When mountains become mates again

I sometimes marvel, when I look at Google or Apple Maps, at just what a great location Manchester is in.

To the east, there's the Peak District, to the north, Saddleworth and the Lancashire hills, south lies the White Peak of Leek and further afield, there's Snowdonia, the Lakes, North Yorkshire Moors and Yorkshire Dales.

I've been rediscovering hills and mountains big time, since moving to Manchester and I've forgotten how wondrous and therapeutic they are.

It's not for the company you can walk with or the random conversations en route, no, I quite like walking solo with Cassie, my border collie and discovering and re-discovering places from my past. Pendle Hill from Barley, a month ago, was untrodden territory, yet thoroughly enjoyable.

I walked many of these places - Malham Cove, Pen Y Ghent, Snowdon - in my 20s and 30s and little sparks of memories are reignited at various points. Pen Y Ghent today took me right back to 1997, when I took about 15 pupils up there in torrential rain from Harper Green School in Farnworth, Bolton.

Next weekend, I'm heading down to the Roaches in Staffordshire, where me and my wife regularly walked when we lived in Cheddleton and Waterhouses, revisiting it about 5 years ago with son and daughter in tow.

I think what hills and mountains do is to keep you grounded. When you know there's long ascents and descents (Snowdon with daughter on my birthday last week) you don't fill your mind with toxic thoughts. You focus on the scenery, the inspiring nature around you, lift one foot in front of the other and walk. Walk to exhaustion so the bed beckons at night with a tired body and happy mind.

I like getting up close and personal with hills and mountains, and it's superb to see so many others doing and thinking the same, when I make weekends a personal space of recreation and reconnecting.

I do think too that hills are my happy place. They make me smile. Make me see beauty close up. They lift me - it's why mountains are great mates.