Thursday 21 December 2017 – A Stroll from Timperley

It was a dull day, and perhaps a dull route, for this week’s morning stroll, which I decided to start from Timperley Bridge to avoid having to drive anywhere.

My plan was to follow the ‘Altrincham Circular’ – a 27 km walk devised in the late 1980s – from Timperley Bridge to Roaring Gate Lane, then head across the fields to Altrincham.

From the Metro station at Timperley a gate leads to a canal side path on the opposite side to the well surfaced towpath. A little slithery here, but nothing to worry about.

The path soon reaches a footbridge over the railway.

From here, a stroll across some playing fields leads to a footbridge over Baguley Brook. Turning left into Woodhouse Lane East, then right beyond the ‘Sylvan’ public house, you enter Milton Drive, then Sylvan Avenue. There used to be a ginnel to Burton Avenue between house numbers166 and 168, but that has now been blocked and you need to turn right then left to reach Burton Avenue, at the end of which a ginnel leads straight on to Rossett Avenue.

Continuing down Rossett Avenue to number 75, take an unmade road to the left, into Crofton Avenue. Cross over and in a few metres you reach Heyes Lane. There used to be a walkable path into Oakdene Road here. That in turn led to a nice ginnel called the ‘Boggart’, but sadly a locked gate now bars the way to the Boggart despite efforts over the years to keep this footpath open against the wishes of the residents whose back gardens were passed. The obvious route nowadays is to cross over Heyes Lane and take Beech Avenue, which leads to the recreation ground. Keeping to the right of the playing fields, a cinder track leading to Stelfox Avenue is eventually reached.

A left turn down Stockport Road brings you to the Brooklands roundabout. Cross over Brooklands Road then Altrincham Road to reach the relative calm of Hale Road, the start of Brooks Drive. You know you’re in the right place when, after just a few metres, you reach the bridge shown below. The railway line linking Altrincham with Stockport lies below. Baguley Station is nearby, but that closed in 1964 and plans to reopen it elsewhere in Baguley to provide a tram/train link appear to have come to nothing.

This marks the start of Brooks Drive, which the Altrincham Circular walk follows all the way to Hale Road, over 4 km away. It’s mainly a recently renovated walking/cycling path, but it’s one of the oldest thoroughfares in the area, dating from the 1860’s and built by Samuel Brooks, a mill owner and banker, and his son. An existing network of roads was used to link the new thoroughfare, which over time became known as Brooks’s road, now Brooks Drive.

After 2 km of pleasant walking, during which I met an old friend with whom to natter for a while, Roaring Gate Lane is reached. This taxi route to Manchester Airport isn’t pleasant to walk along, so after a couple of hundred metres both the Altrincham Circular and my route for the day take a footpath to the right, beyond Chapel House Farm. After a few metres, this is the scene that greets you at this time of year.

A muddy splodge takes you to the hedge at the end of the field, where a left turn, and soon a stile that puts the hedge on your right, takes you to a footbridge, a short while after which you emerge onto Buttery House Lane.

From here, the Altrincham Circular route turns left and soon rejoins Brooks Drive for an easy walk to Hale Road. Whereas I turned right along the lane and soon found myself in the deceptively grassy field pictured at the head of this posting. The grassy appearance belies a few inches of waterlogged earth. I was glad I’d worn waterproof socks with the old trail shoes. This muddy gateway near Well Green was particularly noxious.

After a couple more fields, the comfort of Altrincham’s suburbia, in the form of Ash Lane, was reached. A right turn took me up the road to this typically tight ginnel, through to Wellfield Lane.

A short way up Wellfield Lane, a signed footpath left leads through more soft ground to reach Thorley Lane. Crossing over the busy lane, another path leads around a secondary school, eventually reaching Altrincham Golf Course. A marked (just about) path leads across the course towards Timperley Brook, which is then followed to King George V Pool, where a colony of coots mingles with the swans and mallards and moorhens, etc.

You can finish the walk in a number of ways. I continued beside the brook to cross Woodlands Road at (another) Timperley Bridge and head down Woodlands Parkway and Navigation Road to the tram station that enabled me to scoot down to Sale for an emergency purchase from Daz, the fishmonger.

Here’s the 12 km route. It took me a couple of hours, but you may prefer a more leisurely pace.

I challenge my readers from Timperley to follow this route and have fun in the mud. I’m up for it again, but only after a hard frost!

Merry Christmas Everyone

Hello All

We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a happy and fulfilling New Year.

With Very Best Wishes

Martin and Sue

[Christmas Festivities have taken precedence over catching up with a backlog of postings. Normal service will be resumed in due course.]

Martin’s Christmas Quiz 2017

As promised, here is my quiz for anyone who is up for a challenge. It’s not my best. Feedback so far has been:

Pictures too small
Too esoteric
Needs to be more generic

(And that’s despite somebody, other than me, at the lunch being present when all but a handful of the pictures were taken.)

So I need to try harder. My excuse is that I left it to the last minute and ran out of time. There were no complaints about the prizes though – everyone was a winner, thanks to Pure Cocoa.
 

Martin's Quiz - 2017

Name____________________________________

41 points available

Taken from which hill?	Where is this Trig point?	Which peninsula?	When and Where?	Which island is Richard on?
Where?	Manufactured by?	*1 see below	1. Name the hill? 2. Date it became a Munro?	1. Valley? 2 Reservoir?
City?	Entrance to which castle?	Lake?	Forest?	Place?
English name for this car?	Which castles are nearby?	Name this band?	1. Name one of the nearby horses? 2. Two relevant dates?	Which mill?
Name the country of which this city is capital?	Where?	Name the hill?	Name the viewpoint?	Name the mountain? (Note the railway.)
What is Paul waiting to do?	Where?	1. Where? 2. When?	Where?	Where?
Where?	Where?	Where?	Where?	Where?

*1 -Rock formations, mineral springs and catacombs. What else is this Cycladic island famous for?

If you fancy having a go, paste the table above into a word document, fill in the answers, and send it to me at xmasquiz@topwalks.com. There may even be a prize!

Have fun!

Sunday 17 December 2017 – A Christmas Circuit from Bakewell

Last year’s Christmas lunch at The Crispin proved to be a great venue, so it was booked again for this year. It has the benefit of a private dining room for up to thirty diners, and a good chef.

Rather than repeat last year’s walk from Tideswell, a ten mile circuit from Bakewell was devised. Some of us enjoyed a coffee in ‘The Lime Lounge’ before setting off into the rain.

Last year we were 23 in number. This year’s spreadsheet had the same number, but by the time we started we were down to 18 due to crockedness and illness, though numbers did rise to 21 for lunch. Alan R had bravely risen from his sick bed for his first full day walk for over a month. Well done Alan, it was good to see you. He pictured me celebrating that with Sheila.

We rendezvoused with the poor people who couldn’t afford a coffee, and set off beside the River Wye, where goldcrests joined a variety of different tits (many with long tails) in nibbling the riverside berries.

I wonder how many of the group noticed a brief hiatus in the rain as we passed by this fine edifice.

Full waterproofs were deployed as we headed up a gentle slope to cross Stanedge Road, heading west over easy ground.

There was no snow on our path, but the frost made for a mostly satisfactory firm surface in lovely Peak District scenery.

There were good views down to Ashford in the Water.

As we passed the church in Ashford, Andrew (crocked but able to join us for the walk for 3 km) contrived to fail to notice 18 hikers as they passed by the shelter under which he was waiting. Luckily we stopped for elevenses nearby (see top picture), during which break Andrew was recovered from his blind spot!

Then it was an easy stroll in soft conditions, culminating in a dash to the pub.

I organised a quiz, as usual, and Jenny (crocked but hungry) kindly took a few snaps to record the occasion.

Quiz results time – one team managed (with the aid of a large magnifying glass) to get 25/35, but everyone was a winner. The questions will feature in the next posting.

After our two+ hour break, the rain had stopped, and navigation for the afternoon would be easy, though numbers had now risen to 21.

This snowball is all that is left of Great Longstone’s giant snowman.

It’s a pleasant stroll to the Monsal Trail.

Perhaps some people were put off by the frost? Maybe some dived into the café at Hassop?

Light began to fade, but the route along the railway track was clear. Nevertheless, by the time we reached the end of the path at Coombs Lane we were down to eight people, a further thirteen having apparently sloped off by way of a variety of ‘cheats’.

Anyway, the route followed by those eight stalwarts is shown below – 16.6 km with about 350 metres ascent. Shorter routes are obviously available, but this was a very satisfactory one.

Thanks for coming everyone, especially those who travelled a long way and who we only seem to see very rarely. I hope you all enjoyed your day out.

Saturday 16 December 2017 – Wythenshawe parkrun Number 318, and Another Christmas Dinner

After last week’s cancellation, this week’s run director Jenn was eager not to cancel again, not least because she wanted lots of tickets for next week’s post run refreshments to be sold. So the ‘bowtie’ course was used, with an added ruling that runners should use the grass at the side of the icy tarmac paths and must ‘on no account’ stray onto the tarmac. This made for slow times in the soft grass and light rain, but 189 runners and walkers braved the conditions, and happily complied with the rules, obviating the embarrassment of a 999 call.

The top pictures shows Sue flying unaided down the finishing straight in under 29 minutes, unlike the chap ahead of her who clearly had the unfair advantage of being dragged to the finish by a canine friend. Elsewhere in the picture are various folk going home, which can be a bit frustrating for the slower runners, especially if they have only done one lap by the time the fast folk have finished.

At the far right of the top picture is a push chair with two children on board. Despite the need to push the buggy through soggy grass, this combo finished well ahead of me and well ahead of the 25 minute flag paraded (rather slowly) by Dan.

The following picture of Sue walking to the finish gives a fair indication of the poor light conditions!

Full results are here.

Then Sue and I went to Hinckley, for our fourth Christmas meal of the season, cooked up almost professionally by Sue’s brother, who together with her sister seem to have escaped from the photographic record shown below…

Never mind, we had a lovely afternoon, including in my case a lengthy nap following an overdose of champagne.

Friday 15 December 2017 – Shutlingsloe Again

Here we are again (well, not me, I’m taking the picture), on a lovely frosty evening after earlier snow, on the summit of Shutlingsloe.

The fine night time views to Greater Manchester and across the Cheshire plain were admired by everyone, even if light pollution meant the stars did not completely fill the sky. With the bright white reflective snow, we could see perfectly well without torches despite the lack of moonlight.

This year’s hour and a half wander from Trentabank car park was enjoyed by me, Sue, Toby, Graham, Alastair, Kate, Andrew and Alice. We returned without serious incident down the slippery slopes, and most of us adjourned to the Leathers Smithy, where Andrew (crocked knee) was tucking into his third tumbler of vodka. Or so it seemed!

A Postcard from Timperley – The Stonemasons Arms

Here’s the pub that has stood in the centre of Timperley since 1840, after a £270,000 make over inspired by two restauranteurs, Pilling and Pride (Steve Pilling and Angus Cameron Pride) and funded by Greene King.

It looks smart, but opinions on its mutation into a ‘destination premium casual dining and drinking venue’ with up to 180 covers may be divided.

Timperley was once the home of John Arnold, a stonemason.  He was landlord of the pub, which has also been known as ‘The Naked Child’. It looked like this five years ago.

I’m happy to add any more historical information to this posting, if it comes to light. (My ‘Timperley As It Was’ book seems to have gravitated to a dark corner of the bookshelf.)

Sunday 10 December 2017 – The Tatton Yule Yomp

The reason for yesterday’s leisurely parkrun was that Sue and I were entered for the Tatton Yule Yomp, a 10 km cross country race around Tatton Park. I did it in 2014, dressed as a Christmas tree and (as this year) carrying an injury. With a dubious weather forecast I just couldn’t face lumbering round with the tree this time, so a Santa’s jacket would have to do by way of fancy dress, for which this event is notorious.

Having parked at Sarah’s house (thanks Sarah) we strolled to the start at the park entrance and took a ‘selfie’, which Tony ‘bombed’. He was duly given the job of taking a proper photo (above), a version of which will stare from our 2018 calendar next December.

After warming up at the head of the field, we made our way to the back of the 1165 runners for the start. This ploy worked well for me a few weeks ago at the Birmingham Marathon. So once the gun went, we took a couple of minutes to reach the archway where our timing chips were activated.

The first kilometre was very slow due to congestion, allowing us to warm up gently, gradually increasing our speed and steadily moving through the field during the course of the event. We stayed together until a steep downhill section at around 5 km, where my Salomon Speedcross 4 shoes gave me much better grip than Sue’s old trainers. Anyway that made me a target for her to aim at, and despite me speeding up at the end of the event, Sue finished only a few seconds behind me.

It was a cool day, and despite the very jolly atmosphere we didn’t spot anyone we knew, so after a couple of photos at the finish, we adjourned to collect our ‘goodie bags’, which were stuffed with products from Roberts Bakery – who sponsor this race.

Here’s the nifty medal we got at the finish.

And here are a couple of low resolution photos from the Tatton Yule Yomp website, taken during the race.

Here’s the route, should anyone care to repeat it. My Garmin gadget recorded just over 10 km, with over 50 metres ascent.

You may need to click on the following image for a larger version to see how we got on. Both of us are carrying injuries, and we started very slowly, so the time was even slower than my 2014 time of 56.35. I was quite happy to come 4th out of 15 in my age category, and Sue finished 4th in her age group, but based on chip times she actually came 2nd out of 75 in that category. So all the parkruns she has been walking must have paid off, and her Achilles survived without further damage thanks to the leisurely pace on the soft ground.

Everything you might want to know about this event is here. It’s a lovely route through the park, and great fun if you like slithery mud, water splashes, and other features of cross country running. It reminded me of being at school! And it didn’t rain much this year.