Graffiti from the Southern Half (21)

The graffiti in Valparaiso covers many subjects (and many buildings!).

Graffiti from the Southern Half (20)

Currently ‘resting up’, so it’s back to some more of the excellent graffiti in Valparaiso.

I’ve heard that there is some in sunny Salford, so I’ll get down there soon.

From a Roving Correspondent: Random Tractors of Europe (3)

It’s a quiet week in Timperley, but one of my roving correspondents has been out tractor spotting again. The top picture reminds me of my parking technique when I had a job as a fork lift truck driver in a steel foundry. The vehicle had been rescued from a scrapyard and had no handbrake.

Thanks Nick, and don’t forget to click on this important link (that also goes for the few remaining readers who have not yet donated – any amount, however small, will be appreciated, especially if in euros or dollars as the exchange rates are great!).

A Weekend ‘At Home’

As many readers know, a weekend in Timperley starts with a parkrun, usually at Wythenshawe. This was my 99th run there, so I took a bit of cake and some FOC incorrectly printed ‘Another Pyrenean Adventure’ books.

As you can see from the above picture, there was more cake (a ‘proper’ cake), more free handouts, an attentive run director or two, barcode scanning in the background, etc. It was a perfect morning with dry conditions and followed by a lazy coffee or two outside the Courtyard café.

As always, a great way to start the weekend. There were some impressive performances, in particular from ‘The Queen of Wythenshawe’, Jackie Cordingley, on her 200th parkrun. Well done Jackie. Well done also to Richard Evans for getting a PB, one second inside Greg Barber’s best time! Results are here.

Sue and I arrived home to find Jacob and Jessica outside and ready to spend the rest of the day with us. Much of this was spent in Walton Park, an easy bike ride down the canal towpath. Jessica, just three, showed us how she had mastered her Balance Bike and now needs some pedals to speed her on her way.

Jess can also stay on a swing, whereas Jacob managed to escape from his swing whilst high in mid air. Just a few bruises, but we may need to leave his cycle helmet on next time!

The ice cream van arrived twice whilst we were at the park. There’s no end to the time the children want to spend on simple play apparatus and bikes.

Jess enjoyed a lolly that turned her tongue blue…

Sunday brought along the annual Calderdale Mountain Bike Marathon. This year we were a group of five. Robert went ahead as usual and finished inside three hours. I set off right at the back of the 230 or so participants, together with Paul and Greg (their third year) and first timer Andy. Here are Greg, Andy and Paul waiting for the start. My 1990 Shogun bike is in the background. It behaved impeccably.

Despite lovely weather, I didn’t take many pictures this year. The one below shows Paul stuffing his face at the first checkpoint (near Hebden Bridge after about 15 km) and Greg ready to storm on ahead. I couldn’t keep up with them after that. Andy pottered along behind us all, taking lots of photos and much care on the technical sections. None of us had any problems and the ride went very smoothly. Great fun. It doesn’t matter if the group splits as there’s always somebody to chat to as you progress over the 26 mile route.

Here’s the route – 42 km (26 miles) with around 1100 metres ascent.

The results are here, and a brief summary of our results over the years is in this posting, whilst all my blog reports are here.

Finally, congratulations to the organisers for making the event run so smoothly and for providing lots of drinks and food along the way and at the finish. Brilliant.

Wednesday 5 October 2016 – 36 Degrees, Stage 1 – Ainsdale to Burscough Bridge

Today's team - John, Phil, Bernard and Martin, had assembled at Westhoughton Station for a train to Southport at around 9 o’clock – a bit early for most Plodders, one reason for the poor turnout. We were almost leaderless when John was found to be waiting in the car park whilst the rest of us preferred the platform. Another train took us to Ainsdale, where we headed due west from the station until the Irish Sea precluded further movement.

The idea was to revisit Stage 1 of John’s ‘36 Degrees’ walk, as he wanted a .gpx file and nobody had kept one when this route was first walked nearly five years ago. It was Stage 1 of John’s project to walk across England from coast to coast, keeping within 36 degrees of his own back garden, ie a straight line across the country to within 18 degrees each side of his garden.

We posed whilst a convenient post recorded today’s team.

The walk soon brought us back to Ainsdale Station, from where we had set off some time earlier, and on towards a sandwich shop outside which Bernard found himself glued to the pavement. Next door was a coffee shop that duly obliged whilst Bernard selected a sandwich. It was an auspicious occasion as I’d never before witnessed Phil entering such an establishment – he usually paces around outside.

After this excellent and much needed coffee break we headed east along narrow strips of tarmac past neatly cropped fields. Some of the party were already lagging behind and single file was wise as any vehicles took up most of the width of the tarmac strips.

John was raring to go, loving every minute of this rebirth of his project.

We dived into the undergrowth as Tractor Number 1 roared past.

It was a lovely day with a brisk easterly breeze. By the time we reached Cabin Lane we were on a track that petered out in the stubble of a harvested crop. We soon learnt that the farmers hereabouts don’t restrain their crops from growing on the signposted footpaths through their fields.

Manor House Farm was immaculate. Here we encountered Tractor Number 2 and a friendly farmer, as well as a horse and cart trapped forever, frozen in time behind a row of plant pots. The taxidermist had made a fine job of the horse.

Tractors Number 3 and 4 were lazing nearby in a barn.

Outside the farm, Phil sang a Gloria Gaynor song to these love sick cows. They showed signs of distress when ‘The Cow Whisperer’ deserted them, their mournful moans following us in the breeze all the way to Heathey Lane and Jack’s Mere.

The turf farm near Jacksmere Farm certainly didn't maintain its footpaths.

We made our way along the footpath through Hooton’s Farm, at one point having to hack our way through a forest of nettles. It may have been easier to ignore the path and walk through the field to the south.

Scarisbrick has a pretty lodge and a long driveway that leads to a school. The high proportion of personally registered cars indicated a certain exclusivity. A gent in a Jaguar paused to satisfy himself that we didn’t present a threat. (It took him some time.)

We enjoyed lunch in the sunshine on a grassy bank by the Private entrance. Bernard enjoyed his sandwich, the rest of us feasted on cake, and John pondered a phallic object that his wife had wrapped in tissue and placed in his lunch box.

We negotiated the roads passing alongside the school without incident, before heading along Dam Lane and Merscar Lane. Tractor Number 5 – an early Massey Ferguson driverless prototype - weaved past us, heading crazily in the direction of Slattocks.

Eventually we reached the scenic delights of the Leeds & Liverpool Canal for the last stretch to Burscough Bridge.

It's a lovely stretch of towpath. Winter Hill came into view in the distance, as did one of its nearby residents, or so we thought…

“Hello Norman, what are you doing in that dinghy?”

“I’m not Norman”, protested this man, “I’m his twin brother, just checking the seaworthiness of my houseboat!”

Ha ha, you can’t fool us, Norman.

We left Norman blushily renovating his houseboat, which looked a bit basic to us (the only tool he had was a baler), and left the canal at bridge 32A.

The Hop Vine proved to be very friendly and a great place to finish this five hour jaunt before catching our train back to Westhoughton. That wasn’t so simple as there was some confusion regarding the timetable – we caught a train at around 3.30, a good 15 minutes later than expected, much to Bernard’s consternation.

Stage 1 of the ‘36 Degrees’ walk had proved to be about 19 km, with around 100 metres ascent, and it took us less than 5 hours including several breaks (walking time was 3.50). We now have a selection of .gpx files. There’s an additional twenty minute walk to the start from Ainsdale Station, of course.

Here’s the route – click on the image for a slightly larger one.

There’s an album with 39 pictures here. Try clicking on the first image and seeing what happens. I’d like you to be able to view a full screen slideshow with captions, but the current Google software doesn’t seem to be amenable to this.

Tuesday 4 October 2016 - A Peak District Ramble

Setting off from near Tideswell, I strolled an 18 km circuit via lunch in The Crispin at Great Longstone. There are so many ways of skinning this particular cat that details of the route are somewhat superfluous.

It was a lovely day, with sunny periods that kept ending the moment my camera came out. Just a handful of people were encountered, though The Crispin was quite busy, and there were lots of cyclists on the railway around Monsal Head. I saw just one elderly gent from Sheffield all afternoon. 

Anyway, it was a lovely day out and 'Mission Accomplished', as our Christmas lunch venue on 11 December is now booked, and an excellent route for that day has been reccied. 

If you click on the first photo you get the facility to scroll through them using a bit more of your screen. They are just a series of snaps taken during the walk. Enjoy.

Sunday 2 October 2016 - Geal-Charn and A' Mharconaich

Fog over Pitlochry. But it soon cleared. After bidding our farewells to numerous TGO Challengers, and thanking them for taking a fair quantity of incorrectly printed Pyrenees books off my hands, Sue and I pottered off to Balsporran Cottages, near Dalwhinnie, to climb two easy hills that Sue may not have been up before.

It was a perfect day for walking. Clear blue skies, crystal clear visibility, warm sunshine with a cool breeze to blow away any sweat. Ptarmigan and red grouse had grouped themselves into flocks. No deer were in evidence. The last flowers of the heather had a frosty sheen to them as we climbed, passing a couple on the first summit, and meeting an early morning runner - the only people encountered on our three and three quarter hour excursion that clocked up 12 kilometres and about 750 metres of ascent.

There were fine views across Loch Ericht to the Ben Alder range, and further afield to summits too numerous to mention.

We would have liked to have extended the walk (and the trip), but we had no food with us and Sue has to be at work tomorrow, so it was back to the car and down to the House of Bruar for a bite to eat, before an easy drive back to Timperley for around 8pm.

Today's pictures should be fairly self explanatory, but an annotated slideshow should follow if I can work out how to compose one - Google seem to have made some changes and my time honoured method of producing a slideshow no longer works. Ho hum (and thanks to Mike Parsons for his suggestions).

I'll also do some track maps.

Saturday 1 October 2016 - Ben Vrackie

A lovely circuit, starting with nearly twenty Challengers, leaving all but six of us beyond the summit, before heading down to Meall an Daimh, where Gordon and Jim took a short cut and Sue, Ann and Alvar kept me company on a longish (25 km) circuit back to Pitlochry via the Killiecrankie battlefield. 

We started through rising mist, soon emerging into bright sunshine and views stunning in their clarity.

Windless. We spent nearly an hour on Vrackie's summit whilst the backmarkers ambled slowly up. Great views across to yesterday's route on Beinn A'Ghlo. 

Down to Glen Girnaig via a scenic lunch stop in the hearing of some shooters who later passed us in their 4 X 4s.

A strange, overgrown with nettles and thistles, enclosed path four feet wide took us the 2-3 km from the battlefield to Killiecrankie, where it started to rain once we had admired the view up the river.

Then an easy but tiring 7 km riverside walk back to base. Past the Enchanted Forest, and we were all flagging towards the end. 8.5 hours, with about 1000 metres ascent.

(Yesterday was about 23 km, 1300 metres ascent, in about 7.5 hours.)

A grand day out.

All today's pictures were taken on the way to or at Ben Vrackie's summit. Others will follow by way of a slideshow.