Hello! I'm still here, and will always be! I bet you're thinking that I'm losing interest in my walks and will probably just give up altogether soon? Not so – while I've not been able to go outside much because we're very busy at work, I've been thinking about going outside and planning places to go after this busy spell is over. It's making work easier because I've got lots of things to look forward to, which is marvellous!
But lucky for you lot, I've got five walks sitting here waiting to be written about. I don't ever miss writing about my walks because the first thing I do when I get home is open up a new blog post and dump the photos in it, so I've got reminders and all I have to do is write. Easy peasy.
So today's was actually quite a while ago – some time the week before last, I think. Like all the others I'm about to write up, this one was a walk of relief. A walk that stemmed from the thought that I had to get outside otherwise my head might explode or my legs might drop off. I was tired and achey from sitting at my computer for so long, but not so tired that I couldn't jump in the car and whizz off to find a bit of greenery and sky. I fancied a canal walk on this day, so I went up to park next to Miss Whalley's Field.
I only said a quick hello to that field today before I headed down the hill towards the canal. This is the Ridge, where my dad and Auntie Trish grew up. I can't remember much about the Ridge. I have some very vague memories of my grandparents' house on Patterdale Road, but I can only remember the living room and I think it was tiny. I think that was the room where my dad's friend Harry was once playing his guitar and I dropped the pick inside and had to put my tiny hand under the strings to retrieve it. Also, I remember being in my great-grandma's house and watching her peel a pint of Morecambe Bay shrimps – this wasn't a one-off but something that happened every weekend, I think. And I remember being given money every time we visited, possibly 50p, but that seems like it might have been quite a lot forty years ago.
Also, I remember when my grandparents took over the management of the Ridge pub – in Lancashire, such an event is discussed thusly: 'Freda and Wilf, they 'ave t' Ridge pub', and that t' is that almost-silent throaty noise that northerners do that doesn't even register as a word but means 'the'. I don't remember 'ow long they 'ad the pub for, but I think it was a good few years. Long enough for me to 'ave a birthday party there. The Ridge pub was where my brother and I 'ad our first 'alf-pints of Guiness as children. I'm sure I remember the occasional 'alf a lager and lime as well. And probably a few shandies. I think our family took a very French view of children drinking alcohol. And Grandma Freda made all the food in the pub – amazing food, GIGANTIC portions!
Anyway, I was out to walk, stretch my legs and breathe in some air, so I trotted down the hill to the canal. As you see, very green again today – I don't know if it's just green in some spots, or if the green appears on sunny days and then the swans come along and eat all the green. I don't even know if swans eat this green stuff. I'm just assuming they do because I saw them eating the green stuff on the river a few weeks ago, but that might be different green stuff. Maybe you get river green stuff and canal green stuff and they're completely different.
I like walking round these back streets of Lancaster, where there are rows and rows of terraced houses. We used to live in a tiny terrace, and I almost bought one as my first house. They feel very Victorian. I've just gone down a Google rabbit hole trying to find out when this type of house was actually built. Of course, these working-class terraces are completely different from the fancy Georgian terraces with high ceilings, and the Georgian ones are much older, having been built from the seventeenth century. I think the ones that are familiar to me, having lived on the scummy side of Lancaster all my life, are Victorian. Here you can read a very brief introduction to terraced houses.
I might not be doing all that much with my life right now, not travelling or writing my first novel or anything super-productive or worthwhile like that, but I think I'm at least paying attention. Not to politics or anything much in the news, because I'm taking a break this year from that serious stuff, having found that it just causes me stress about situations I can't fix myself. But I'm paying attention in a more Buddhist and mindful way. I spend quite a lot of time staring at things that catch my eye when I'm out for walks – when I'm with Matthew, he'll pounce on such a silence and fill it with chatter. When I'm on my own, I'll just stand and look at a tree or a row of houses and think about ... I don't even know what I'm thinking about. Maybe I'm actually blacking out and having a little standing-up power nap without realising.
I love that the canal goes right through town. It's at the top of town, actually physically higher up than the town centre, but it's still properly in the town. I think it would be pretty cool to live in one of these houses, looking over the canal and most of Lancaster. Although, it's probably murder for midges for half the year.
I love that, when you're driving round town and over the bridges, you're completely unaware that there are pigeons hiding right underneath the road. They're not just here at dusk and in the night – there are always pigeons here. I think they come here for a rest and a chat.
You've seen the cathedral before, but it's just such an impressive sight from here. Actually, it looks a bit like something from a fairy tale – but that could be because I'm listening to the Hobbit soundtrack. Isn't it interesting how music has such a profound impact on what you see? If I was listening to T. Rex – I say T. Rex because I was listening to them this morning – this picture would look completely different to me and I wouldn't be imagining orc bodies falling from the cathedral spire, shot through with elven arrows.
Too quick to snap in a photo, I saw a rat cross over this bridge, on those bricks above Joseph Clayton's name. I've never seen a rat on the canal before, but of course, there must be loads of them. In fact, I've never seen a rat in the wild at all. Plenty of squirrels and rabbits, ducks of all kinds and other birds, and there was that fox a few weeks ago; but never a rat. Are they very secretive, or does Lancaster just not have a rat problem? I've seen rats as pets – I've had rats as pets; they're brilliant.
I wasn't thinking of orcs when I was walking, which is a shame really, because I think it would have been quite thrilling when I came to this dark and dangerous-looking path. But I'd reached the twisty-turny bit where the path runs out so you have to get off the canal and cross the bridge to get to the next bit.
I had to walk past the White Cross pub and I didn't take any photos of it. It was very weird and I felt inexplicably nervous – it was FULL of people, inside and outside on the benches. I wasn't particularly worried that someone would get too close and put their corona germs on me or anything, but I just felt very self-conscious being out on a Friday evening, in my scruffy clothes, hair all over the place, walking through rather a crowd of people all dressed up for an evening out. But sod 'em, eh?! I don't know why I felt like that because it's been quite some years since I gave up worrying about what anyone else thinks of me. I think it was perhaps just the strangeness of seeing a crowd of people – most of us haven't seen one for five months.
I went just a little further, almost to the Water Witch, and then decided I was hungry and tired and wanted to go home. But not quite yet. That's how it always goes on my walks – apart from those walks when I've forced myself to go out and actually just want to sleep. I start to tire and am ready for home, but I also want to stay outside for as long as I can. Perhaps what I actually need, then, is a home that's right next to a field or a wood or something gorgeous like that so that I can go out a couple of times a day instead of just once. When I move to Bamburgh or somewhere thereabouts, it will be just so. I'll be down on that most gorgeous of beaches all the time, boring you to death with the same view of the sea and the castle and the dunes. I'll be in heaven, and I'll be talking to myself on my blog because I'll have bored all of my readers. But that's okay; I'll be happy.
I got off the canal here. This path has memories of us in our late teens and early twenties, tottering up into town on silly heels, nicely drunk after taking advantage of the Water Witch's pound-a-pint offer, tipsy enough to be linking arms and singing. Great times.
I didn't take lots of photos after this. I was actually looking for somewhere to buy some food because I was suddenly ravenous. I thought about KFC (I know, I'm sorry!!!) but it was jam-packed. McDonald's was shut, which was probably a good thing. I definitely wasn't dressed for a restaurant, but they were all very full anyway. I gave up in the end and decided I'd just go home for some food. This was when the zigzagging started, when I couldn't quite remember the quickest way back to my car. I happened to walk past this alley, which is also full of drunken memories – this is the alley down to the Sugarhouse, the Lancaster Uni student union club. You can only go in there if you're a student or if you get signed in by a student, I think. Ah, very good times in there. I wonder if it's still as good. My abiding memories of the place are the sticky floors and flooded toilets, and also the very long wait in the queue to get in.
I got to the end of this road and realised that the way back to my car was up a steep hill, which I just didn't fancy, so I zigzagged, went around the Grand Theatre, and tried to find a less steep hill. This took me past this derelict building – I feel that this might have been a brewery, except that I think the brewery is still there, so this might have been something else. But anyway, this was one of my staring places. I stared at it for ages, thinking that it was very beautiful – everyone knows that derelict buildings are a thing of sad beauty, no? Especially when they have spindly trees growing out of them.
I zigzagged a bit more, going past the Grand Theatre three times on different roads, eventually realising that there was no way round the problem – I'd gone down a hill to find the canal, so I'd have to go up one to get back. But what was nice was that, in trying to avoid a steep hill, I'd added more than a mile to my walk. Very good.
This is Moor Lane. This is the road we used to walk up after being in town on a Saturday afternoon because my dad would park the car outside Uncle Tom and Auntie Liang's house, way further up the road. I loved Uncle Tom and Auntie Liang's house. It was a great big terrace, with a really long garden that looked over Lancaster. And the house was full of treasures and interesting things to look at, like the black lacquer coffee table with the mother of pearl carvings. Amazing.
Anyway, I hefted my hefty ass up Moor Lane and made it back to the canal, probably about half a mile from my car. It's really nice here, green stuff notwithstanding, because the view opens up just round the bend and you can see the Lakes and all of that goodness. Also, the Grand Theatre for the fourth time on this walk – my final zigzag.
See those new-looking orange-brick houses? That's where the Ridge pub used to be. If I hadn't been starving and in a rush to get back to my car so I could find some food, I'd have been sad. The Ridge pub had a little sweetshop at the back of it (I have no idea why), and every time we stayed over, my brother and I were allowed to get the most gigantic pick'n'mix ever seen. I don't remember any of the sweets apart from the rice paper – many sheets of rice paper. Also, I remember the sweet beer smell of the cellar and going down there to watch when my dad or my grandad changed a barrel. Good times.
Four more walks coming up soon! Are you excited to read about them? Don't be too excited – one of them in particular will really disappoint you.
Until later, disco queens.
WQ
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