August 2020 – Mick and Liesel's Antics

Precipitations and celebrations

We couldn’t join them, sadly, but Martha and William went swimming in a pool for the first time since the lockdown started in March. We did enjoy watching the videos of them playing in the water, swimming, jumping in and even diving to the bottom to pick up objects, something I’ve never been able to do.

Martha and William weren’t the only ones to get wet this week. We all did. It rained. And it rained. A lot. Storm Francis got the blame, it brought strong winds and a lot of rain. So we didn’t go out every single day this week. Which was OK, we had plenty to do indoors, but it’s just so disheartening when every time you look out of the window, it’s grey and rainy: early onset November. Liesel finished her first crochet blanket and it looks really good.

I was especially impressed with the fringe around the edges, a very professional finish. Liesel has now started on a second one, with a different combination of yarn colours.

We visited Lyme Park despite the threat of rain. It held off mostly on this occasion, and we had a very pleasant walk, if a little shorter than usual.

No doubt, if William had been with us, he would have been up this ladder like a shot.

~~We have no idea what these flowers are, but when our botanical expert lets us know, I’ll amend this caption.~~

Helen has been in touch, thanks. She says: I think the plant might be a viburnum. The RHS website describes 439!

This fella’s fish was spouting a very weak column of water. We have no idea who he is or what he represents, but as soon as our ornamental fountain expert lets us know, I’ll amend this caption.

Unexpectedly, as we bought our coffees just before leaving, a lovely patch of blue sky appeared. It didn’t last long, but it cheered us up.

Our next trip was to Biddulph Grange Gardens, a National Trust property that we’d not visited previously. By coincidence, Jenny and Liam had been a few days earlier, with Martha and William. Today, it rained on us pretty much all the time.

There’s a one-way system in place around the grounds, but one couple were backtracking in a hurry, presumably some sort of biological emergency.

Obviously, even monkey puzzle trees have to start life as a seed, but I’d never seen one this small before. Very cute and I’m sure we’ll be back in 70 years time to see it fully grown.

These tiles probably look very attractive on a dry, sunny day, but thery’re not as pretty covered in wet, muddy footprints.

This bridge reminded us of those we’d seen in Japan, but in fact, it’s part of the Chinese area here. I think the one-way system meant that we couldn’t see all the various gardens at their best. But we had a very pleasant walk, and it’s easy to see why Martha and William thought it was a big adventure playground, with lots of steps and other obstacles to climb.

The funny (?) thing is that by following the correct route, and choosing not to go into and through the house, we found ourselves at the exit with no way to go back and invest in a nice warming beverage.

Back in Northenden this very morning, we did go for a walk locally. It was unexpectedly cold and we could tell from the puddles and the very high, fast-flowing river, it must have been raining a lot lately. You don’t say! The canoeists weren’t deterred though, but they had combined two vessels together for stability, as they drifted downstream: not a lot of paddling going on today, it really wasn’t necessary.

As we walked along the river on the high bank, an Indian lady was walking fast on the lower bank. I tried to capture her speed in a photo but it didn’t really work out, did it?

Presumably this gathering by the riverside was illegal, but even so, that’s no excuse for not taking your empties home.

Fifty years and nine days after Whispering Bob Harris first took to the airwaves on BBC Radio 1, Mick here took to the airwaves of our local, community, isolation station, Radio Northenden. It was also, by chance, the 100th show broadcast on this wonderful little station, and you can listen to them all here. Specifically, if you would like to hear my first show, listen here.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been busy learning new software, talking to myself, choosing music, practicing, rehearsing, reading books, talking to professionals, compiling pre-flight check-lists, trying to soak it all up. So here I am, broadcasting to a small but perfectly formed audience. During the first show, of course there were a couple of mistakes, but nothing too embarrassing, and, at the time of writing, no complaints have been made to Ofcom.

I look forward to next week’s difficult second show, and if you’d like to join me on Friday between 2 and 4pm, please do, from here, or download the Mixlr app on your phone or other device, and search for Radio Northenden. If you register, I’ll see your name on the list of visitors and I might even say hello.

It was good fun, it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time: I did write to a Hospital Radio station 25 years ago, but they never got back to me.

Mick the Knife aka Mick the DJ.

Autumn draws on

For the first time in a long while, we had three days out in quick succession this week. First up, another nice long walk at Lyme Park where we noticed the first signs of Autumn.

The sky was monochrome today, thirty-seven shades of grey, but at least the rain kept away this time.

Here’s the famous Lyme Park folly – I am referring to The Cage in the background, of course. Yes, I know, I know, I need a new hat.

Meanwhile, back home on the Mersey, the birds are having fun.

This heron was, unusually, sitting up on the grassy bank. The first time we saw it there, before I had time to get my camera out, it was chased away by someone’s loose dog.

Again, later on, we saw a second heron by the weir, giving a lecture to the geese, on this occasion.

We spoke about never having seen otters or water rats in our section of the Mersey, so it was a bonus when we caught up with a giant otter a couple of days later. Not in the wild, but at Chester Zoo.

Usually, we just miss feeding time, but today, luck was on our side. As we were peering at the otter way over there in the distance, a zookeeper came up and called his name. I wasn’t fast enough to capture the giant otter’s belly flop on film, of course, but he swam over to accept the fish that was thrown his way. Shame about the fence, I’ll photoshop it out one day.

It rained quite a lot today, but Liesel persevered and we had a jolly good time. The elephants were playing in the mud, in the rain. The rhinos were outside enjoying the lack of sunshine. Liesel asked someone about the duct tape on one of the camels’ humps. The poor old thing has a lesion and the tape is to prevent birds from pecking at it. I asked Liesel why she hadn’t asked whether it was a British Lesion or, since camels live in the desert, a French Foreign Lesion. Liesel wondered why I hadn’t asked the question. I said I didn’t want to look daft.

Someone had seemingly gone to a lot of trouble, dressing a mouse up to look like a miniature meerkat. Or meerkitten, I suppose. Very cute, though.

Our third major expedition this week was in an easterly direction, to Yorkshire. We visited another National Trust property, Wentworth Castle Gardens, near Barnsley.

The artichoke flowers drew our attention, but the bumble bees they attracted were probably more useful. We had a good walk here too. But: hills. We aren’t used to these hills, and we felt sorry for people pushing buggies, never mind those with wheelchairs. The views towards Leeds are spectacular though. We’d enjoyed the views all the way there, really, but there were far too many cars parked on what was the main road through some of the villages. They all need a decent bypass! More roads, please!!

Stainborough Castle isn’t really a castle, but the edifice does have some castle-like features, lots of castellations and battlements. And a good view all round, of course.

The Sun monument is an obelisk with a golden orb on top. The actual Sun was too high in the sky to get a good shot of the two together. But, hey, the Sun was out, and we’re not complaining about that!

There seemed to be no reason for this gate to be located where it is. But it frames another stunning view over Yorkshire.

Regular viewers will welcome this rare occurrence of a second self-portrait this week. Yes, sorry, I know: the hat. Wentworth Castle isn’t open to the public, it is one of the Northern College buildings.

Beside the seaside

You wouldn’t believe me if I said we had a peacock in the flat, would you? But we did. Oh, alright, it was a peacock butterfly, and when it first fluttered in through the window, I thought it was a moth. I apologised for my mistake as I helped it fly out again. It was the first one I’ve seen all year. What a pity it was indoors.

We’ve had a few days of very high temperatures, approaching the 30s. One day, Liesel took her crochet outside. Read to the bottom to see how well she’s progressing. But here’s a tip: you don’t want the full weight of a crocheted blanket on your lap, indoors, in a heatwave! Not even with the windows open, letting all sorts of fantastic beasts in, mostly not as pretty as a peacock butterfly.

Too hot to cook, so one night, we chose an Indian takeaway. There’s a vegan Indian restaurant in Gatley, that we’ve been been meaning to try since well before the lockdown. It’s open again for business, and while we’re still a bit wary of sitting inside places with other people, we’re happy to take food away. All the staff in Bhaji Pala were wearing masks and when I went in, only two tables were occupied. The food was delicious, I just heaped it up on the plate which doesn’t make for a good, appealing photo but we’ll definitely go there again sometime.

We hadn’t planned to go shopping either, but we had to return something to John Lewis in Cheadle. The car park was half empty, an unusual sight and a good sign that the shop wasn’t too crowded. Staff at the doors were monitoring how many people were inside the shop. Liesel wore her mask as required whereas I’d stupidly left mine at home by mistake. Not all was lost though. I got some steps in wandering around the car park and I even found some blackberries.

Very juicy, very sweet and warmed by the Sun, these blackberries tasted of my childhood. We used to pick them from fields on the other side of the railway line from where we lived, in Guildford. Stop, look, listen, before we walked across the tracks. Those blackberry bushes disappeared when Bannister’s playing field was created. Later on, a large Tesco landed there. Progress, huh. I was spitting seeds out for the rest of the day, but that’s a price worth paying for being transported several decades back in time.

The highlight of the week was, without doubt, another day at the seaside.

Again, the tide was out and this time, we walked down the beach, to see the sea, close up. The sand was quite hard to walk on in some places, the ridges could provide a nice massaging feeling for a while, but it was equally pleasant finding a smooth patch to walk on.

The real highlight though was being joined by Jenny, Liam, William and Martha. It was lovely to spend so much time with them, still at a distance (mostly) on such a nice, warm, sunny day.

William and Martha were both excited to see the sea and the sand. They’ve missed their swimming lessons for several months now of course, but both were very happy to go into the sea, which was pleasantly warm. William followed the stream quite a long way towards the sea itself, he just kept going, like a Duracell bunny. I would have picked him up if necessary to run in the opposite direction, but that wasn’t necessary in the end.

There were lots of jellyfish on the beach, a few different species, and there were even some swimming in the sea. I only waded in up to my ankles, so I was surprised to see so many. They’re not lethal like those in Australia, but the sting can be quite painful. The advice here, now, is not to pee on a sting or use vinegar, but to rinse in warm seawater. The beach wasn’t at all crowded, a nice surprise, but there were far more people bathing than there were on our recent visit to Formby.

We found a nice spot to sit down to have our picnic lunches, separating our blankets by the requisite two metres! Well, nearly. The lifeguard drove up on his quad bike and when he turned the engine off, William said ‘Hello’. ‘Hello, you have a yellow t-shirt just like mine,’ said the lifeguard, ‘do you want my job?’ ‘Yes,’ said William, enthusiastically.

Martha made some sandcastles and decorated them with her new collection of seashells.

Martha wanted to spend another night outside, in the tent, in the garden.

She found a way out in the morning!

As mentioned before, here is the blanket so far. There are just a few more rows to go and some edging to do, literally tying up all the loose ends.

Don’t make me laugh

As the old folk song goes, Summer’s here and the time is right for dancing in the street. Some of our neighbours are not at all inhibited, and on a couple of late, warm evenings recently, while Darby and Joan here were throwing the duvet off, we were entertained by the merriment outside. It’s been a bit of a heatwave, not as hot as London and the south-east, but still, phew, truly swullocking and no mistake.

We’re still trying to get out every day but there are times when staying indoors in the (relative) cool is quite attractive. And there’s always plenty to do, even if we’re not getting fresh air.

But it was perfect weather for gongoozling and we did some of that on the Mersey. One day, we think for the first time with near certainty, we saw two different herons.

This one, by the weir, was teaching some ducks how to fly.

I did talk to a binoculars-bearing bird-watching lady about the herons, at a reasonable distance of course. She said there are two pairs of herons along this stretch of the river. Old old male has dark chest markings that look like a long beard from a distance. There is a fluffy youngster that likes to spend time in the bushes on the island, so we’ve almost certainly seen him too, on occasion. The lady agreed that one thing we don’t like seeing is a heron bend over and pluck a ducklet from the water. One day, maybe we’ll see two or more herons in the same spot at the same time.

There are plenty of geese and ducks of course, they like spending time together in herds, flocks, gaggles or skeins.

The latest local attraction is a beer keg, held in place by an enormous tree branch that has been caught by the weir for a few days now.

It’s been a while, but we’re catching up on medical matters. I visited the dentist for the first time since March, the longest gap I can remember. That’s the gap between visits, not the gaps between some teeth although they were a topic of conversation.

I walked home from the hospital after the test I’d been waiting for was deemed to be the wrong one. Oh well, I took advantage of the steamy sunshine.

These things come in threes of course, and my third medical mission this time round was an unexciting visit to the pharmacist where I saw me on the CCTV. There was a queue inside but worse were the people squeezing by as they left, not following the one-way system.

Liesel and I have been wary of booking tickets for anything, indoors or outside, any entertainment, anything. But we did go to a local comedy event that was outdoors, socially distanced, and would involve as little interaction with people as possible. It was a bit of an experiment really: we knew that if either of us felt un-Covid-safe for any reason, we could just go home.

But there were just 100 people in the audience. The venue was The Albert Bowling and Tennis Club in Didsbury. We were sitting on the bowling green, in a marked out grid. We plonked ourselves down right at the back. A photographer took our picture. He said it was because the background was so nice, but I think it was because we were so attractive. We took our own picture too, so you decide:

I am very proud of my luxuriant lockdown locks but I think it will still be a while before I visit a hairdresser: that seems an unnecessary risk at the moment. Plus, the mask I wear is held on around the back of my head rather than around my ears, and I can just visualise it flying out the door as the barber cuts through the elastic.

This foreshortened picture of the stage is misleading, the people were spread out far more than it looks, in accordance with the latest guidelines.

Kev Rook organised this Comedy Outsiders event, and he introduced the MC, Russell Kane. He was brilliant, talked for over half an hour, mainly about some people’s reactions to having to follow simple guidelines in the face of a lethal contagion.

A Welsh comedian, Anna Thomas came on next, and she was funny too, and I’m sure one day, she’ll be allowed on for longer.

Top of the bill was Boothby Graffoe. As he told us, one of his reviews claims that he is under-rehearsed, but (I’m pretty sure) that is all part of the act.

Kev Rook, Russell Kane, Anna Thomas, Boothby Graffoe

It was the right thing to do, from a healthy point of view, to sit at the back, but as for taking photos, from that distance, as it became darker, meh.

We ordered drinks on an app, and they were delivered in due course by one of a small team of masked servers.

For the second half of the show, we sat at a table, on chairs to be clear: we’d assumed initially that they were reserved for club members or something, but Kev assured us that this was not the case. It was nice to meet him at last, after having bothered him on his Radio Northenden show so often.

There are two more comedy nights here, so if you’re local to Northenden, Didsbury, south Manchester, please think about coming along for a great night’s entertainment. Buy tickets here: Nodding Dog Comedy is Kev Rook’s other name.

Northenden as I’ve mentioned before is a place of contrasts. On the same walk, almost on the same street, you can see something really pretty and something really nasty.

I’m sure there’s a correct term for this kind of decoration: it’s outside a fairly modern building. I look forward to receiving information from my architectural, construction and botanical correspondents!

And then, just along the road, someone had a nasty accident.

Where’s that flock of seagulls when you need them? Not the 1980s group, obviously, they can buy their own refreshments.

Berries, trees and kites

Recently, Manchester Central Convention Complex was converted to a Nightingale Hospital, in case the Covid pandemic was even worse in England than it has turned out to be. Thirty years earlier, one of my favourite bands from the 1990s played a gig there. Being a Londoner, I was of course oblivious to this at the time. The venue, formerly known as G-Mex, hosted the Inspiral Carpets and their performance, recorded by Granada TV, has gone down in history as one of the greats. I watched

a recording on YouTube along with about 650 other people on the anniversary, many of whom were at the show all those years ago. I was reminded again just how many great songs the band recorded. And then there’s Tom Hingley’s soaring vocals. I can’t wait to see him perform live again, either solo or with his new(-ish), tribute band, the Kar-pets.

We enjoyed a few days out, including a couple of longer trips in the car. The poor old thing doesn’t know what’s going on. But we still spent some time down by the Mersey.

Sorry, I borrowed that caption from the 1970s.

Meanwhile, some of the path in the woods is becoming overgrown. William would love it in this jungle.

One day, I’ll be taking a picture of someone’s flowers, and they’ll take offence and I’ll have to beg forgiveness while convincing them I wasn’t casing the joint, honest.

The shops are beginning to open, as the lockdown is relaxed. Well, until the recently implemented tighter lockdown in Greater Manchester. There are some pretty planters in Palatine Road.

I sat outside Salutem and enjoyed a lovely cup of coffee while watching people going by, all at a safe distance. It felt so civilised, such a simple pleasure, long denied.

In another first for a long time, we drove to the seaside. It’s a long beach at Formby, and as the tide was very far out, we had plenty of space. As advised by the sign, we tried swimming between the flags but to be honest, it’s so much easier to move through water than it is through sand.

It was the hottest day of the year so far, we had a marvellous walk along the beach before enjoying our picnic lunch. Luckily, we checked for sharp, pointy plants before sitting down on the dunes. Again, very civilised. Anything like this that can induce a holiday feeling has to be good for a general sense of well-being.

The kite-flyer was having fun, although I wanted her to run faster so the kite flew higher. In my photos, the kite is a mere three pixels in size.

To the south, we could see what we think was the city of Liverpool. Out at sea there is a massive wind farm. Liesel asked why not all the turbines were turning. I said, don’t worry, it’s probably windy enough already.

We haven’t walked to Didsbury for a long time either, but we took advantage of another warm day. There were more people having fun on the river.

We bought a coffee at Cidsin, and a slice of pear and walnut cake. While I was carefully carrying the goodies back to Liesel, looking down, making sure the coffee wasn’t slopping around in the cups, I walked between two posts and bashed my bonce on the sign that they held up. Liesel stopped laughing eventually.

A bright yellow front door always takes me back to my childhood. Our yellow front door at home was a more conventional rectangular shape, and it had a window, but whenever I see a yellow front door, it’s guaranteed to give me that Proustian rush that many authors write about.

We walked home through Marie Louise Gardens. There, we enjoyed watching a squirrel sitting at the bottom of a tree, pretending to be a lost, stuffed toy. After a few minutes, it ran up the tree and then had a rest on top of the birdbox. I don’t think there are any inhabitants. But I did enjoy watching a blackbird sitting in the tree, mostly in the shade, but with its yellow bill glowing in the sunshine.

We didn’t visit our family this week, but here’s the obligatory photo, and they’re all looking pretty good!

Many years ago, the aerial on our car was wrapped with tinsel, left over from Christmas. It too was easy to spot in a busy car park.

We walked to Wythenshawe Park, another site with plenty of space, easy to stay away from other people.

The famous string tree of Wythenshawe Park

This litter bin is pretending to be some kind of alien invader. I’m not sure whether it appeals to young children in the nearby playground, encouraging them to deposit their rubbish here, or if it just scares them away.

Yes, of course we ate some blackberries.

At home, Liesel’s tapestry project is still going well. But she took time out to decorate a small stone that Martha picked up somewhere a few weeks ago.

Of course, now we have the kit to decorate stones, I thought we’d collect a couple of pebbles at Formby. Nope. It’s all sand, and shells, and dead jellyfish, none of which we wanted to bring home to paint.

We returned to Lyme Park for another fun, socially-distanced, walk. Well, it was fun, despite the rain. Look at this lovely blue sky. At the time, behind us, the clouds were grey and angry and, although we didn’t realise, coming our way.

Lyme Park mansion house, the biggest house in Cheshire

We passed a raspberry bush in the woods, and I thought I’d eat one. I tried to pick it, but it wasn’t coming away. In fact, I suspect I wasn’t the first to try and pick it, it was already squashed and squishy. While we took shelter from the rain under the trees, I did use some of the rain water to wash my sticky fingers.

Berries? We have blueberries at home with our breakfast most days, and the question is: whose job is it to put one, just one, mouldy blueberry into every single punnet? If you leave them too long, others will become infected, but there’s always one, and always with the mould underneath so you don’t see it straightaway.

While hiding from the rain, I suggested to Liesel that we dismantle the wall and build a more sturdy, reliable shelter using its bricks. It seemed like a good use of resources, and it would keep us busy for a while. Plus, future visitors would be extremely grateful for the new facility. Reader: Liesel said ‘No’.

We couldn’t believe the size of this kite, being flown from the top of a hill that we didn’t walk up. We never saw the people run with it, so we never saw it fly any higher off the ground.