A Quiet Week in Timperley

Monday - Sue and I lunched with JJ, another TGO Challenger, at Giobrio in Sale. Mauritzio was in good form and served up his usual tasty fare that would see us through the rest of the day. We do have difficulty working out his pricing structure, as the meal and drinks for the three of us, together with a generous (in relation to the cost of the meal) tip came to all of £10. [The price list seems to be a work of fiction!]

The trees by the canal are looking barer now, with the towpath supporting a thick carpet of leaves. This fearless Canada Duck took a real fancy to the Canon G10.
Tuesday - it's a small world. On a lovely sunny day by the canal, I bumped into a familiar jogger. Not JJ, but yes, another TGO Challenger. This one was also in training - on a 10-mile run which I was told would take an hour and 10 minutes. I continued, bemused.

Later that day: "not very good with numbers"...was the message..."should have said an hour and 40 minutes". Still not bad - I think Sue and I will be at the tail end of 'Team Timperley' when we reach Montrose. Possibly several days behind!

What looked like a food parcel from Markus, the kindly Austrian, arrived today - we opened it and realised that - yes, it was from Markus, pretending that he was from British Gas, with a present that will provide both heat and light to see us through the cold winter months:
Thank you Markus!

And another follower of this blog appeared. Welcome Martin.

Wednesday - I made a movie! Thanks go to Gayle for a bit of guidance on this, though the process that caused her a problem - conversion of movie clips from her camera to a format that could be used in Windows Movie Maker - seemed to just happen automatically for me. The trickiest bit was the upload to U-tube and insertion in the blog, and that was hardly rocket science.

We aren't any good at (indoor) photography, and the 'movie' was for a specific purpose, but I'm still chuffed with the result. Thanks for the inspiration, Gayle. Here it is:

I spent the rest of the day admiring my MSR Superfly stove,
contemplating my next adventure into the world of movie-making.
(And messing up a wonderfully clear image by the unnecessary use of drop shadow after deleting the original.)

The time could have been much better spent enjoying for a second time Mike Knipe's record of his travails amongst the Fells of Howgill. Here - they really are a good read.

Thursday - yet more time was spent on producing a slideshow of our recent trip to Egypt, and editing some of the postings to include more images. But I ran out of time so this all remains as 'work-in-progress' (I'll let you know when it's finished) as we were distracted by an appointment with 'The Singing Librarian' at the Royal Northern College of Music.

June Tabor's rendering of haunting melodies rarely fails to bring tears to the eye. The concert concentrated on folk songs dating from way back - even as long ago as when Normandy was part of Britain (apparently). Here's a clip of one of my favourites from her Anthology album:

Friday - we are off to Silverdale for a stroll, en route to Kendal for the Kendal Mountain Festival. As most of that involves listening and watching, we don't plan to post anything over the weekend, but will report back on Monday.