Clarke Chronicler's Resurrection

 With  the next  section of  the Bridgewater Canal off  limits for a while,  I  chose to begin  a  walk  along the  Calder and  Hebble  canal towpath despite an unpromising weather forecast. we drove to Todmorden and went to Mass there. We then caught  the  train to Sowerby Bridge. It  started  raining as soon as we left the station  but fortunately had slackened off a bit  by the time we reached the canl basin where the Calder and Hebble starts. This  is the actual starting point  of the canal. Once out of Sowerby Bridge, the  whole stretch was pleasantly  wooded. Once past Copley, the rain steadily increased and we had a lot of waiting under bridges. I wanted to get to Elland at least but promised Simon we could have lunch at the pub at Salterhebble then abort the walk if it was still wet. True  to my  word, we  went  to  the  Water Mill pub ...

 Simon opted to use  his trip  to watch Rochdale's  first  pre-season  friendly away  to  FC  United  who  now play at a new grund in Moston. It  was  a  sweltering  hot  day. We met a work colleague and  his  partner at the station who were  going to see Oasis at  Heaton Park. Our  train  went  straight through to Moston, It  wasn't  a  particularly long  walk to the  ground  but  long  enough in that heat. when we got there , we stayed in the air-conditioned bar until just before kick off when we took seats in the main stand. Happily. it was the side of the ground in the shade. Rochdale fielded most of their new signings and some  trialists and changed the team round at half time. The guy sat  in  front  of  us looked  familiar and  it was later confirmed that it was indeed former England internati...

 This was Julie taking over our schedule and  kidnapping us to The Castle Inn at Bassenthwaite for  the weekend. We  drove up there on Friday evening.and. we settled ourselves in the room. On the Saturday we drove to Cockermouth to make a video about  the Castle. I  thought we might be able to get closer than is normally possible because there was a band concert in the courtyard that afternoon. When we  got  there  there were  members of the public coming in and out  and  a  food  van was already  operating so  after  filming an  intro on the entrance path we went in and tried to film as unobtrusively as posible although I did ask one of the event stewards if we could film on the lawn. He  said yes but as we were leaving, Simon was approached by a man who I rightly guessed to be Lord Egremont , the owner of the castle. He politely asked to see what we'd filmed and  eventually agreed there...

 I was too ill to do anything the week before but was well  enough to choose a continuation of  our  station-to-station walk. We invited our friend  Philip along for this one. We picked up some provisions from Tesco in Bury then drove on to Rochdale, picking up Philip from his house. We then drove to Denshaw, parking on a reidential street. We  started following what is the Tame Valley Way - though it's not very well waymarked- alongside  the  infant river Tame towards Delph. The scenery in the flood plain was very pleasant   There  was  a  steep  pull  out  of  the  valley at Linfitts but compensation in a stunning view  over  Delph to  Castleshaw  and  Millstone Edge. After that, we were ready for some lunch  at  the  Albion Farm tea room. I  made  the  wrong  selection from  the menu but Simon  and  Philip were happy  wit...

 It  won't surprise you to know  this  weekend  was  for Simon, a long-promised treat. We  booked  a  hotel in  Longton, right in the town centre. We  set  off on Friday evening having  KFC at  Knutsford on the way. The  hotel was a bit  basic but clean enough. In  the  morning, we went out early. looking for a Wetherspoons for  breakfast. We  got directions to it from two different  people before confirmation that  there wasn't one at all. We  ended up at a cafe in the market place which was quite frankly rubbish. The whole town centre is a mess. After getting back to the hotel we drove to Alton Towers  arriving  there around ten o clock. We took the monorail from the  car park to the ticket office. I might  get the exact order of  events wrong  here but I think Simon first went on the Wicker Man ride  while  I  waited ( a long ...