This Christmas Day, social distancing etiquette restricted our non-media social contact to a walk with Richard and Jenny. We chose Jen Darling's 'Appleton' walk from her 'Walks in West Cheshire and Wirral' book. I wrote about this back in September - described here - so this is basically a small collection of images by which to recall our current outing, which was on a lovely clear frosty morning (more of these, please).
Our first pause in the walk was to cross the road to look at the double-faced sculpture of the Roman god Janus, atop a sandstone column.
At the end of Hillside Road, the path goes left to avoid Hillside Farm, and since I was here in September new fences and gates/stiles have been installed. Hillside Farm can be seen in the distance in the next picture.
Here, there were good views today over the Cheshire countryside in the low sun.
After passing numerous empty and eerily silent duck houses on the way to Bellfields Farm, we turned left at the farm, down Park Lane, passing a golf course and another farm before reaching Appleton Reservoir, a haven for wildlife.
We were grateful to the hard frost that had stabilised what would have been a very muddy walk around the reservoir just a day earlier or a day later.
Hough's Lane took us down to the Bridgewater Canal, but not before we were held up briefly by this cherry picker.
The local farmer uses a drone to monitor her livestock, and unfortunately it had got stuck in the top of a tall tree. Rescue was imminent.
After this we strolled along the towpath until just before Red Lane Bridge, where a convenient bench served as a table for drinks and cakes - luckily Sue and I had enough for four, as Richard's absent mind had left their rucksack at home...
Leaving the canal at London Bridge, we made our way up the 'rabbit run' to gain a good view over Warrington and its surroundings, with Winter Hill prominent in the distance.
After that we took easy paths back to Dudlow Green Road, and our starting point behind the Co-op, after passing a delightful little pond by Pineways, where we saw a heron (one of many today) and a buzzard, as well as many smaller birds.
The 10 km stroll took us about two and a half hours and proved a great way to spend Christmas morning. Thanks go to Richard and Jenny for their excellent company.
2 comments:
You must have your Christmas dinner well organised to be able to spend the morning on a walk. I vow that next year we will have something pre-prepared.
Happy New Year to you both.
Thanks Conrad, and best wishes for the New Year to you as well.
We started cooking from scratch when we got home, had a leisurely afternoon cooking/zooming, and ate at about 5.30 - as seen in the previous posting.
We were glad that when I tried to order a chicken from the butcher it was too late to do that, so I got a fresh one and kept it in the freezer for a week - I was glad of that when I saw the queue for collection of orders was nearly 200 metres long whenever I passed it. (People around here are very good at socially distancing!)
Post a Comment