A nightmare

Nothing ever changes, nothing changes at all. Those song lyrics popped into my head on one of our walks this week. But as I later realised, the actual lyrics in the Del Amitri song are: Nothing ever happens, nothing happens at all. Both versions are correct at the moment, we’re living a very straightforward, unexciting lifestyle, thanks to the pandemic and the lockdowns and rules and regulations and guidelines and mainly, concern for our own safety.

But there are of course variations on a theme. Sometimes we walk that way instead of this way. We walked to Wythenshawe Park and home again, around a big loop.

It makes a change to walk on grass rather than footpaths and muddy tracks, but it was, let’s say, a bit damp in places. Our very own, local Grimpen Mire: plenty of well-hidden puddles to catch us out and some a bit easier to spot.

We haven’t been to the zoo for a while, but I was delighted to see a Hippo in Northenden.

Online, we watched a couple of events from Manchester Literature Festival. A tribute to Nina Simone, and an interview with Tori Amos, who is currently locked down in Cornwall.

Also online this week, some rascal started a rumour that Woolworths was coming back to our High Streets. This is the good news we Brits have been waiting for, so what a shame it turned out to be a hoax. I still have my faithful Woolies notebooks though, and if your offer is high enough, you could own it!

Walking by the river is always a pleasure, though sometimes tempered by the concern that it might start raining before we get home. The Sun tried hard to make itself visible through the 99% cloud cover, and I did catch it in the river, briefly.

I found these skulls in the window of the tattoo parlour next to Church Lane Chippy, not sure if they’re always there or just for Halloween. I don’t often look in windows of tattoo parlours, but I was waiting for my chips!

We trudged through the Autumn leaves in the woods, and again mourned the fact that William wasn’t with us, exploring the jungle.

The bed of wet leaves on the ground at this time of year always reminds me of cross-country running at school. It was only ever an Autumn and Winter activity, because in the Summer term, we did proper athletics instead. And yes, I have manipulated the colours in that picture.
‘Don’t take that picture, Mick, they’ll think you’re a burglar casing the joint,’ said Liesel. ‘Well, if they don’t want me to take a picture of their house, they shouldn’t put a pretty, red bush in front of it.’

In other news, one day, Liesel baked 48 cookies. What an achievement! We rose to the challenge and consumed them all within three days: well, no need to let them to go stale!
As I write, it’s Halloween and our much-loved and much-missed grandchildren are having a great time in their suitably, spookily decorated house.

As a tangential nod to Halloween, in my radio show this week, I built a body from spare parts found in song titles and song lyrics. After last week’s ‘dreams’ theme, I had a bit of a nightmare this week, when the PC refused to accept that the microphone was connected. The only solution was to reboot. Which meant the show began uncomfortably late. Listen here and listen out for Martha!