What a glorious day. Sunshiney, cold, no breeze.
All this getting up in the dark, sitting in an artificially lit box with no windows all day, then going home in the dark doesn’t do my seasonal sad syndrome (or whatever it’s called) any good so, lunchtime, I ran screaming from my prison cell, blinking and squinting, into the bright sunshine.
Our automatic gates seemed to take an age to open and I felt like pawing the ground as I waited. As soon as I could squeeze through the gap I was out like a whippet – yeehawwww, freedom
Off came the face covering. Turning left onto Summergroves Way I inhaled deeply to get my fix of exhaust fumes. I did this again as I turned onto Hessle Road. I just can’t get enough of those CO2 emissions.
Left at the roundabout took me onto Priory Way and I crossed the road to walk on the sunny side of the street. Plus, it meant I’d get to have a little looksee if the moorhens were on Fleet Drain:
They were, but they were foraging in the vegetation.
Past Sainsburys I went, which looked busy. T’other side of the road is Aldi, which looked busy too. The delicious smell of The Butty Boy burger van wafted in my direction but I wasn’t tempted - I knew my tuna and coleslaw wrap would taste exactly like a bacon sarnie
Onwards and upwards (yes, upwards, ascent, height gain, kwoorrrrrr) as I ascended and crossed the spaghetti junction of slip roads on the flyover. What an adrenaline rush that was!
I topped out above the railway lines:
… and the Clive Sullivan Way (or maybe it’s the A63 by now, I’m not sure):
Now here’s a thing. Standing here, I’ve left Hull but, as you can see, I’m not quite in the East Riding of Yorkshire. So where am I? No Man’s Land? And once lockdown is lifted, what Tier will I be in? Pondering this conundrum for far too long, I took my eye off the traffic and nearly got squashed by a massive articulated lorry as I crossed yet another slip-road. I deservedly got a stern blast from his horn which, I’m sure, wasn’t because I’m such a foxy chick. I was very nearly road-kill
Cardio workout complete, I dropped down the steps onto Hessle Foreshore. The deserted, peaceful bit of Hessle Foreshore where nobody goes, despite it being part of the Trans Pennine Trail.
Ahhh, lovely. I was hoping for a bench or something to sit and eat my bacon sarnie, errr, tuna and coleslaw wrap, but had to settle on sitting on the “sea” defences instead. Looking over to my right there’s the Humber Bridge, far enough away to not hear the traffic roaring over it:
And looking over to my left there’s the chemical works at Saltend, complete with the ever-present cooling towers:
Phew! I do get an attack of separation anxiety when I can’t see them
In all fairness, it was nice sitting there in the sunshine for 10 minutes whilst I ate my lunch and I could have sat there a little while longer but, instead, I retraced my steps.
The steepest ascent of the day being the steps back up to the road:
I couldn’t wait to check my height gain on ViewRanger
Ohhh, how I wished I was turning right instead of left:
Interestingly (or not) I wondered how old the signs were as we’ve not been a “brigade” for years. And years. And years.
I returned from No Man’s Land back into Hull:
…and continued (carefully) across the spaghetti junction slip-roads, the sun now behind me.
This next pic of our comms mast is most definitely not my best pic of the day:
What you can’t see (and what I was trying to get a picture of) is the christmas tree at the top. Yes, that dark bit near the pointy bit is a christmas tree. Impressive, huh?
It’s been up there years and the tale of how it got there gets taller with each telling.
I re-crossed Priory Way and headed down the little leafy lane by the side of our building:
I kicked through the damp leaf litter, thus discovering my mesh trainers are not waterproof.
Back on Summergroves Way again and it was back on with the facemask as I prepared to return to my artificially lit prison cell for the afternoon.
And that, folks, concludes The Best Trip Report Ever
If anyone has any ideas on how the tree got up there, please do let me know!
Thanks for reading