How the Other Half Live

Sorry, avid readers, I've fallen a bit behind again – but still haven't missed a walk! It's been a busy couple of days, but here I am writing about our Friday walk. It was a bit gorgeous! 

I remembered a different bit of the canal that I wanted to explore. Do you remember Hest Bank from last week, where I bravely stood on the tracks when there was no train coming? Well, this bit of the canal if very close to there – just across the road, in fact, and up these steps:

From up these steps, you can see that rickety train bridge we crossed last week, and then the bay beyond and the Lake District. Lancaster, Morecambe and surrounding areas are really very tiny – you can see the whole place from almost anywhere, and that's because we're in a valley.

Et voilà! The canal. You can tell this is going to be gorgeous just from this picture, no? Still water, bright blue sky, long shadows hinting at what promises to be an amazing sunset.

And straight off, we were greeted by a beautiful swan. It clearly thought we'd have some food, which we didn't. I was admiring the swan, taking photos of it from different angles, when I noticed that Matthew wasn't really paying it any attention. 'What's up, Matthew,' says I? 'Are you a bit frightened of swans?' 'No,' says he, 'I just think they're ugly.' Okaaaaaay.

If you're not as brutal as Matthew, you might listen to this: https://www.british-birdsongs.uk/mute-swan/

Here we have the Hest Bank pub, which is just lovely for a quiet sit with a pint on nice days. Oh.

It'll be open again one day. Do you find yourself, at the moment, making mental notes of things you want to do once we open up again? We do it at least once a day. This pub is on the list. 



I know this is nothing and you're eagerly anticipating wide and sparkling vistas and macro shots of teeny precious things ... but I love little wonky steps that don't seem to go anywhere. These do go somewhere, but if you didn't know, you'd think they didn't. Also, isn't it really breathtaking when you have a wide expanse of greenery and then there's a tree with red leaves in the middle of it? Trees with red leaves are also something I love.

And we all love a canal bridge. The thing about canal bridges is that they're such an evocative bit of history, just plonked there in the middle of your town (if you're very interested, you can read about its construction here). I think they're splendid.

But what's possibly more splendid is this house ... that's for sale!!! I see a lot of houses on our walks that I'd like to buy (and I'll be planning to move some time in the next few years, so I do have a little nosey). I always ask Matthew's opinion with the same question: 'How about this one, Matthew?' His answer is always the same: 'No, I like our house more.' Despite the fact that this baffles me because our house is rubbish, it's nice that Matthew does like his home. But anyway, today, Matthew said, about this house, 'Ooh yeah, I would live in that one.' So there we have it; if this house is still for sale in about three to five years, I might buy it.

We did wonder about the patio doors leading into the canal and whether they might have been installed by a genius or an idiot.

I didn't take any photos for a good long while as we properly set off on our brisk walk up the canal, for two reasons: 1) I don't like invading people's privacy by snapping their homes, if I can help it; and 2) I was too busy oohing and aahing at the magnificent opulence of the dwellings on this, my favourite stretch of canal. It really is very lovely here. And this is where the rich people live – well, some of them. There are a few posh estates in Lancaster and Morecambe, and this is one of them. Here, you see homes on the scale of Grand Designs, some with porticos and/or balconies. Chances are, if they have a portico, they'll have a balcony too, because why not. All of them have large gardens (large compared to mine; not large compared to people who own 'land').

Now, let there be no mistake about this – I am insanely jealous of the people who live here. I want to be rich enough to buy a house that backs onto this stretch of canal. I want to be rich enough to own a ride-on lawnmower and to have enough leisure time to actually use it. I want to have enough cash to buy a little canal boat that I can host parties on but possibly not use as it was intended because I'm not a great seawoman. But I did not spend the whole walk seething with envy; not at all. It was delightful to dream while knowing that these things are unattainable for most of us. And that's okay. Because there were still ducks.

I should perhaps say mallards: https://www.british-birdsongs.uk/mallard/

Anyone who's been outside in the UK (and USDA zones 3 to 8 – obviously, I just totally Googled that!) will probably have seen bluebells because they're rampant right now. Gorgeous, obviously.

I thought a photo like this next one probably wouldn't be invading anyone's privacy too much. There are parts of the canal that open up into sort of little marinas like this, where I can imagine that the residents come down to the water's edge on fine days and chat to each other. They probably don't; there are probably ongoing decades-long feuds about such-and-such a neighbour dumping their rubbish in the canal and her nextdoor partying too loud on a school night.

But anyhow, you can't get a sense of the poshness from this photo at all, so you'll just have to take my word for it that these houses and gardens are well nice! Like, at least twice the size of my house.

Blossom. I hesitate to say which kind of blossom this is because ... errr ... I haven't got a clue and I don't know how you tell the difference. I guess apple. Either way, verrrry pretty. One of my neighbours at the back used to have an amazing apple tree that filled with pink blossom every year. I was sad when they cut it down. I love trees. I think I've already said that.

You'd be forgiven for thinking you've already seen this bridge today, but you haven't – lots of these bridges on this bit of the canal. I can't help snapping them all, just because.

I've Googled again, and apparently these beautiful white flowers are also bluebells. I can't work out whether they're English or Spanish because they both look the same to my untrained eye. Maybe Auntie Trish will know.

I had to break off from admiring the bluebells very suddenly because there was a blue tit right by our heads! My goodness, they are stunning. I know they're pretty common around these parts, but I don't get them in my garden so it's always a bit exciting when we see one. If you're looking on your phone, you might struggle to see this, so zoom into the centre if you can.

The one in this recording is a bit repetitive (man, liven it up, little bird!), but the one we saw was much more enthusiastic about life: https://www.british-birdsongs.uk/blue-tit/

Seconds later, we saw this ugly creature – I mean, I think swans are magnificent, but now we know that not everyone shares my opinion. The light was not in our favour with this one, being far too bright over there, but you can sort of see it's a swan. And sitting in its Huuuuge next, clearly guarding some eggs. Amazing.

I thought perhaps it wasn't too much of an invasion of privacy to photograph this house – if you've got turrets, I can't imagine you'd be shy about showing them off, and you've probably got an ego the size of your tallest tower (yes, yes indeed, this is just my jealousy leaking out – I'm sure the house is inhabited by very fine people).

Round a little corner, you finally get treated to a vista. I love this bit in particular because it feels like you might be approaching the edge of the world. Big stretches of the canal are enclosed and enveloped lovingly by trees and you can't see out much; but here, bam! You get a lovely tantalising glimpse of the wider world and it's a real treat for the imagination.

See? It's all out there, waiting for you to just go out and do something amazing. Oh.

Okay, not right now, but eventually. Keep going – we'll get to the other side, definitely. And hopefully lots of us will be a little bit more enlightened and refreshed. (Although, I'm reading Human Universe by Prof Brian Cox and he doesn't have the greatest opinion of humans' ability to learn from their mistakes and not accidentally wipe themselves out. Great book, though – totally recommend it!)

But there are still ducks, remember.

iPhones are not always very good at capturing the size of something up close. I wanted to remember this tree because it's a beauty – it's gigantic, and it's in someone's bloody garden! I'd love a garden big enough to have a tree this size. Actually, my garden probably is big enough for a tree of this size, it's just that it's full of junk.

But this tree, anyway, wasn't a climbing tree because it's got no lower branches to start from. But it was still very beautiful.

This house, which I carefully didn't photograph from the front because its owner was out on his ride-on lawnmower (he really was!), was the biggest one we saw – it was much bigger than just the little bit you can see through the trees. We speculated for a while about how much it might be worth. I had to explain relative house prices to Matthew first, so that was like a little bit of homeschooling. We eventually decided that it might be worth about £2 million, but we are not experts so it's likely we've grossly overestimated.

Further on, it's a little less posh for a short stretch, but still posh enough for this bridge to be someone's driveway. This is called a swing bridge, and boat drivers (what are you called if you drive a boat? A pilot? Oh, a helmsman) have to get out and move the bridge manually with a winch-type thing in order to pass.

You can see it's less posh here, though, because there are some Lego houses off the path.

Matthew gave up just after this, and I realised we had actually walked quite a distance. I went a little bit further because we'd paused on a corner and I tend to always need to see what's round a corner. What was round it was a brand-new build à la Grand Designs. We must walk this way next year (or whenever building is allowed again) to see what this looks like when it's finished.

I turned back soon after this because it was getting dark again and I've promised not to be tramping about in the wilderness after sunset. But honestly, if I start taking walks earlier, I'll miss out on the skies and that might be a bit sad. Because, look:

I got back to Matthew and he had such a peculiar look of disgust on his face, and I realised it was because there was another swan. This one was behaving very strangely, as were the two ducks. The ducks seemed unable to move away and the swan seemed to be herding them or something. Every time the ducks waddled to one side, the swan followed them and looked a bit threatening. Not sure what this was all about.

Another sunset for you.

We headed back at some speed now because the midges come out in force at this time of day and we were starting to inhale them as we passed through bit clouds of the buggers. There's was no chance of stopping for more photos because I was just concentrating on not falling in the canal to avoid getting flies up my nose.

I'm still finding it odd how the iPhone can see a sunset one minute but then draw in lots of light the next. Look, this was taken when we were almost back at the car:

And this one was the last photo I took today:

We really enjoyed this walk. I guess it was no more exciting really than any others we've taken, but I do enjoy seeing how the other half live sometimes.

Until tomorrow (which is today really because I'm doing a double entry), land lubbers.

WQ