Northenden briefly became the centre of the universe this week. Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds were playing at Wythenshawe Park, supported by a couple of other bands. From the comfort of our luxury apartment, we could hear the soundcheck early in the day. And even in the evening, we could hear the bands playing. Unfortunately, what we heard was very bass-heavy, so we couldn’t identify any particular tune. I’m sure they would have played some Oasis songs, but I was in the land of nod well before the end of the show. Friends of ours who attended later said they had a wonderful time, despite the short, sharp torrential downpour late in the afternoon.
By way of marking the occasion, Northenden Fringe Festival was organised over a couple of days. I went up and down the main road, looking for music, but didn’t find any. There was a group of people outside the theatre, but I think they’d finished. But don’t take anything away from the local shops.
Meanwhile, Jenny and family went away for the weekend. Martha and William’s other grandparents, Alan and Una, were celebrating their Golden Wedding Anniversary. Congratulations to Alan and Una!
This week, we walked in a couple of places new to us. Jenny invited us to join them for a walk at Errwood Reservoir, in the Peak District. I thought, a reservoir, that’ll be fairly flat, then.
From the car park, we walked along the road and then started following a track towards the woods. The incline increased slowly. William was running much of the time, mostly off the track, and both the children picked up sticks every now and then.
The fireweed was quite profuse, and if you look closely at the picture, you’ll see the flies were too.
I don’t think these were the culprits, but we were all being bitten by small, annoying, flying microdots. Legs, arms, back of my neck and my forehead were all affected. Some of the bites didn’t attract itchy attention until a few days afterwards. I haven’t been this spotty since I was a teenager.
But after walking up a long, long hill, I was becoming short of breath. My coping mechanism is to walk 100 steps, have a short break, then go another 100 steps. Well, that reduced to 50. What I should have done was have a complete rest for 20 minutes, half an hour, and start again. Liam pointed out that we were two-thirds of the way up the hill. The contours on the OS map were just about on top of each other! I groaned inwardly. Thinking of how far I’d already climbed, I knew there was no way I could do half of that again. So, reluctantly, I told the others to carry on, and I turned round. But by now, even walking downhill was ridiculously hard work. I was still stopping every few steps. At least, until I found a nice log to sit down on for several minutes. But them flies. Can’t see them flying around, but sometimes catch sight of one on your skin when you feel a sharp sting.
I found the ruins of Errwood Hall. For some reason, it hadn’t registered with my brain that it was indeed just a ruin. I’d anticipated walking around a stately home and then enjoying a cup of coffee with a huge slice of cake. Huh. Unfortunately, even the ruins are out of bounds right now.
Along the path, there was a pile of fencing and another warning: Danger, Forestry Work, Follow all signs and instructions. Well, I try to do the right thing, but try as I might, I could not find any other signs nor instructions. Instead, I followed the path all the way back to the car park where, I was pleased to say, the ice cream van was still in place. I took my Magnum back along the path enjoyed it while sitting on a bench overlooking the reservoir. Very peaceful.
When the others reappeared, Martha was very excited because she’d seen her first wild animal.
We swapped stories about our bug bites. “Guess how many times I’ve been bitten, William?” I asked. “Twenty thousand billion” was his surprisingly accurate response.
As it was quite late in the day by now, we decided to dine out. Bayleaf Lounge in Bollington was our choice and I spent much of the rest of the day trying to recall why the name ‘Bollington’ rung a bell. Days later, I still can’t remember. But the Indian meal was delicious, even if for a while, the children weren’t that interested in it!
After the meal, the owner of the establishment came over with mint chocolates for us, plus a lollipop for each of the children. He asked us to put up positive reviews, and while we enjoyed the meal, I’m not sure any of us do positive reviews for anything.
So that was a pleasant day at a new venue, and so was our next walk. We picked up our friend Michael, who we know from the regular Thrive Manchester walks, and went to Wilmslow railway station. We should have gone by public transport, but when it’s a choice between an 18-minute drive and an awkward bus and train journey that can take over an hour, what are you going to do?
We met up with a group of walkers from Stockport’s Walkaday programme. When the next train arrived, it disgorged several more, and over twenty of us walked from Wilmslow to Alderley Edge. The first mile or so took us through the residential area. We passed by the world-famous Sainsbury Mural, made by Judith Bluck in 1989.
Obviously, you can’t see the whole thing properly because so many cars are parked in front of it. But it tells the story of one of the legends that surrounds Alderley Edge: ‘The Legend of the Iron Gates’.
We saw a few birds later on in the fields and woods, but none as close nor as impressive as this one in Wilmslow.
The walk was led by Su and she knew a few interesting spots. For example, we didn’t expect to see a disused narrow gauge railway line in the woods. It’s been there so long, a tree has grown between the rails.
We were walking on peat for much of the time, enjoying the expanses of heather. There was nothing harder to negotiate than minor undulations, so I had no problem keeping up today.
Lindow Man is a 2000-year old body found in 1984 well preserved in this peat marsh. Hence his nickname, Pete Marsh. He currently resides at the British Museum but it is hoped that he’ll return to Manchester next year for the 40th anniversary. The site of the discovery is well marked. With a stick.
We finished our walk at Alderley Edge station, from where we took a train all the way back to Wilmslow, just one stop.
Liesel’s exciting day concluded with a WI committee meeting while I watched Jessica Lee Morgan performing online.
The Wednesday walk was cancelled this week, but this didn’t prevent some of us from doing it. And just as well: two people had turned up for their first time and we all did our best to make them welcome.
The Thursday walk took place as usual in Wythenshawe, and again, a couple of new people turned up to join us. The most important news I can share is that Costa has fixed the spelling of their Vegan Sausage baps.
The Friday walk took place as usual, but Liesel and I didn’t join it. Instead, we collected the children for what would be their, and our, final visit to Quirky Misfits. Sadly, this coffee shop and gothic stockist of steampunk, skulls, incense, jewellery, crystals and much more quirky stuff, is closing down. So, farewell Lydia and Maria, thanks for all the coffee and good luck for your future endeavours!
But instead of going straight to the coffee shop, we walked from our flat. And both William and Martha were keen to pick some litter on the way.
There were friendly fights over some items, bottles and cans being particularly attractive! In the end, William picked up the longest item, something off a car, while Martha picked up the largest single item, a hub cap, again, off a car.
At one point, we were discussing how disgusting some people are, just throwing their litter on the ground. William sucked on a thoughtful, yet wobbly, tooth, and opined “Why can’t people have some respect for the planet?”
Both children entered the Riverside Park playground through the back door. In other words, rather than walking around to the gate, they climbed over the wooden fence. The playground is much nicer now, there is much less litter blowing around.
We finally reached the shop, and Martha decided to buy a small, pirate’s treasure map in a jar, yes, that is very quirky, plus one of the many fascinating rocks, newly polished.
Because William couldn’t find anything here in Quirky Misfits, he chose a Pokémon magazine in the Co-op next door. I think the main attraction of this magazine was its twenty thousand billion stickers. While in the supermarket, William also decided on what to buy for lunch and take home. Including a water melon. A very heavy water melon. Heavy, yes, but in the end, really juicy and sweet and tasty
The theme for this week’s radio show was Emergency Services, so plenty of sirens and emergency situations. Two hours of fabulous, eclectic music, as heard on Wythenshawe Radio WFM 97.2 on Friday at 2pm. But if you missed it or want to listen again, here it is on Mixcloud.
Usually this blog is written and delivered on a Saturday. But this week is different. Martha was very disappointed when she realised she’d left her treasure map at our place when we took her home. So we invaded their space on Saturday morning to return the bottle and we loved watching both children’s swimming lessons.
As it was such a beautiful, warm day, we decided to go for a walk at Lyme Park. Ironic how hot, Summer days arrive with September, just as the children are about to go back to school.
Lyme Park was very busy, there was even a queue to get in. But we got there in the end. As usual, we walked up the hill towards the entrance of the house. It’s a short but steep slope, and a good indicator of whether my SoB issue will rear its head. It didn’t. And we had a nice wander around the gardens.
We had an ice cream, sea-salted caramel for Liesel, and raspberry ripple for me, if you’re taking notes. We waited on a path for a family to take some pictures, and as we passed them, I prepared to take a photo of my own. “What are you doing?” asked a worried Liesel. “Taking a picture of the house,” I replied. She thought I was shooting the family who were celebrating a young person’s birthday. No, no, I wouldn’t do that. And this is the picture that I took following this exchange.
Not a bad picture, right? There’s only one way it can be improved.
After a well-earned coffee and sandwich break, during which time I admired paintings by the Legh family, former occupants of this, the biggest house in Cheshire, we carried on walking, towards The Cage, down the hill again, over the stream, over the stile, and through the woods.
Some work had been done in these woods, with a bridge over a particularly damp and muddy section. I was a bit short of breath, but nowhere near as bad as at the reservoir a few days earlier. I paced myself, and took advantage of some logs for a bit of a sit down.
We went home and after a refreshing shower, I made a start on the blog. Then we ate supper. After which, I felt ridiculously tired and couldn’t bring myself to continue. So I didn’t.
This morning, we made our way over to Jenny’s quite early and then followed them to Hazel Grove. Today is the start of the Tour of Britain bike race, and today’s stage was from Altricham to Manchester, the long way round, just over 100 miles.
We decided to witness the first, and only, sprint at Hazel Grove.
We arrived at the right time, we had a great spot right by the sprint point. We watched the marshals putting the finishing touches to the barriers, making use of cable ties. Then we watched the man mark the finishing line on the road with white tape. I always assumed those lines were painted.
The children kept themselves busy while waiting for nearly an hour for the race to turn up by playing video games on parents’ phones!
The crowd cheered most of the every-day cyclists who passed by minding their own business and I took advantage of them to practice taking action shots with the phone. I can’t tell you how disappointed I was to discover that when I do a burst shot, I only get 30 pictures. On the old phone, a burst would produce 100 images. Maybe there’s a way to change this number, I thought, but I couldn’t find one.
We monitored the race online but we knew the race was imminent when a large number of police motor bikes roared by. Some had sirens going too. Then the support cars came by, some but not all with spare bikes on top.
Suddenly, after much anticipation, the leaders of the race arrived, and we had a winner:
There were five riders in this leading group, and the rest of the peloton came by just over two minutes later. Far too fast to be able to identify any one individual. It was just a blur of cycle jerseys.
And that was it. Away from home for three hours altogether in the end, for a mere couple of seconds of action! That is the nature of bike races. Back at home, of course we watched the rest of the race into Manchester on TV. But if you were hoping to see footage of our family at the first sprint point, you’ll be disappointed: the camera was concentrating on people on the other side of the road.
As you are now reading it, you’ll be aware that I wrote and published the blog.
That’s all folks!
Mick and Liesel's Antics 