Days in the Dales: The Annual Kettlewell Duck Race

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Sometimes, in life, you encounter moments which make you realise how much you’ve changed. For me, such a realization comes on May bank holiday Monday, standing outside my house and poring over an OS map with a friend as we discuss a road trip route.

‘The A59 is closed near Skipton,’ he says ‘so we’ll take a detour here and go up this road to get to the village.’

I peer more closely at the almost invisible line he’s tracing on the map, a minute thread of white amongst the green.

‘Is that a B-road?’ I ask, ‘that looks miniscule.’ He just grins. With too much glee, I think.

‘It’s a narrow road, but it’ll be fine,’ he says, ‘it’s such a nice drive.’  

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Library Love Part II: The small joys of borrowed cookbooks.

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I might be hopelessly late to the party, but I’ve just made the discovery that my local library has a cookery section. Having spent the last year shuttling between adult fiction (ground floor) and the children’s library (basement) , the reference department on the first floor has been unchartered territory until now. I ventured up there last week though, looking for a book on Turkey, since I visited magical Istanbul this year and wanted to read more about the country. Heading towards the travel section however, I was sidetracked by several shelves full of books on everything from breadmaking to vegan Christmas food, and my quest for travel books was quite forgotten.

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