Hebden Bridge

It starts drizzling - lightly. Not enough to make you reach for a coat but enough to make you squint up your eyes and frown. Which is what I am doing.
Then the rain really starts - heavy fat plop-lets as we run to the car.
We have a day planned and we want to see it through. Despite all feeling under the weather and bombarded by it too. We sit in a steamed up car, snuffling and sneezing feeling damp and cold.
Right.
Let's go.
The road is running wet as it, ribbon-like, heads up and over the moor. We peer through rainstained car windows at the standing huddle-close sheep, sodden and dripping, heads down patiently waiting. Inside we chat and listen or complain about the music - a standing source of mock irritation and amusement.
Finally we stop and pile out of the car - hunkering down in our coats against the damp air. The path into the town is a steep hillside cobbled stepped route, slipping its way past industrial ghosts, ivy covered mill chimneys and factory remains, bursting out on the main road down in the valley.

We dart between shops, lingering in the warmer ones as we browse over books and fettle through charity shops. Youngest feels weary, his head heavy and his throat sore. I agree that I too feel rough. The others nod - so we step into a cafe, order tea, toast and honey and toasted tea cakes.

People, bending against the rain plod past the windows, as we begin to feel better, warmer, drier.

Leaving the warmth of the tea room almost sends us back to the car and home as I remind them there is one place I still want to see before we go. We quicken our step. 

In the quirky pottery shop we drift between the precarious towers of plates or pots. Carefully lifting cups and jugs to admire. The narrow paths between the crockery invite us to slow down and inspect mugs with painted beetles, plates adorned with skulls in top hats, teapots sporting black and green tractors, butter dishes covered in delicate painterly bird's eggs patterns.

We came away bearing treasures - Youngest a metallic oily-dark and masculine glazed mug, Eldest purchases a heavy stoneware bowl as he fantasies about filling it with muesli, Eldest's GF a delightfully wonky white mug that, when she cradles in her hands - fits perfectly.

And I find a mug that pulls at my heart strings and I will use as soon as we get home.

Which I do.

And it is perfect.