more walking in the peak district

On Easter Monday, Liam and I went on another lovely hill walk (best make use of the few days we have off work that are not filled with travelling!); this time in the Peak District, because it's close, and amazing.


We passed Derwent Dam, a quite majestic structure, famous for where the so called Dambusters practised during World War II (before they went and bombed things in Germany, which most British people know about; a raid which was later deemed a failure and a waste of resources, which most British people don't know about, because of, you know, a history of glorification of war in general.*)

*Yes, I know I can say things like this because of the privilege of growing up in a country that hasn't been in a war since 1814. I discovered this same phenomenon years ago living in France; this sense of pride in having won, which is essentially a sense of pride in having successfully killed more people or killed people more efficiently than the people you are killing. I'm not saying that resisting a threat and fighting against it is bad - it has clearly been necessary in the history of this world - but do we really need to glorify it? Do we? People who are able to somehow separate the "winning" of a war with the horrendous pain and suffering that was caused everyone involved - I don't understand it. Maybe, living safely in Sweden, it is innately impossible for me to understand that pride, having never lived through the trauma of war.


And then we walked past English cottages and lakes (well, reservoirs)




climbed upwards




sat down to have lunch while admiring this view


admired the view some more



crossed moors






walked down again


and ended up on the other side of the same dam.


It seems silly now, when I tell about it. We walked up and the we walked for a bit and then we walked down and that was it ... But it's so much more than that, you know, to me. Sights like these fill me up and charge my batteries enough to live on for days. Moving my body and breathing in the air and smelling the trees and the grass. And I got to do it with my favourite person, my favourite company for, it seems, everything. I am lucky indeed to get to live in country where I can go out walking in beauty such as this.