Autumn in Timperley

Richard's 60th birthday. Readers have I know been waiting for this entry. We treated him (and me, Sue and Jenny), to some of Daryl's excellent salmon fillets. Mary Berry's 'Make it Easy', 'Salmon and Herbed Hollandaise Pavé', with suitable starter (asparagus), accompaniment (Sprouts with Peas, Shitaki Mushrooms and Cashew Nuts) and dessert (Raspberry Parfait). This made for an excellent meal, helped by a bottle of Bollinger that we won in a Jazz Club raffle!

Autumn in Timperley has provided some lovely colours despite there being grey (but mainly dry) days with not much sunshine. I think we had half an hour of sunshine in 11 days.

The following pictures were taken more or less a stone's throw from home from the canal towpath, but De Quincey Park has also sported some lovely autumn colours.

Near Walton Park

Walton Perks cafe doing good business

By the cemetery near Marsland Bridge

Sale Marina

The above pictures were taken on 12 November. The couple of snaps below were taken on the misty morning of 13 November on the bit of towpath that you can see from our house. The water must be quite good here, sustaining lots of fish. This is evidenced by the frequent sight of fishermen. 

Kingfishers fly up and down, and there's a resident cormorant as well as an egret. Grey wagtails get under your feet, but not as much as the Canada geese. On the water there are lots of mallards, a few moorhens, and the occasional coot. Swans glide past looking for bread, and herons take their places at regular intervals beside the path, ignoring humans. At this time of year the peace can be shattered by a flock of black-headed gulls, and a colony of starlings who roost in a poplar tree. There are numerous hedgerow birds as well - blackbirds, robins, sparrows, song thrushes, sometimes blackcaps, and an assortment of tits, below which feral pigeons, wood pigeons, and sometimes a collared dove, all scavenge for left overs.