4 to 8 April 2026 - Easter Week in Timperley

Saturday saw us parkrunning, with no photos for either this week or last week, but the results are here for 28 March (Sue: 30:29 running with Owen, Martin: 33:15), and here (Sue: 25:03, Martin:33:09) for 4 April.

On Saturday night we were treated by Richard and Jenny to a performance by their friends who go by the name of The Gelatos. The venue was Matt & Phred's in Manchester, and the performance was excellent. They have a Facebook page here, and the AI overview is as follows:

The Gelatos are a high-energy jazz quartet specializing in 1940s/50s swing, jump jazz, and Italian-themed classics. Known for performances at venues like Matt & Phred's, their lineup generally includes Peter Riley (vocals/bass), Siena Lloyd (sax/clarinet/vocals) and Bex Hughes (piano/vocals). They also have a drummer who wasn't in the line up tonight.

 

The pictures are self explanatory.

On Monday Sue and I enjoyed a 5km walk from home. The foliage on the trees in De Quincey park is blossoming...

Monday evening found us at Eagley Jazz Club, for a performance by the New Orleans Joys.

Here's the flier:

The band members are all well known to the jazz fraternity and with such an impressive lineup of musicians, they can't fail to please!  

Richard Slater (Trombone), Howard Worthington (Bass),  Brian Woods (Drums),  Andy Wallace (Tenor sax and clarinet),  Malcolm Horne (Banjo and guitar) and the brilliant Andy Henderson (Trumpet), depping for Dave Pogson, who is out of action following an accident.  

On Tuesday Sue enjoyed an outing to 'Jump Heaven'. I joined them for lunch in a garden centre.

"That baked potato with cheese and beans was very tasty!"

Wednesday was great grandma Dot's birthday. 101. So we took some lunch - her favourite sausage butties, and found that my nephew Toby was already there with his children, Bea and Rupert. There was cake. A vaccuum cleaner was needed. A friendly cat joined the celebrations.

No pictures from that I'm afraid, but I did take one of St Margaret's - en route to Dot's, where Sue was ringing a complex chime as part of the Easter programme.

That brings us up to date. 

We are looking forward to Stage 8 of the GM Ringway Trail tomorrow. See here.

Some readers may recall an encounter with a 'SPUNCH' event on 30 December last year (see here).

There is a similar event on Wednesday 15 April based less than 1km from our house, so we've enrolled for the two hour version, aiming to start around 4:15pm. See here for entries.

We have also entered the Mike Dunne memorial 10K at Wythenshawe on May 3rd. I ran many times with Mike before he succumbed to cancer. It's only £20 to enter, and the money goes to charity. See here.

We were planning to enter the Altrincham 10K on 6 September, but it's a rather exorbitant £40. If  six people enter there's a 20% discount...

Thursday 2 April 2026 - Carrock Fell

Sue and I had originally planned a day in the Lake District during our stay at Whinfell, but the weather forecast when we left home had obliterated any such idea, so very little walking gear was taken. However, given the opportunity for a walk on an unexpectedly fine day, we donned trail shoes and t-shirts and headed off to Carrock Beck, where half a dozen or so cars meant that we were not alone on the hill.

Carrock Fell, pictured above from near the start of the walk, is one of 214 'Wainwrights' - the hills described in Alfred Wainwright's pictorial walking guides. I'd never ticked these off in the past, but during last year I scoured my old diaries and entered details on a spreadsheet, to discover that there were about 60 'Wainwrights' that I'd not been up. Thus the germ of a project that would be easier than the 100+ Munro summits that I need to climb to achieve a second round of those summits.

The slow plod up to the main path was a bit squelchy, but my feet stayed dry in the sturdy Keen Targhee 3 shoes. Sue's Saloman shoes leaked, and she soon sped far ahead, for a long wait on the summit.

Looking south to Bannerdale Crags and Blencathra

This is the site of an Iron Age hillfort (see details at the foot of this posting), and the 663 metre summit of Carrock Fell is certainly a fine viewpoint.

It was a lovely sunny day, but a cool breeze provided encouragement to keep going. We left a large group on the summit of Carrock Fell and headed off over slightly boggy ground (not as bad as expected) to reach the minor summits of Round Knott and Miton Hill.

Round Knott

Looking back to Carrock Fell from Round Knott

Above and below: by the cairn that marks the summit of Miton Hill

After continuing over the rocky ramparts of Round Knott, and then to the small cairn at the top of Miton Hill, we headed down to the col at Red Gate and a turn right onto a good track to Carrock Beck.

The gentle descent to Carrock Beck

On reaching Carrock Beck, a spring in our steps saw us easily across the torrent.

The path turned into a track and led all the way down to the minor road where the car was parked. There were welcome warnings of dire consequences for anyone bold enough to try driving up the Caldbeck Common road on which we had just descended.

Any concerns about re-crossing the beck to reach the car were soon dismissed, though without the footbridge we would certainly have got wet feet in the ford.

Looking down, the river has certainly picked up pace from where we crossed easily higher up the valley.

Back at the car, with our route up to the summit of Carrock Fell in clear view

Here's our route - 7.3km with 400 metres ascent, taking around 3 hours, described in part below.

We could have continued over High Pike, another 'Wainwright', but we'd been there before and we were needed back at base to help cook a meal for 10 people. (That went well.)

30 March to 3 April 2026 - A Visit to Center Parcs Whinfell

This year's visit, organised by my daughter to coincide with building work and a new kitchen at her house, was to Whinfell, where we were blessed with good weather. Jacob and his friend Seb marauded about on their mountain bikes whilst Jess and Grace (aka Gerty) just enjoyed the freedom to roam around the holiday village.

Badger Wood number 58 was our home for the duration of the trip, just a few minutes walk from the village square and pool.
 

After being cooped up in Kate's car, the kids were happy to make their way to the village square.

The staff at the boating lake clearly have time on their hands enabling them to play in the sand.

We spent some time in the 'Entertainment Hive'. The interactive darts games were most enjoyable, with technology working very well as regards scoring etc.

Seb got the first trophy but he later disgraced himself during a family quiz where a few howlers resulted in a disappointing result of 11th out of the 27 teams. We would probably have won if I hadn't had to leave half way through to cook tea!

Anyway, back to the darts, and a reversal of fortunes for me and Seb.

The control panel was firmly in the hands of Jess, who had to score zero points for anyone who missed the board. (It's a good job she's good at maths!)

Here's a surprised Gerty when she nearly scored a 180 that eluded the rest of us.

After the darts, the 'Bat Cage' was a little disappointing as it was quite hard to return the balls that flew out of the end wall. There were different modes for tennis (the easiest to hit), cricket (easy to hit against the side walls, but getting the end wall was hard), and baseball. Good fun though.

So Sue won that, but Kate thrashed us all at pool. She may do even better next time if her threat to buy a pool table for her revamped lounge comes to fruition.

There was an 'Arena' where a selection of games had the players dashing around and being knocked about by an over-enthusiastic 14 year old.

 

There were fairly frequent 10 minute walks beteeen number 58 and the village centre through lovely tree lined pathways. adorned with little sculptures from place to place.

Cowslips

The swimming pool includes a slide that takes you out of the main 'bubble'.

Here's the quiz team that performed so miserably after I had left to do the cooking.

And here's a result of some of the cooking. The boys claim to be allergic to mushrooms. They aren't, but they refuse to eat anything which they think has mushrooms in it. Haha, I chopped them up so small that they were indistinguishable from the meat...

Some of Kate's friends and their children came on Thursday on a day pass, so Sue and I took advantage of some sunny weather to climb nearby Carrock Fell. There is a separate diary entry here for that.

Before leaving on Friday, all except Kate (the maximum number of players was six) enjoyed a game of Puttify, a sort of electronic putting game suitable for the whole family, however young. It was very well designed and good fun. The Entertainment Hive certainly works very well so far as the electronics is concerned.

Whilst the others went for a final swim, I took a walk in the sunshine in the woods. Turning on the 'Merlin' app on my phone, I was surprised to find myself in the presence of bird song from up to 21 different species. They are listed below, with three doubtful sounds marked with a red dot that indicates they would not normally be expected here. I was surprised as to the lack of woodpeckers, though we did hear them earlier in the week, and some of our group spotted some of the elusive red squirrels that have their homes in the holiday village. A visit to the Bird Hide was completely futile - they were all hiding, despite feeding stations.

So that's it at Center Parcs for this year. A good time was had by all.

My diary entry for last year's visit is here.