Thursday evening was lovely, wasn't it? One of those flaming sky evenings. Was that the evening when London's sky looked like it was on fire? It might have been. It wasn't quite as dramatic up here, but still very lovely. I wandered by myself over to the Favourite Place because it felt like it had been ages since I'd been up there. I smiled to myself at how it used to feel like a long way, and how I couldn't quite remember how to get to it at first. Now it feels like my back garden, but I share it with a lot of people. I keep missing my two friends Sara and Dawn, who both walk and run around here. I keep my eyes peeled for them every time, and I'm sure we'll see them eventually.
Anyway, here is proof that this field is actually a pond.
Jack Sparrow Lane was muddy at the bottom end today, and two ladies passed me in flip flops, bemoaning the fact that they were getting dirty feet. Well, I ask you – who takes a walk in the countryside in flip flops?!
Crops! Looks like my dad was right that this is corn. Looks like corn to me. Also known as maize, of course, which is why they make maize mazes. Have you ever been in a maize maze? Lots of muddy fun!
Just a few weeks ago, these impressive-looking plants were little shoots, remember? Awww, look at them now. Man, this year is whizzing by!
I don't know why I always stop to take a picture of this little hill. I think it's just that I like to take you with me on every step of the walk and if I miss a bit out, you might wonder which route I took because that's how much you care! This hill now represents a small challenge in the favourite place because it usually sees me wheezing by the time I get to the top. The challenge each time is to get to the top without stopping – it's not far at all, but it is quite steep, and there's a perfectly placed bend in the middle that encourages a pause. I ignore the bend and keep going. The longer-term challenge is to get the wheezing to stop! I'm not sure if that will ever happen, but it's something to aim for.
My back was a bit niggly today, so I had a decent sit. I'd brought sandwiches with me this time, as well as Matthew's flask full of tea. You'll want to know what sandwiches I had, of course. I had white bread (I don't like brown bread, so sue me) with sliced German sausage with little bits of red and green pepper in it – completely scrumptious. I also had my book with me – the second in Bernard Cornwell's Saxon Stories series, in case I forgot to tell you before – really good! Cornwell wrote the Sharpe series, and sometimes Sean Bean pops into my head as one of the Saxons and confuses the whole story in my mind. And sometimes it gets really weird because he'll say 'One does not simply walk into Mordor' and that's got nothing to do with Cornwell at all.
I didn't read for a bit though – I sat and watched the tractor going back and forth and up and down the field over the road, cutting the grass. I could hear it from my bench and it was a very soothing noise for some reason. Farm sounds generally are rather comforting though, don't you think? Anyway, I chilled very pleasantly on my bench, with the tractor and my book for company. It was all a bit heavenly, actually.
I had intended to walk further than the bench when I set out today, and I still had a big ton of energy so I packed up eventually and headed down to the canal. You can head right and go towards Halton and the aquaduct, or you can go left and make out for Hest Bank, which is what I did. The night was just starting to draw in though, so I wouldn't be going all the way to Hest Bank ... or so I thought.
My goal – because having a goal sometimes makes things interesting – was to find my favourite field. I knew it was around here somewhere because I'd found it that day I'd walked from Hest Bank to my bench on the new road. But I've never found it since, despite having a couple of walks along here with Matthew. It can't have disappeared.
I will just let this next photo speak for itself because it's a good 'un. Let's just look at it for a minute. Ahh, nice.
Do you think all the farmers get together on a conference call and decide when it's the right time to cut the grass? Clearly this week has been the right week because they've all been doing it. Or do you think they start cutting in the same week each year? Or does it depend on the weather? Or do they just know because they've got mystical farmer powers? I could Google this, but it's more fun to guess.
Well, so, I kept on walking. I was enjoying myself, you see, and there was no particular reason to rush home. I was keeping half an eye on the sky though, because I didn't want to be on the canal by myself when it went dark. But there are always places you can get off the canal – except that a lot of them are down secluded lanes, so I would need a plan to get home safely at some point soon. But for now, I just walked and checked every field on the other bank to see if it was my favourite one. The grass and weeds have grown a lot, as you can see, right along the edge, which made things a little tricky when I encountered other walkers. All good though – everyone's still being sensible.
You'll have to take my word for it a little bit because, even though I have highlighted it, you still can't see it properly, but I saw a kingfisher. It definitely was a kingfisher because I've seen them before so I knew what I was looking at. It was quite breathtakingly gorgeous, but I knew that if I tried to get closer to take a photo, it would just dart off anyway, so this was as close as I could get. I'll look out for them again now that I know they're definitely around. But I need a better camera. Or some of those weeny lenses that clip onto your phone.
I wondered if this was my favourite field – it sort of looked like it, but it wasn't quite right. My field is on a bend as well, which this one wasn't. Nope, a bit further. It's only two miles or so between my bench and Hest Bank so it really shouldn't be this difficult to find a big field.
I came to the bridge at Hasty Brow. Now, I could've got off the canal here and gone home. This isn't all that close to my house when you're walking and if I kept going I'd have even further to walk to get home. I hadn't brought water with me and I'd drunk all the tea at the bench. It was also pretty warm and I was getting a bit sweaty. But sometimes my legs just do their own thing, even when my brain tells them it's time to turn back. Nope, they say, just a bit further. This is probably a good thing, but I'm sure there'll come a day when they get me in trouble and I'll end up so far from home that I'll have to phone someone to come and pick me up because I'll have run out of fuel and my back will give up.
I didn't get off the canal at Hasty Brow, but I could see most of that road from where I was. It's nowhere near as long as it seems! Slyne is just over there, and you've seen that with us a couple of times. Last time was when Matthew came over all teenager-ish and trudged most of the way.
What are these?? I've never seen these before. Seeds of some kind, but I don't know what. Brilliant.
So next, I reached this bench. I remember stopping here when Matthew and I had one of our walks when my back was still very bad, and we had to stop at every bench because I was walking like an old lady. This bench meant that I was actually getting very close to Hest Bank, and I didn't want to reach Hest Bank because it's quite a lot of miles to get home by the road. I started to look in earnest for a path off the canal now. I had not found my favourite field and I was now convinced that I'd imagined it, or that it was in a different place entirely.
I found another bridge and a path – to be fair, bridges and paths are not difficult to find on a canal. Finding the right one is obviously more difficult than I thought though, because I chose completely the wrong one. I really had no clear idea where I was because I've never seen this path before. But it couldn't be that bad – I definitely wasn't twenty miles from home and I just needed to pick a route and follow it. I didn't choose left because that seemed to be heading towards Morecambe and the prom and I didn't want to go there, so I chose right and went over the bridge.
Yep, there's Hest Bank – much further than I'd meant to walk. Now that I'm looking at this photo, I'm wondering if my favourite field was just here and if I'd have gone just a wee bit further I'd have seen it. Hmmm, well, too late now.
Because I'd chosen this way instead ... in my still-shiny new trainers. Oh bugger. Any sensible person might have just turned back and gone a different way home, but I don't do things like that – I choose a path and stick to it no matter what I enounter. I think this is probably a stupid way of doing things and probably says something about me not being adaptable, but there we are. They're only trainers and they can be cleaned, so I got on with it, picking my way through as carefully as I could. Of course, I wouldn't fall because I don't do that.
The track was probably about half a mile long and I did indeed mess my trainers right up. But I emerged here – a road I have never seen in my life. It wasn't until I'd gone through a ginnel and found the main road that I realised I was at Slyne. Well, there's a turn up for the books! I didn't expect to find myself here today. How nice. How far from home! Bugger. Quite thirsty now and also a bit hungry, I very briefly considered phoning my dad to ask for a lift, but I didn't. I quite like endurance tests and I knew I'd be proud of myself when I got home, so I dug in again and picked my route home from several options.
Incidentally, there's a bloody mansion at Slyne! I never realised, even though I've driven past it many times. You don't always notice houses when you're driving, do you? This one has some sort of stable-looking building off to the left. Very fancy.
Well, look what we have here – Hasty Brow! This was turning out to be quite a twisty-turny sort of walk – I think I probably did a rough sort of figure of eight. I was laughing at myself here because things were starting to hurt. I was also aware that I had taken a huge number of photos and would have to write about all of this. Dear gods, you poor people.
The evening seemed to be getting hotter and I was very sweaty now, but I was quite chipper and bounced along, sometimes even whistling a bit and humming. It's just great, isn't it, being outside? Even if things hurt and you're thirsty and you don't know how long it will take to get home, it's still better than staying inside day after day after day ...
And you're never going to find miniscule frogs if you stay inside. Oh my goodness, it was so teeny! I really wanted to let it hop into my hand so that I could put it back in the hedge because it was heading towards a huge wall and I was sure no good would come of that. But it was right in the middle of the road and I was very conscious of the fact that cars tend not to stick to the speed limit around here. I took my life in my hands just stooping to get this photo. Isn't it sweet?!
Still a good mile from home, I emerged here, on that Hasty Brow bridge I passed quite some time earlier. There are several ways to get home from here, but I decided not to mess about this time – the most direct route would be fine today. I'd proved myself mighty and there was no need to add in extra hills or fields or anything else.
I paused briefly to chat to some cows. They didn't say anything back. Rude.
A thoroughly pleasant walk, all in all. I was very pleased with myself because I'd only meant to do about three miles but I did six. I arrived home very sweaty, very thirsty, ready for my tea, and very happy. I'd seen crops, stripy fields, a tractor, a load of cows, a very pretty sunset, a kingfisher, two towns and a couple of villages. You can't say fairer than that!
Until tomorrow, fine friends.
WQ
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