentist nor the chiropodist . Well not at first but as summer wore on and we failed to get away on holiday I began to hate Covid . I wished a pox on it . I wanted it to go away . I had investigated every nook and cranny of our village . I had seen the cars coming back on the road , hoarding of toilet rolls , panic buying and ignorance . Another failed holiday passed me by and Autumn took over from Summer . The clocks changed and Covid still had not gone away . New vocabulary entered my language - lockdown , firebreaks and shielding . I guess by Autumn working from home I realised the year was drifting away and we were still no nearer normality . I had forgotten what normal looks like .

Winter is upon us . The pavements are icy . I walk carefully . With no mobile phone signal in the village I dread falling and breaking something with no means to ring home. I slip and slide doing a poor version of Bolero that iconic ice dance from the Torville and Dean era . I am not alone in my sliding . Everyone seems to be having a problem this morning . Let me take you for a whistle stop tour of the village . I begin my walk on the estate. All the roads are named after horse racing tracks in the UK . I would have prefered a welsh address. I head out for the Whitchurch Road . The High Street divides the village . It feels a little like the A61 with the lovely Peak District to the west and the industrial areas to the east . Here the nicer part of the village is our side . To the other and I feel a snob saying it lie the council houses . All sold off by Maggie some years ago but with untidier gardens and with less of a pretty look . Thoughts for January tell me to do a kind action today so I shall stop saying it looks less posh that end of the village . The Middle Shop is open and doing a roaring trade. I head out into the open countryside . The sky is divided into two halves . To my left over towards Whitchurch it is threatening . Grey, overcast with rain in the offing . To my right Minera Mountain covered in snow . Wrexham has a blue sky overhead . Sadly the two meet and the grey sky wins . As I pass the first person I have seen so far on my walk the raindrops start to fall .

I fasten my jacket to protect me against the chill and the rain and plod on. I put my hood up. The rain is gentle but penetrating . I say hello to a lady I pass . She holds her left arm as if she has suffered a stroke . She limps . She smiles and we pass each other. I reach the turning . I know I have to turn right to head back in a loop. The fields are waterlogged and I spot paths that would shorten my route home . However today is not a day to walk across wet and muddy fields . I pass Owl Cottage, the road becomes potholed. Each pothole deeper than the last one and full of water . The road which from now on has grass growing up the middle of it can only be truly described as a lane which goes on and on . In the distance I can see the racetrack. The white rails stand out so I know I am walking in the right direction , I gingerly pick my way down on this icy lane . I have a mobile signal so it gives me chance to send out felicitations to family wishing them all a better 2021. I pass a couple out running. How I long for Spring .

My walk takes me now down along the river . Past the barn conversions and the larger farmhouses . Past the Albert Fishing Club again and finally home . In time for a hot mug of coffee .

---