Friday 15 December 2023 - Father Christmas at Styal Mill, and more

It's that time of year. Time for a shy three year old to encounter a scary person with a big beard.

Isabella could relate to the penguins.

But she found Father Christmas a little scary.

Eventually they became friends and managed a 'high five'.

The snowmen were fun, and there were presents.

Thanks go to Sue and Sarah for the pictures above. Only two adults were allowed to accompany  children to see Father Christmas, so I went for a short walk to Twinnies Bridge and back, repeating a circuit I used to do with Isabella's dad in a push chair or papoose (there may be photos when I get around to scanning them!).

Back in 'the day', the path shown below was a quagmire.

Twinnies Bridge hasn't changed.

Nor has Heron's Pool Bridge, although the woodwork has probably been renewed.

The small children's playground, complete with wonky mirror, is a relatively recent addition.

The next two pictures were taken from the same place.

The big house, right next to the mill, has recently been renovated.

Isabella seemed impressed by the tall chimney.

She then demolished a plate of beans and some tasty cake.

After Isabella headed home with her mum, Sue and I went to Bacup, where Sue was enrolled to assist Jessica in Christmas Cracker production. They had lots of fun with various bits of stationery.

Meanwhile, Jacob played 'Fortnite', not very photogenic, but he was seen earlier with a monster brass instrument.

Tuesday 12 July 2005 - Silverdale

 Here's the result of indexing a few old pictures:

On return from Geneva (see here), Sue and a colleague, Richard, on a month's visit from Perth, Australia, and I enjoyed one of Sue's excellent veggie lasagnes before heading up to Leighton Moss for a 7:30 start on a lovely warm summer's evening.

We went down to the public hide and saw mainly Coots, Mallards, and Black-headed Gulls. A Coot with very small young, looking after them on her own. All very relaxed.

Then, a diversion whilst we wandered around a disused quarry, before getting onto the correct path to Hawes Water.

This was Trowbarrow Quarry, which has some interesting climbing routes. I've posted the next picture before, here, by way of a report on a blunder. Note the comments.

Whilst we had passed through an area of serious mosquito infestation, beside Hawes Water bikini clad women were enjoying an insect free barbecue! 

We continued on, the sunset being nice but not spectacular given the clear sky (I failed to take a photo due to problems with my new Canon Powershot S70 camera - the shutter intermittently fails to open).

 Then through fields of buttercups to reach the church at Silverdale.

We adjourned to the Silverdale Hotel for drinks outside, near a large party of people. Still very warm here - 9:45 to 10:15.

After that a stroll back to the car in the dark along the road, and home around midnight after dropping Richard off at his rooms at the hospital.

Here's the 10km route.

A lovely evening, if not the best route in the area.

Rosliston parkrun #331, and the Tatton Yule Yomp

On a trip to a family lunch in Hinkley, Sue and I stopped off on Saturday morning at Rosliston to take part in their 331st parkrun. The rain that had accompanied us all morning persisted as we jogged around the course. There were some deep puddles.

I was 88th out of 105 finishers. The marshals at the finish had a long wait for some of those finishing after me...

Full results are here. We were slow, but despite that I came first in my age category, and Sue was second female (out of 35).

Mick and Gayle, TGO Challenge stalwarts who live nearby, were at the finish to greet us, and spend a quality hour of catching up in the adjoining cafe. Great coffee and cake - thank you Mick.

As you can see, it was a day of full waterproofs - not the most appropriate clothing for a fast run!

The 5km route is somewhat convoluted. We kept coming across familiar looking marshals from different directions. Not to mention the familiar water features.

Sunday morning: drive through heavy rain to Knutsford for the Tatton Yule Yomp that was cancelled last year due to icy conditions. It was raining, mostly lightly, for this 10km cross country yomp.

Jan joined us at the start, and I won a dog in a raffle.

Fancy dress was the order of the day. 

I left my fancy dress at home as it gets very heavy in rain and I find 10km quite hard anyway these days. There were over 1800 entries, of whom 1141 turned up and finished. Here we are at the start.

I started at the back and took it easy as we jogged along in slippery grass and mud beside the lake.

I while later, the runners got very spread out. I chatted with Ian Blakebrough for a while. He's a Hash House Harrier so I thought he might know our friend JJ. But he didn't. We passed a very jolly marshal, resting happily on her prosthetic legs.

A rather cumbersome Christmas cracker was outpacing me at this point, but I'm told by Louise (Practice Manager at my dentists) that they had the misfortune of falling over in a swamp a bit further on. All, including Louise, were apparently traumatised by the whole experience and will stick to road events in the future!

Here's the swamp...

Just 2km to the finish, and my quickest kilometre of the event.

Sue was nearly half an hour ahead of me.

We were joined by Alister Pooler in the cafe, as well as Jan and his friends who kindly adopted my newly acquired dog.

Jan had been rather careless on the way around. His knee was dripping, but at least he didn't damage any trousers. 

The following screen dumps show our results, which are also here, and the route. Note that the figure of 1832 participants is misleading, as only 1141 of them actually took part and finished.

Great fun! (But not for Louise!)

Nice medal...