The march to Glasgow...

Last weekend, my family and I decided to pay a visit to the Spanish activists of ''Marcha a Glasgow'': a group of climate protesters walking over 950 km from Portsmouth to the COP26 conference in Glasgow. One of the activists is a family relative, so we decided to visit them on their closest stop to us, Leeds. 

The day started with a drive, the duration of which I spent happily with my mp3 player. The music seemed an appropriate companion to the Yorkshire landscape.
We joked that it would be ironic if our journey to a climate event was halted by the protesters of ''Insulate Britain''.
Alas, we made it in good time and were welcomed with pleasant weather.  

Upon arrival, we met with the activists and their supporters.
They had a large turnout which added to the atmosphere. It was great to see our relative who I mentioned earlier, as we had not met since we stayed with them in Spain. A short amount of time later, the march began. The feeling of unity was aided by the samba band which also attended.

The March

After walking up to a local community hub, we heard speeches from the local MP and Mayor, both of which were thoroughly inspiring. Next, we continued to walk up towards the destination for lunch, (though it turned out to be a lot more than just that), a local Gurdwara.
A Gurdwara is the place of assembly for members of the Sikh faith. Sikhs offer food to anyone, regardless of their gender, wealth or other factors. The local Gurdwara in this area of Leeds decided the climate activists a very worthy cause indeed, as they fed every single one of the attendees.
The vegetarian dishes fueled us on our journey as we continued to walk.

The next stop was a local bar, which had a brass band ready to serenade us on.

We then continued marching onwards, before saying our farewells a mile or two later.

Overall, it was a superb experience that made me realise the severity of the climate emergency. In the following days, I did a small amount of research on the Green Party in the UK; its popularity is slowly rising but with only 1 elected MP, it still has some distance to go yet.
With recent talks of a possible early general election from Boris, perhaps you should think of voting Green next time around.