Day 4 Wuthering Heights

15 miles Hebden Bridge to Cowling

Yesterday evening Graham called round to take me out for the night, away from Badger Fields Farm to the bright lights of Hebden Bridge

This morning I was non the worse for wear and set off early for Cowling.

One of my guides tells me that Cowling has a post office. So one aim for the day is to arrive there in time to post some dirty clothes home and free up some space in my rather full suitcase.  Bare legs and showery rain this morning certainly helped to get me off on a quick start. But when I got to Cowling at three o'clock, it turned out the post office had closed for the last time in 2013.

When Sarah heard that I planned to walk the Penning Way without an emergency whistle, she spent the night before we set off from Edale, searching without success, for the one that kept her safe during her Duke of Edinburgh Award days.  The next day, she made me promise to buy one from the High Gate "Aladdin's Cave" Farm Shop, fabled for it's massive range of stock, before heading out in to the wilds of the far north.

So to fulfil my second aim for the day, I entered Aladdin's Cave and asked for a whistle.  But they have no whistles and now I feel more than a bit mean having walked away with nothing more than a bag of chocolate eclairs.  It's like I'd set Mrs Aladdin an impossibly hard test and succeeded only in killing the magic. If I ever call in again I'm going to ask for a long weight/wait to punish myself.

Like most folk from North Yorkshire Graham can't get enough of the Bronties!  I've taken this photo of Top Withens ruins for him.  I've not read Wuthering Heights, and am not sure how the plot goes but one of the characters could have lived here, if they existed.