Monday 20 April 2026 - Manchester Jazz

We enjoyed a great performance from this excellent band, led by Roger Browne on piano (face hidden in the above picture), the band's other musicians are Late Phil Lucas on trumpet, Roger Bird on clarinet, Jolly Richard Slater on trombone, Allan Willcox on bass and Chris Pendlebury on drums.

Another fine evening's music at Eagley Jazz Club.

Monday 20 April 2026 - Church Stretton

After our successful visit to see Richard and Cathy in February, a follow up was planned. Meet for a coffee in Church Stretton, go for a walk, then visit aunt Jackie for a cuppa.

It didn't quite work out like that, as Jackie insisted on providing lunch. Who were we to refuse that kind offer? The 'walk' aspect of our gathering was further affected by some recent or pending knee replacements.

So it was just me and Sue, and Neil and Liz, for the walk. That followed leisurely refreshments at the Mayfair Community Wellbeing Centre. (I think Richard went to the wrong place, but never mind.)

A convenient ginnel led from near the CoOp car park to a path that headed steeply through bluebell woods towards Hazler Hill .

Sue admired this blossom as we ascended the steep slope.

Eventuallythe path leveled out, and we enjoyed passing through an open area before re-entering the woods.

Sticky Mouse-eared Chickweed

Back briefly on tarmac, and a pig was spotted in the hedge.

And piglets!

Then more woods, more bluebells, and a good view to the centre of Church Stretton.

Yellow Archangel

A final path through a field took us to a lane that led back to our cars.

Here's our 5.8km route. It seemed to suit the day perfectly.

Then a visit to Jackie, where Piers and Anna were helping with the catering. By now, Andy and Julie, and Richard and Cathy, were all there, so it was a jolly bunch of eleven who sat down to enjoy Jackie's lasagne and accompaniments, followed by a delicious pavlova provided by Anna.

A lovely occasion. We should meet up more often.

Good luck with the knees, ladies, and with your foot, Richard.

Note: who are these people? Well, Liz, Richard, Andrew and Piers are some of my cousins, and Jackie is our aunt (Piers' mother).

18 to 21 April 2026 - A parkrun, a marathon, and a Spunch

 

Saturday 18 April - Wythenshawe parkrun #662. Run Director Dan nearly gets mown down by 378 runners dashing off on their Saturday morning run.

I stayed at the back for a while.

Beside the football pitches and along to Far Bridge. Soon after that we start to be lapped, the leaders finishing in a little over 17 minutes today.

I passed a few folk and finished in position 296 out of 378 participants, in 33:38. Here are some of those I overtook, at the finish.

Sue wasn't running today. Yoga took priority. Coffee and cake as usual afterwards. Full results are here.

Sunday 19 April - The Manchester Marathon

With all our local roads closed for this event, I took a stroll into Timperley village and Brooklands Road. Found Fechin, who used to run marathons in under two and a half hours, glad that he wasn't in today's race despite perfect conditions. I wished I'd been running/walking, it was a great event. I took a few snaps of random runners, and I saw Richard Evans storm past at well under three hour pace. Well done, Richard.

Here are the snaps I took on the day, including throngs of folk coming along Park Road, seemingly hours after the leaders had sped through.

Tuesday 21 April - Spunch Cheadle Hulme

This running/walking event was a nice activity for a sunny but cool evening. Here's Sue beside a pond that rather blocked our way to a certain satellite point. We lost time here.

Back at the Pointing Dog pub after our 120 minute outing, we enjoyed a beer and a meal whilst waiting for Alistair Pooler to return to base with a very creditable haul of 920 Spunch points. Here are the results:

Here's the 12km route that I took. Sue did the same but picked up a couple of outliers whilst I had a rest.

Spunch turns out to be good fun. We will book some more events shortly.

Wednesday 15 April 2026 - Spunch Sale, and stuff

Here's Sue in Stamford Brook Community Woodland on our first 'Spunch' event. A bit of fun, starting at the Woodheys Club in Sale. The idea is to visit as many of 80 pre-set satellite points as you can in either 60, 90 or 120 minutes. Sue and I chose the 120 minute option. By the time we got to the Community Woodland we had been soaked by a shower and there were lots of deep puddles, so we soon lost any inclination to keep our feet dry. We could start any time between 4 pm and 7:30 pm, so we didn't see too many of the 110 or so participants. Walking and jogging, I covered about 13km, Sue did a bit more by visiting some outlying points that I didn't bother with. Here's my Garmin track.

We encountered Jenny R a few times en route, and we were surprised to find Alistair Pooler - TGO Challenger and fellow vetter, in the bar afterwards, where a veggie curry was also being served. It was excellent, despite the absence of any chicken. There was cake.

Our results are shown below. It's not really a race, but some people do race, whilst others walk/jog. Either way, it was good fun and a good bit of exercise.

Full results are here, and if anyone would like to join our 'Balmoral Bounders' team they would be most welcome to meet us at Cheadle Hulme next Tuesday. Details are here.

Well, that was fun! I'll answer any questions after Tuesday's event, but you can pretty much work it out from what's on line. Incidentally, we became aware of Spunch events when we came across one taking place in Wilmslow last New Year. We vowed then to have a go at this form of orienteering, and recently spotted a flier on a lamppost near home. So we gave it a go as we could walk to the start - our house is even on the course map, with one of the satellite points being on our road (Balmoral Drive - hence the team name).

Anyway, on to 'Stuff'.

Saturday's parkrun #661 at Wythenshawe passed uneventfully, with Alan directing the 300 starters.

I took 33:26 in position 229 out of the 300, and Sue took 25:43 in position 88. It's not a race, of course. Full results are here.

This week I've been cycling to Didsbury - a 15 mile route via the Trans Pennine Trail, returning through Northenden and Wythenshawe Park - to feed Millie whilst her owners were on holiday. I paused here by the bridge near the weir in Northenden on a sunny morning.

The Trans Pennine Trail passes near this wonderful avenue of poplar trees, just coming into leaf this week.

Millie was always very pleased to see me and became more and more reluctant to let me leave as the week went on.

Friday 10 April 2026 - GM Ringway Trail Stage 8 - Broadbottom to Greenfield (2)

Jeanette picked perfect weather for her 'catch-up' Stage 8 of the GM Ringway Trail that others of us walked on 10 July 2025 (report here), when the weather was very hot and Viv fell ill. She's ok now, but she and Steve and Roger have walked any further stages on their own.

Today's trams and trains worked well - on time to Broadbottom, five minutes late from Greenfield - that worked in our favour as had the train been on time we would have missed it by 3 minutes.

Setting off from Broadbottom, we soon left the main road to venture up Gorsey Brow and take a right turn into Hague Road, where somebody has been busy creating a smart new fence.

After the track leveled out, we got good views into the Longdendale valley.

A bank of early bluebells, on a south facing slope, was very pretty.

We had two Sue's today - Sue B, and Sue W - who has walked much of the GM Ringway route over the years and is happy to savour the delights of these paths once again.

A bright yellow field of oilseed rape was also getting plenty of sunshine today.

A large metal gate looked daunting, but the path passes easily through a gate on the left.

After a level section the path heads down across a field towards a lone tree. Last July I had a slippery encounter with a cowpat here, and we took a wrong turn. This year, in April, the track that continues up to Carr House farm has not yet dried out. At least it was just mud, and not slurry!

Whilst I used the step by step route notes I printed off last year, the route was clearly marked, the circular discs often being joined by other indicators of different local paths.

The main A57 road came and went, beyond which a steep lane led up to Nettle Hall Farm and a large house, Mottram Old Hall, on the left. Soon we were on Rabbit Lane, where we passed through an attractive hamlet where the gardens are home to the plastic effigies of some Canadian geese.

Snakeshead Fritillaries

A lovely footpath signs was encountered.

A gradual climb brought us to good views down to Arnfield Reservoir and the conurbation of Tintwistle and Glossop beyond.

A gentle descent then led past a well signposted junction with the Pennine Bridleway, which we crossed before heading relentlessly (but gently) upwards to the left of the deep groove of Ogden Clough.

Here's the sign, looking back into the sun from where the previous picture was taken.

The path to the west of Ogden Clough, which forms the boundary of the Peak District National Park, is a lovely, narrow, rising sheep track that in the dry conditions was an absolute delight.

Across the valley, a strip of woodland beside Arnfield Clough stood out in the sunshine.

The others got a little ahead, but a lunch stop prevailed immediately after crossing a small wooden bridge to enter the National Park. You can see them in this next picture.

There was no hurry, and we enjoyed lunch in the same spot as on last July's sweaty day that saw Sue B skinny dipping in the river.

The path continued to ascend, eventually reaching a small stile that had Rufus flummoxed.

There were good views back towards Tintwistle, and ahead with the sun behind us to the top of Ormes Moor, which at around 500 metres is the highest point on the GM Ringway route.

My walking poles came out for this climb. We didn't go to the (off route) 541 metre trig point, the last section to the Chew Valley escarpment being quite lumpy enough without that inconvenience.

The next picture, in which I'm stumbling along with Higher Swineshaw Reservoir in the background, for some reason reminds me of a day on the Yorkshire Moors - namely striding ahead on 24 June 1967, on my third crossing of the Lyke Wake Walk. My father must have been supporting us and taken the picture, perhaps near Wheeldale. I was with Bruce Stainsby and Mike Pope (can you spot Mike?), and we did the largely pathless 40 mile walk in the very respectable time of 8 hours 20 minutes.

I still have that trusty anorak!

We paused at our high point, descibed by the OS as 'Wilderness', for a photo of the rest of today's team and (above) a look back to the skyscrapers of Manchester.

The short distance to the Chew Valley escarpment is over rough 'Wilderness' ground, the hardest bit of today's route.

The escarpment path heralds great views into the Chew Valley to Dove Stone Reservoir and beyond.

There was a welcome signpost at the junction with the escarpment path, where we came across some teenage boys enjoying a day of their Easter holidays on the moors.

Some rough going along the escarpment path, with lots of photos of the Chew Valley, saw us finally emerge beside Chew Reservoir.

From there, we took the access road to the reservoir, past an old quarry. An assortment of folk were enjoying their days out in the valley.

Soon we said goodbye to the road and descended to a bridge and along an old tramway that can be seen in the centre of the next picture.

After a while we lost the views for a while as we proceeded through a lovely wooded area - Chew Plantation.

With intermittent views back to Dove Stone Reservoir, we passed through a pine wood before continuing to reach the tarmac of Intake Lane.

Here's the last bit of path before the tarmac, with views across to Greenfield, which is skirted by good footpaths all the way to Chew Valley Road and the railway station.

We were three minutes late for a train to Piccadilly, but luckily the train was five minutes late.

Here's today's route - 19 km with 550 metres ascent, taking us rather less than 6 hours - somewhat quicker than last July's time in the hot weather.