We were on Christmas duty at the weekend visiting my family near Chester, so I took the oppportunity to stretch my legs along a seven mile section of the Sandstone Trail on Saturday morning. I got a reasonably early start and set off from Peckforton Castle as the car thermometer read -4 oC. I didn’t know the first part of the route, but I soon popped out of a field next to “The Gap” and the rest of Bulkeley Hill. This was the scene of many adventurous days on a mountain bike during my mis-sent youth, so I knew the next couple of miles very well.

Seeing as I’m getting on in years, the next few minutes whizzed by in a haze of rose-tinted memories as I passed the scene of James’ near death on the gap jump, “The Snake Run” (controlled freefall down a steep muddy slope) and the old downhill run (don’t forget to duck under the fallen tree halfway down). The path around Rawhead soon brought me back to the present day – big icicles on the shady side of the ridge (a good metre long) and spectacular views out towards the Clwydian Range.

As I passed Nick’s house (you know, Nick. His parents live in the house on the left. He had a monkey called Spank.) and slogged over to Brown Knowl, the snow clouds started rolling in, and I finished just as the last of the sun disappeared. It was a good morning generally, and showed that you often have fantastic scenery very close to (your parents’) home if you just take a second to actually look for it.