16 to 19 January 2026 - A Visit to Home Farm Cottage, Napton, Warwickshire

                 L to R: Gerry, Peg, Lyn, Sue, Robert, Martin, Chris, Jim, Louise

This is the group who for many years have been visiting Center Parcs in Sherwood Forest at roughly this time of year. (See here.) During that time there have been a few changes in personnel, and this year we welcomed back Jim and Peg after a break of a few years. But we didn't go to Center Parcs, where the participation in activities has tailed off for several reasons over the past few years. We found Home Farm Cottages, blessed with a games room (table tennis, pool, table football and darts) and a hot tub to be most satisfactory, with accommodation better than that at Center Parcs.

We arrived on Friday afternoon, 16 January.

Catering was easy:
Friday: Martin and Sue – Beef Stew
Saturday: Jim and Peg – Chicken dish
Sunday: Chris and Gerry – Spaghetti Bolognese

Monday: Robert and Lyn – Chorizo and Butterbean Stew with baked apples for a dessert. 

That all went smoothly and we even managed to use the Aga. Here the beef stew is being demolished in the dining room, overseen by Henry, whose picture you can see on the wall just above Gerry's head.

Louise washed up

Saturday 17 January 2026

After being introduced to parkrun by Sue and me at Sherwood Forest a couple of years ago, Robert has become a parkrun addict. Daventry parkrun was only 15 minutes away from the cottage, so Robert, Sue and I popped out to complete the one lap circuit around Daventry Country Park - a really nice route.

The narrow path at the start, and a couple of bottlenecks a bit further on, meant a short delay for those towards the back. It's not a race though.

After a while the woodland track emerged onto the top of a high embankment protecting Daventry Reservoir.

Later on, after passing a Visitors Centre and re-entering woodland, we arrived at a long bridge beyond which a volunteer marshall, Peter, was encouraging the runners. We had been told at the pre-run briefing that this was his 50th time as a volunteer, and we should offer our thanks. I did just that, and the picture found its way onto the run's website.

Someone kindly took a picture for us at the finish.

Sue took 26:12 in position 64, Robert was home in 28:00 in position 100, and I staggered round in 34:28 in position 228 out of the 311 finishers.

Here's the route:

On return to the cottage, a quick turnaround saw Sue and me joined by Chris and Gerry for a 13km stroll along canal towpaths and through muddy fields.

A walk down the road from the cottage brought us on to the Oxford Canal towpath. I think cyclists are allowed along here. With care!

On reaching a sort of t-junction with the Grand Union Canal, we could observe a huge marina from the bridge.

We dropped down and doubled back to join the Grand Union Canal towpath that was to be our route to the village of Stockton.

We continued to Calcutt Locks.

The tree pictured below was full of fieldfares for a while. Not quite as exciting as the goldcrest we watched within a foot of our dining room window in Timperley a few days earlier - it spent nearly an hour harvesting insects from the bushes in our small front garden.

There was a fair amount of activity on the canal.

It was a pleasant stroll past more marinas, to Stockton Top Lock.

Soon after this, we paused on a convenient bench to enjoy our lunch. The towpath is on the right in the picture below. Its surface was a bit damp, but the mountain bikers who passed by were having no problems.

After lunch we descended past the series of Stockton Locks before leaving the canal and joining the Millennium Way footpath that rose up a narrow, muddy ginnel to enter the village of Stockton.

On the southern outskirts of the village stands St Michael's & All Angels church, dating mainly from the Victorian period, but partly Norman.

 

The cemetery is on the edge of muddy fields that the Millennium Way now had us ploughing through, with increasing deposits of sticky mud clinging to our boots, before a less muddy short cut got us back directly to the cottage.

Mud...

Nice dry short cut.

Here's our route - 13 km with 60 metres ascent, taking us a little under four hours.

Sunday 18 January 2026

Mostly spent in the games room and hot tub, but Sue and I did venture out for a walk around Napton on the Hill, a nearby village within walking distance.

It was a dull, misty morning on which a short cut through a field led us across the canal and on to the path up Hackwell Hill.

Narrow paths led up the hill, past a supply of 'Witches Butter'.

We paused on reaching the Church of St Lawrence, which dates from medieval times. We could have made ourselves a pot of tea if we hadn't just had breakfast.

Sue spent some time with a local chap, discussing the church's bells.

From the church, we took a path to the 160 metre summit of the hill, near a windmill shrouded in mist. There's a seat and a rowan tree on this site of a WW11 Observer Post.

A narrow descending path led us all the way back to the Oxford Canal, past an area that is marked on the map as an Industrial Estate, but which looks like it is being prepared for some sort of development.

Back on the canal towpath, we continued to the Grand Union Canal junction and turned up along yesterday's path to Calcutt Locks. We crossed the canal here and were soon befriended by a group of people enjoying the facilities at Daisy's Bakin' Butty. Nice coffee. It's a small world - until recently one of the customers owned the house next to my sister-in-law's property in Porthmadog. 

They had heard of  the 'Walton Perk' on the canal near our house - a very similar operation.

Here's our route - 7.5 km, 70 metres ascent, taking two hours.

There was an adjournment to the games room.

Monday 19 January 2026 - A Visit to Bletchley Park.

Just an hour away from Napton, this was an ideal opportunity to visit Bletchley Park, home of the Codebreakers. All nine of us went, and we enjoyed a most educational day out.

From the Visitor Centre entrance we walked up towards the Mansion. After looking around there, we congregated for an hour's tour of the outside of the buildings. The tour guide, Neil, was most knowledgeable.

After the tour, we wandered around for the rest of the day.

Various vehicles were on display in the garages.

1940 Packard Six - used by MI6 after 1940

1943 Norton 500cc bike

1938 Austin 18 Ambulance

1947 Sunbeam Talbot - donated by Mick Jagger after it starred in the film 'Enigma' (2001)

We passed through the ornate entrance to the stables area.

 

The Polish Memorial is next to Hut 1.

Here's Alan Turing, Codebreaker extraordinaire.

Codebreaking machine

Still recruiting

Secret Shirley - Codebreaker

4pm closing time, and it was back to base for our last evening meal together, and some exercise for Robert.

That was an improvement over Center Parcs for our current requirements, and we hope we can return next year, especially as the Bletchley Park tickets are valid for a year, and there was more to see despite spending all day there.

GM Ringway Walks 2025 - Index

The Core Team at the end of Stage 20

A view from Stage 12

 

Thursday 13 February 2025 - GM Ringway Trail Stage 1 - Manchester to Sale Water Park

Thursday 20 November 2025 - GM Ringway Trail Stage 1 (repeated) - St Peter's Square to Dane Road Metrolink via Sale Water Park

Monday 17 March 2025 - GM Ringway Trail Stage 2 - Sale Water Park to Didsbury

Wednesday 16 April 2025 - GM Ringway Trail Stage 3 - Didsbury to Bramhall

Friday 9 May 2025 - GM Ringway Trail Stage 4 - Bramhall to Middlewood

Wednesday 11 June 2025 - GM Ringway Trail Stage 5 - Middlewood to Strines

Monday 6 October 2025 - GM Ringway Trail Stage 5 - Middlewood to Strines (2)

Tuesday 17 June 2025 - GM Ringway Trail Stage 6 - Strines to Marple

Tuesday 1 July 2025 - GM Ringway Trail Stage 7 - Marple to Broadbottom

Thursday 10 July 2025 - GM Ringway Trail Stage 8 - Broadbottom to Greenfield
Friday 10 April 2026 - Stage 8 repeated

Thursday 7 August 2025 - GM Ringway Trail Stage 9 - Greenfield to Newhey
Friday 29 May 2026 - Stage 9 repeated

Tuesday 19 August 2025 - GM Ringway Trail Stage 10 - Newhey to Littleborough
Monday 8 June 2026 - Stage 10 repeated

Tuesday 2 September 2025 - GM Ringway Trail Stage 11 - Littleborough to Norden

Thursday 25 September 2025 - GM Ringway Trail Stage 12 - Norden to Bury

Tuesday 30 September 2025 - GM Ringway Trail Stage 13 - Bury to Bromley Cross

Tuesday 14 October 2025 - GM Ringway Trail Stage 14 - Bromley Cross to Blackrod

Monday 3 November 2025 - GM Ringway Trail Stage 14a - Bromley Cross to Barrow Bridge

Monday 10 November 2025 - GM Ringway Trail Stage 14b - Barrow Bridge to Blackrod

Monday 27 October 2025 - GM Ringway Trail Stage 15 - Blackrod to Wigan

Wednesday 19 November 2025 - GM Ringway Trail Stage 16 - Wigan to Leigh

Tuesday 25 November 2025 - GM Ringway Trail Stage 17 - Leigh to Irlam

Tuesday 9 December 2025 - GM Ringway Trail Stage 18 - Irlam to Altrincham

Thursday 18 December 2025 - GM Ringway Trail Stage 19 - Altrincham to Stretford

Tuesday 23 December 2025 - GM Ringway Trail Stage 20 - Stretford to St Peter's Square, Manchester

Blackstone Edge

Diary Update - 1 to 10 January 2026

My time this year has been taken by a variety of 'stuff', from visiting mother to vetting routes for the TGO Challenge, so exercise has been limited to a few 5km parkruns together with a daily 5km walk/jog from home. So this entry may be of little interest, but it will serve me by way of a reminder of the start of 2026. It will become more interesting in due course.

Thursday 1 January 2026

Sue and I started the year with a turnout of 314 participants in Sale Water parkrun. Here we are making our way to the start.

As usual, I started at the back. It's more pleasant to be overtaking people than it is to be overtaken, though starting very slowly does lead to a fairly slow time. It's a nice route, there and back, beside the River Mersey and Sale Water Park. Just a few uneven surfaces to contend with, but they weren't as bad as I remember. See here for my report on a previous visit to this parkrun.

The Winston Runners were out in force. A jolly lot.

My time in position 219 was 34:06; Sue took 25:41 in position 72. Full results are here.

Friday 2 January 2026

Our 5km walk/jog from home passes through the 'small but perfectly formed' De Quincey Park. I quite often send a picture from here to bbc.co.uk/weatherwatchers.

This was the first Friday of the month, when Fechin, a committed Sale Harrier, and some of his 'Auld Codger' friends, runners and former runners aged over 70, gather at Wythenshawe Park's tearoom. We've been encouraged to bring something that we value along to these gatherings. Last month I took my Pyrenees books. Today Fechin turned up with a London Marathon winner's sash. He was a talented athlete in his day and was invited to the post race banquet in 1986, where the ladies winner, Greta Waitz, gave him her sash. 

Keith, Mike H, Mike C and John looked on as Fechin proudly related his story. 

Saturday 3 January 2026

After a break of just one day, it was back to parkrunning on the first Saturday of the year. A bit of frost had resulted in a number of local runs being cancelled, as a consequence of which there was a bumper record attendance of 675 at Wythenshawe, where the course was fast and dry over a nicely frozen surface.

It's the time of year when you enter the park at sunrise.

I took a few more photos before the start.

Fechin was unmissable today.

The briefing was ... happily brief...

By the time we got to the football pitches after 1.5km, the field was well spread out, with long shadows.

Despite only having 600 barcodes to hand out, Andy and his team managed to get the results out before we had finished sorting out the barcode tokens. Brilliant.

I finished in position 515 in 33:02, and Sue got home in 24:49 in position 175. Full results are here.

Later, Sue and I joined Robert and Lyn and Gerry and Chris at the David Lloyd sports hall in Chorley for games of Pickleball and Padel. Great fun.

Others enjoyed a sauna, then we all enjoyed a superb meal at the nearby Little Hong Kong restaurant.

Sunday 4 January 2026

The five year old had been ill with 'flu for a few days, so at last she could visit to unwrap her Christmas present, a Playmobil farm that she enjoyed assembling then playing with.

Monday 5 January 2026

Sue and I enjoyed our 5km walk after a light snow shower. The ducks were baffled.

Thursday 8 January 2026

Back to normal by the canal on our 5km walk, after a couple of domesticated days and a visit to Dot, whose short term memory has disintegrated.

It was a sad day, though the church service for Rick's wife Lesley who died on 4 December was as joyous an occasion as could be imagined, including performances by two separate troops of Morris Dancers.

Sue and I just made it home before going out with Paul and Jeanette for a 5:30 meal at Trafford College's Aspire Restaurant.

It has become a habit for us to start with cocktails. I find the Expresso Martini to be delicious.

A bottle of House Red followed.

It was a delicious menu:

Arrival

Starter

Intermediate - a lovely fish cake

Main - succulent beef

Delicious desserts

As well as the five courses, for the £24.50 price you get a couple of chocolates each, plus tea or coffee.

Brilliant! A really delicious meal for a very reasonable price. These students have good tutors.

Saturday 10 January 2026

After a day of admin and vetting a TGOC route, Sue left to visit her mother and I went along to Wythenshawe for their parkrun number 648. The course was fast and dry again, on a cool morning. Numbers were again boosted by the cancellation of a number of nearby events, probably due to frozen puddles, which luckily don't usually hamper the Wythenshawe course (which even has a back-up course if there are such puddles after overnight rain).

Sunrise again, the next picture being courtesy of Jan Williams.

Run Director Tris was happily brief with his briefing, as 601 participants lined up at the start.

I stayed right at the back before taking the next picture.

By the time we were leaving after enjoying our tearoom refreshments, the sun had well and truly risen. A lovely day, most of which, sadly, I spent indoors.

Sue's run in Solihull was cancelled due to snow. After the very slow start at Wythenshawe, I took 36:02 for the 5km, finishing in position 494, ahead of a record number of people in my age group - there were eight of us. Full results are here.