There are a few true homes to my life - Altrincham & Sheffield. Naramata and The Orchard have been but transient homes and Cambridge and Peterborough were never really anything but a house.
On Friday I went for an interview in a little town just outside Sheffield. It went well and I left feeling happy and somewhat confident. For the drive back to Altrincham, I chose to leave the M1 early before the Woodhead turn and head for Sheffield - and potentially the notorious Snake Pass A57. Not thinking I needed a map, I navigated my way through the Sheffield suburbs and arterial roads part by intuition and part by gut and familiarity.
Turn after turn I found myself guessing but by that point, with Sheffield on the left, Manchester is pretty much always to the right and the only true decision I had to make was wether to turn into Grenoside or away from it. Turning away from it, I passed over the brow of the hill and promptly burst into tears of joy and laughter. With the spills of the peak district ahead of me, covered in snow, dark trees in contrast, the dusky post-sunset-glow and the light of the city where I was at univeristy glistening in my tears, I cied becuase I was home. Home being a random hillside in the middle of nowhere. I plunged down the hillside, pulled myself together and continued in my quest to get back to Altrincham home.
I completed the rest of the journey, the tufty grass verge of Woodhead with snow just beyond, the wiggly descent past reservoirs reflecting the dark blue night sky, past God's crag car park where I've taken special friends to go climbing and into Tameside with the vintage car garage. The slow climb that used to be a 60 limit to Hyde where my dad once chased a boy who thretened to beat us with a stick as we cycled past. On through Stockport and the M60 to mum and dadd's where I looked at my watch and pronounced I still have it - Sheffield to Manchester in 1 hour 22 minutes by Gut-nav. Eat my dirt garmin.
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