This Is The Side That The Grass Is Greener On I was chatting with some of the girls during service last week and they were describing their desire to move away from "dull, boring old Ilkley". Now I'd have to admit that old Ilkers might not be the fast moving, up tempo place to live, but it is beautiful. I love travelling and I have been lucky enough to see beautiful places all over the world (and the odd hole as well), I was even marginally tempted by Australia for a while, but whilst all those places were lovely when you're on holiday, when you're living there and stuck in a hot and sweaty kitchen all places are pretty much one and the same. Sometimes people move or even emigrate because they think that they can leave all their problems behind them and begin afresh in a new place, for some folk that might work, but other people find that they are their own problem, it was never the location that was the trouble. I feel a connection to the landscape here, just looking up at the moors gives me a sense of peace and of belonging. Sometimes when I'm up really early in the summer a light mist lies along the river with the trees shrouded and ghostly, as the sun rises through it the scene has an ethereal, spectral beauty. At this time of year, as the sun sets beyond the top of Wharfedale it reflects in all the windows of the houses along Skipton Road setting them ablaze with glorious golden light. Later as the valley falls into darkness, house lights glow amidst the trees on the other side of the valley and it calls to mind Tolkien's descriptions of Hobbiton and Bree. My favourite place in the world I think is stood high up on Cam High Road, looking back down into Kettlewell an down Wharfedale. The dry stone walls in the valley bottom both mark out and are one with the landscape. Trees in strong and vibrant green stand guard around the village and are dotted along the valley. Where the valley sweeps up to the moors there are more trees and stands of gorse which early in the year will explode into vivid yellow flowers, here and there are set aside meadows in which delicate wildflowers flourish throughout the summer. Sounds will reach you on the road, sheep bleat, the buzzing of a farmer's quad bike, the haunting calls of golden plover and nearly always the wind, whether soft and cooling on a hot summer's day, or biting and freezing and carrying with it rain or sleet so hard that it stings any exposed skin, and being Yorkshire, this can be high summer as well. I love travelling, but I love being here as well, the Dales are in my soul.