Until now most of my time working on the Weather Project has been spent reading Bronte texts (novels, letters and poems) and with it being winter i've been ok with that. But now spring is coming i've been wanting to explore the area around Haworth and the landscape that inspired the Bronte sisters.
So, on Sunday i went up to Haworth and walked to Top Withins. It's a well trodden path and as it was a mild, sunny day there were lots of others walking out on the moors too. The birds are getting ready for spring - we could hear the eerie call of Curlew in the breeze and the crackle of Red Grouse being flushed from the heather. And i saw a couple of bees (a honeybee and a bumble bee). We had a butty at the Bronte Waterfalls by the Bronte Bridge and then continued up to Top Withins.
There's a plaque on the ruin that explains "This farmhouse has been associated with 'Wuthering Heights', the Earnshaw home in the Emily Bronte novel. The buildings, even when complete, bore no resemblance to the house she described, but the situation may have been in her mind when she wrote of the moorland setting of the Heights."
I'm enjoying experiencing all the Bronte hype - there's so many Bronte pilgrims wanting to tread where the Bronte's might have been that the walk was signposted to within an inch of its life - you can't possibly get lost and there's no need for a map.
When I walked there some of the stiles were a bit of a challenge but all in all it was a lovely climb. Before I started out, a kind woman in the village offered me a brochure: "How to stop yourself dying on the moors."
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