Stretching our wings

This week, we got out and about a bit further afield, despite the rain and drizzle in some cases. Wythenshawe Park is worth exploring, and in the current social distancing climate, where I go is often determined by where there are fewer other people.

As I passed by the mushrooms, I thought it would be nice to see an actual real-life Ickabog come along to pick and eat them.

Yes, a California poppy, not a fancy buttock-up.

Many thanks to Helen, our horticultural correspondent, who identified these lovely flowers.

According to the annotated sign, this beech is the oldest tree in Wythenshawe.

The notice board has been neglected lately, for obvious reasons, but when things get back to (more) normal, I’m sure we’ll be following up some of the activities on offer.

I suspect we’ll be cycling over to the park so we can play baseball in the glasshouses.

Back at home, Liesel continues with her latest project, crocheting a blanket, using many colours. I often hear her counting the number of stitches in a row, and I try not to interrupt too much.

For the first time since the lockdown, and for quite a while before, come to think of it, we walked to Jenny’s house. We walked the long way round in order to avoid the local, very smelly, recycling centre.

We sat in the garden for a while, enjoying watching Martha play on the swing and count and do sums with the large plastic numbers from her floor mat. Sadly for us, William was taking his nap. The previous day, they’d all been to Reddish Vale for a walk.

William fell in the water but he was alright, so he fell in again later on.

It was a beautifully sunny day, we should have been drinking beer in the garden, really. Well, not Martha, I suppose.

The clouds were fascinating to watch, I guess it was more windy at the higher altitude.

Exciting news in Mick and Liesel’s household. We have a new washing machine and after installing it, one of the engineers thanked us for all the stairs. There’s only 32 of them, but I wouldn’t want to be lugging heavy white goods up and down those, either.

A new tray has arrived for the dishwasher, to replace the old one with its broken wheels. The new one is grey, not white, but I think we’ll get used it.

In the repair department, I successfully reinstated the knob on the waffle-maker. It now rotates between ‘off’ and ‘max’ without going round and round forever. Previously, we had to temporarily remove the knob and use pliers to turn the control inside.

I also reattached the lampshade to the ceiling in the living room, after it spontaneously succumbed to the gravitional pull of planet Earth.

We went to Dunham Massey again, and we noticed the car park was much busier than it had been last time. A lot of the grounds were roped off, to protect the deer and their fawns.

It was a while before we saw any deer at all, so I wonder if they’re retreating further away now that more people are turning up each day. I suggested to Liesel that she start a stampede and I’d film it,while yelling ‘Liesel, Liesel, LIESEL, LIESEL, Jesus Christ, LIESEL, LIESEL…’. She could be the new Fenton. But she said ‘No’.

For a moment here, I was taken back to New Zealand where the ferns are numerous and very pretty, especially the new, undeveloped ones. At some point in today’s walk around Dunham Massey, I took my 23,000,000th step since I first acquired a Fitbit all those years ago. I now use a mechanical pedometer, and I’ve missed a few days due to dead batteries, and being locked down and locked in, but I feel that this week, at last, my daily walk is getting back to normal.

These are the only badgers we saw today, but sadly, neither of them is a real one.

I had to take this picture of the silver birches, Liesel’s favourite trees, and again, I wondered whether we should have bought one of Teri Landseth‘s stunning paintings while we were in Anchorage.

There is a one-way system in the garden, with some paths completely roped off, and it works quite well, until someone is walking really slowly and somehow occupying the whole width of the path!

Another day out, this time, the default loop to the river Mersey, in the drizzle.

Some Dads are really good. This Daddy duck was showing his ducklings where to shelter from the rain: underneath the motorway, of course.

This week, we continued with our re-watch of Doctor Who on TV. I watched another play from the National Theatre, The Deep Blue Sea by Terence Rattigan. And we watched more from Glastonbury.

Ah, this is the section you’ve all been waiting for: the exciting, local news from Northenden.

The Barnardo’s shop has had its shopfront hidden by the installation of black hoarding. This is to deter people from kindly leaving donations flytipping outside the shop.

The bus stop has been cleaned and at last, we now know for sure that we’re supposed to wear masks on public transport, and that we can pay with a contactless card or phone.

This is the season for insects, which is OK, but these clouds of midges are annoying, especially when they won’t keep still so I can get a decent photo.

The smell of newly cut grass is pleasant, but often leads to a sneezing fit. This happened by the river the day they cut the grass by the river.

One morning this week, I was woken by what I thought were hundreds of geese flying round and round our house. I’ve no idea how many there were, really, but a couple of days later, we saw quite a few had set up camp on the island in the stream.