Sunday 18 July 2021 - Another Family Picnic

Here's another posting for Dot - with sympathy as yet another of her old walking pals passed away last week. I think other regular readers will appreciate that this blog is the closest she can get to 'social media' with the family.

With Nell in Wales, the rest of us congregated at Mike and Sarah's house in Didsbury, then made our way into Fletcher Moss Park for a picnic lunch.

Isabella nodded off, so whilst she enjoyed a late lunch, the Bacup team headed home.

Rejuvenated, Isabella was then taken on a tour of the section of the park where numerous performers were making music. Even JJ (pictured below, far left, without his kilt today) was performing with his squeezebox when not taking time out to chat to passers-by such as ourselves. His band looked enormous. In a delayed reaction to the music, Isabella clapped all the way home!

We also bumped into some other folk we hadn't seen since the start of Lockdown, which officially finishes in England tomorrow, despite another exponential rise in Covid cases, if not deaths. So this is the last entry to which the Lockdown label will be applied - until the next Lockdown.

We will continue to use face masks. I've found them to be a bit like seatbelts and my bike helmet - whilst very odd to be wearing them initially, I now almost need to put a mask on to feel comfortable in shops and other enclosed spaces.

Lockdown in Didsbury, and a welcome trim

 

For today's Lockdown Exercise, Sue and I pedalled 10 km to Mike and Sarah's house in Didsbury, for a brief get together, with them inside the house and us well and truly socially distanced.

 

I wanted to inspect Chris L's work on the privet hedge. The results of last week's trim are shown above. My hair could do with something similar.

 

This is what it looked like before the trim, and this time only one lorry load was needed.

 

Today is the first anniversary of Mike and Sarah's move to Didsbury (and aren't they glad they moved when they did!), and this is the hedge they acquired a year ago, when Chris and Darren had to make three visits to get it under control.
 

 

There will be another trim at the end of the summer, but the hedge is now under control. Garden Design, however, is coming to the top of the agenda. A space for children's toys and a sand pit will be needed. Sarah's 'bump' is growing!

 

A Path, a Hedge and Some Steps

 

The Trans Pennine Trail runs beside the River Mersey in Northenden. There's an optional section between the bridge by the sad remains of the Tatton Arms, shown below, and Simon's Bridge on the edge of Didsbury. On the one hand you can get bogged down in sand and joggled by rubble on the wide, lower path by the river, and on the other hand you can take the path on the top of the flood defence embankment, overlooking both the river and a golf course.

 

My route of choice is the upper path (above), which at this time of year is the width of a narrow sheep track. Due to the absence of sheep, it becomes a tight, overgrown passage through high grasses, nettles and brambles, above a steep drop to the golf course, whose denizens would probably not see the funny side of a cyclist tumbling down the bank onto their private fairway.

 

I enjoy the challenge of this narrow path that is in some places completely hidden by vegetation. This is just as well, as it's on my route to Mike (my son) and Sarah's recently acquired new home.

 

The privet hedge surrounding Mike and Sarah's new home was something to behold. The following pictures show just part of it. Gardeners, Chris and Darren, managed to collect four lorry loads of 'trimmings', before declaring "the hedge has had quite a shock, better give it a break and let it recover."

 

This is just part of the hedge. So far, with plenty more to come, I've collected nearly twenty bags of debris from under the hedge, including hub caps, bottles, cans, electrical fittings and the usual packets and take away boxes that tend to find their way into hedges. So a start has been made, and the neighbours are not unhappy. (And it has kept me off the streets!)

 

Meanwhile, much to my delight, work to rectify the loose step at Marsland Bridge in Brooklands has after many months, been completed. It took them a couple of weeks to effect a half hour repair, but I can grudgingly accept that the steps that weren't loose before will now take even longer than before to work loose, thus saving those odd half hour repair jobs for some time to come.

Thursday 12 October 2017 – Tia Brazda at Lancaster Music Festival

I doubt many readers will have heard of Tia Brazda. Conrad and I went down to the Wagon & Horses pub in Lancaster to see her perform. Here’s what the flier said:

”Tia Brazda has established herself as a sparkling presence on the jazz scene in Canada and beyond, performing from Montreal to Paris to Amsterdam, and at such notable festivals as the Vancouver International Jazz, Toronto International Jazz and Bestival (UK). Her debut EP, Cabin Fever burst onto the scene in February 2012, hitting #1 on the iTunes Canada Jazz chart as well as receiving play on CBC Radio 1, Jazz FM 91.1 and college radio stations across Canada. Originally from Vancouver, but having honed her cutting-edge sound in the clubs of Toronto, Tia’s sassy songs and pin-up girl style have made a startling impression, paying homage to the golden era while still remaining daringly modern.”

The venue wasn’t ideal, but considering the fact that Tia had just arrived from Canada, and had never met any of her band members, who indeed had never met each other before, until the morning of the gig, everything went remarkably well, with both the band and the audience appearing to enjoy themselves.

They are performing at different venues (here’s the schedule) for four nights, culminating with The Sphere on Sunday. If you get the chance, I commend a visit.

Some readers will recognise the guitarist. Well done Mike, you came through that challenge with flying colours.