So our first walk was the 3rd April.

Distance: circa 7 miles Start time: 10.30 am.

Meeting Place: Car park on right, Sam Road End, Diggle, just before the railway forces the road to the left. (The Diggle Hotel is a couple of hundred yards farther on over the railway bridge, postcode OL3 5JZ, but please do not park at the pub, instead use this small car park adjacent to the railway and the canal tunnel entrance.)

There were more field paths, not as steep, where a woman and young boy eased past us, before we reached a lane by way of a stile or, for Sam, by means of a broken-down part of the wall. Instead of continuing upwards to the ridge above, as some faint memory urged us to do, we turned left along the lane which followed the course of the ridge at a respectfully lower height. All the way along that sunny lane only one small car disturbed our calm progress, making one think that drivers in this part of the world had not yet woken up to the efficiencies to be gained from avoiding suspected delays along the main roads by taking to quiet lanes.

Some way along that lane - I think I would remember where, if I went back - we turned downhill, on concrete farm roads at first, then later on gravel surfaces. We stopped a few minutes to enjoy the view at a bench which accommodated half the team, then carried on down to the valley bottom, approaching, as was gradually revealed, the headwall and road across the dam of a large reservoir. Two benches here gave space enough for a sociable lunch-break.

Afterwards, Eric decided that he had gone far enough for his first outing and announced that he would return from there to the car-park. Noel quickly made up his mind to keep him company. It seems he was under the impression that their route back would cover the same ground in reverse as the way out, or would take roughly the same time. That assumption turned out to be false, as he found out considerably sooner than the rest of us did.

The plan ahead was a simple one: to follow paths through the forest on one side of the reservoir and return by way of the main 'waterworks' track on the other. Before leaving I noticed a sign warning about the dangers to the flora in that area of a disease called Phytophthora, which apparently was prevalent thereabouts. It was left unclear what one was supposed to do to counter or avoid this disease, though I saw no one reach for his face-mask or re-assess his social distancing. Painted black as it was, the sign was not very noticeable and failed as a deterrent.

The scene of what had until recently been a mature forest was one of widespread devastation. Very few trees along the lake had been left standing. Great swathes of the hillside above and below us had been reduced to brushwood, fallen trees left where they fell, tangled branches everywhere, the stumps of what had been substantial trees. The trunks of the largest trees had gone, so that one could not ascribe the clearances to disease alone. Whether it was in any way the indirect result of the tree blight mentioned above, we could only guess, but it seemed a drastic policy, whatever had decided it.

The effect it had upon us, the remaining six (seven including Sam, now coming into his doggy own), was to expose us to a stronger Sun than we had seen and felt in the morning. Also, the lake below us was in full view for its whole length when it would otherwise have been concealed by the mass of forest so recently standing. No one was complaining about the sunshine, but the element of uncertainty and anticipation that often attends a shaded woodland walk was no longer present. Soon we could see our turning-point at the end of the lake, where the steep grassy terraces of another dam provided an ideal picnic ground for a family having fun. The final descent to the turnaround was a hazardous one, not because of smooth and slippery clay, the usual cause, but by a surface hard-baked by many days of dry weather and a powdering of sliding particles.

It seemed a longer stretch on the flat road back to the other end of the reservoir and our eating place than it had on the way out, but I shall pass over it quickly now that I can. From there, the stony track eventually gave way to a soft, grassy descent to the river via the fiercely named Madscar Farm, which hardly stirred from its afternoon siesta as we crossed. There was still some way to go through water meadows and woods before the short ascent to the car-park, where Noel waited to greet us and tell the tale. We repaired up the road to The Shady Oak, which in spite of Phytophthora, or Covid-19, was still standing and even flourishing in the post-lockdown sunshine.

What argument did the sixth member adduce in rebuttal of this charge? It was hardly clear and coherent, but went along the lines of how they had actually reached Holme Moss, not by direct ascent of the steep and forbidding hill, carrying the apt soubriquet 'Black', upon which the TV mast is located, the hill which any reasonable person would have had in mind when considering the thought of ascending to Holme Moss, but by an oblique and sideways approach to that same place which may have involved some hill-climbing but nothing so steep, direct and intimidating as the one avoided.

But apart from the very questionable logic being employed, this argument makes the assumption that the climb up to the squelching top of a more distant 'Herbage Hill', followed by the precarious and exhausting traverse of a mile and a half of slippery black peat bog purporting to be a path, would be in some way preferable, less exhausting, perhaps more interesting, even somehow enjoyable, than the one originally implied and deliberately ignored.

In fact, that same questioning sceptic had posed another question while we slumped in the sodden heather by that noisome path to eat our wretched sandwiches: what elevation were we at now and how did it compare to the height of the soggy plateau we were evidently aiming for? The answer to the first was 524 metres approx. and to the second - not very much difference! The deception, the dupe, the fraudulence even, had been exposed. It was after all a boondoggle of a walk.