Clarke Chronicler's Resurrection

The weather once again dictated that we should return to the canal rather than Calderdale. My friend Philip who was thinking about joining us pulled out early in the morning. Because I was delayed at a post office in Horwich, we didn't get to Wigan in time for the bus to Cale Lane so we parked up there. It was raining as we set off from the bridge over the canal. We soon reached Top Lock, the uppermost of Wigan's 21 Locks Just beyond it the canal makes a right angled turn and starts heading west. We soon reached the Aspull road, not 5 miles away after all. By this time the rain had stopped and it became relatively pleasant. The last embers of autumn colour cloaked the banks of the canal. We were overtaken by a nce man with a dog who chatted with us for a while. He told us that the cafe at Haigh Hall was open for takeaways. ...

With the weather looking unpromising, we decided to return to the Leeds-Liverpool Canal and walk from Wigan in the opposite direction. We parked in Wigan. It started raining almost as soon as we left the car and never stopped. We went to Gregg's for a breakfast bap. We noticed that a number of shops which did not appear to meet the definition of essential were still open. After eating our snack in Witherspoons' doorway wse made our way back to the pier. The canal area has been well landscaped going in this direction particularly around Trencherfield Mill and Wigan Dry Dock. Much of this stretch is attractively rural although the constant rain made it hard top appreciate the scenery. Even so there were a lot of other people using the towpath and a few fishermen. Early on, I commented on the lack of barges on this section. The reason soon ...

This was my choice. We set out to do another walk in Calderdale but the day looked so unpromising we made a last minute decision to opt for another towpath walk instead. We drove to Parbold and parked up near the station. We then went to the Parbold Deli where Simon had a bacon and sausage butty and I had cheese on toast. We then returned to the point where we left the towpath last time. Here the towpath switches sides though there is a path for quite a while on the other bank which was a little confusing. Here we met up with a nice family and walked with them for the first half mile or so. We passed a dog training centre called Paws of Parbold. This section of towpath is quite pretty and rural. We passed a high bird's house. We came to a pair of stone fish where we had our snack stop Soon after we came to the bridge...

Simon was suffering from neck pains on Saturday so we had to postpone the trip to Sunday. Obviously, we also had to contend with the new national lockdown conditions severely restricting our choices. In the end we decided to do a bit of work on our new video project "All The Castles" inspired by the youtube channel "All The Stations". We chose Hapton Castle because it was near knowing in advance that there wasn't much to see. We stopped to get some batteries at a garage near Ramsvbottom and bought some cakes from Gregg's. We parked up at Hapton Recreation Ground. We walked through a playpark where Simon had a few gos on the zip wire. We then moved on to the castle.This is close by but access is questionable as it's in a separate field. However, there was a gap in the boundary wall of the football pitch and the...

With  the  weather  being  awful, I  chose  Wigan  Museum  as  our  destination  for  this  weekend. We  stopped  for  petrol  on  the  way. We  went  to  Gregg's  in  Wigan  for  a  breakfast  bap   before  going  down  to  the  museum. This  being  Wigan,  there  was  a  special  exhibition  on  the  miners'  strike.   There  were  also  exhibits  about  gay  pride  and  Black  Lives  Matter  which  made  the  political  inclinations  of  the  curators  pretty  clear. Simon  was  more  excited  about  the  wax  cylinder  in  the  music  display. There  was  a  small  Egyptology...