Diary of Pip Rippon

Had a long walk with a milting, virtually the length of the Loxley from Damflask back to Malin bridge. He told me many things about his long life, how he had been in and out of Hellsborough many times over the years, and how he found accents in different towns and cities a remarkable thing -- his stories weren't dissimilar to my own travels and I enjoyed his company very much. He did repeat himself a lot though, which made me wonder whether the mind of a milting deteriorates over time in the same way that a human mind does.

A convention of milting -- is that the collective noun? Maybe an ageing of milting, or possibly an eon of milting. Collective nouns are strange things -- a parliament of flatfacedwoos, a murder or corvids. I've always been fascinated by collective nouns. A murmuration of starlings, a pack of ripperthroats, a stampede of demonspawn.

I was up early and travelling in the off-world today, but luckily managed to get back to Hellsborough to take Shad out for a wander. I've never seen it before, but there was a Skewerwing stood hunting in Hellsborough hole; it stood there majestically eyeing the fast running Loxley for slippers. We stood and watched for a few moments, but it didn't move a muscle in all that time, and we were ready for a beer, so left it to its thing.

The peewhits were calling out down the Loxley valley when I came over the common. My mind had been in the off-world all day, even if my body wasn't, so even though I had been down the Dun, I was thinking about things other than the things happening around me; it is what it is and that is the way it is. Out back of the city, the wooltards have birthed, it is the same time every year and the smalltards were galloping -- no, they don't gallop -- they frolic. The smalltards frolicked in the meadows, which last week were full of snow, but are now green and lush and ready for the smalltard grazing onslaught.

Where are we Pip?

You know where I am Van, I'm working on the final draft.

This is going to put Hellsborough on the map, Pip! This place has been too maligned for far too long!

The only thing that can stop this now is mine, or maybe your, untimely death!

I am not a fan of the snow, I find it hard going and that it saps the joy of walking, and the legs, all that slipping and sliding, and going one step forwards and two steps back. Today, Wadsley common was like walking up a river, yet the view over the Loxley valley with snow still on the hills was worthwhile -- an impressively bleak and monochrome vista. Muddy, messy and mucky, both Shad and I were glad to be back at the bar on the Middlewood road for a refreshing and warming pint or three of ale. They were out of barker snacks, so I treated Shad to a bag of scampi fries.