How does she not wish to ascend to the high points? Up Beacon Hill where they hung the bodies of criminals, but such a beautiful spot overlooking the town and the hills, the routes in and out. You can see a storm cloud from over Hebden Bridge way as it heads towards you and race it back down to the Hall and have the fire lit before it hits. How can she not be in awe of our views, and enjoy looking out over what she owns? Nothing quite compares, although being atop a summit in the Pyrenees is close. A different vista altogether, beautiful, but not home, not my own. The question I received most often after I had achieved the ascent, some five years ago now, was not ‘was it difficult?’, but ‘why?’. Why, they would ask, did I want to ascend a mountain? Why ever not? I thought. It was because I wanted to know what ten thousand feet high felt like, compared to the one thousand feet I climb here in my home region. I wanted to know if my body could carry me so high into the sky. I wanted to know if I would feel any different, being so much closer to God and the Heavens. I wanted to because no woman had done so before me. I will ascend another mountain again soon. This time I’d like to be the first person ever to climb it, male or female. Why, they ask me? Because I can.

I enter the Moss House and it feels empty without her. I may have mentioned moving into Shibden together a bit too soon. Telling her that she would break my heart if she left me must have been too much. I can be rather romantic sometimes. But to run off like a schoolgirl…!

Miss Walker