Clarke Chronicler's Resurrection

For various reasons relating to transport and weather, this week's trip was postponed to Wednesday. It was my choice and I opted for another stage of the canal walk. We bought Wayfarer tickets as the cheapest way of making the transport work. Our first train was to Bolton. Some lads on the train were sniggering at us so we gave them the finger when we got off. We had a twenty minute wait for a train to Wigan. When we got off, we had 35 minutes wait for a bus to Red Rock. We went to Gregg's and bought some food which we ate in the bus station. It was arond 12.30pm by the time we got back to the canal at Red Rock. The sun was now out, making things much more pleasant. There was a thin layer of ice on the canal and along came a barge to break it. Further on, a sole swan came up to us looking for food. The views got better as we w...

The trip was moved to Sunday due to the early kick-off of the Rochdale game. Simon chose to visit another castle to make a video. First though, we had to re-visit Clitheroe to exchange a faulty CD from the week before. We called at the corner shop in Stubbins for some breakfast. After we'd parked up, Simon made a quick nostalgic visit to the little playpark we'd been to in previous years. The guy at the record shop was fine with us making an exchange. We then returned to the car and drove to Garstang. By this time, it was lunchtime and we went looking for something to eat. Simon's now at an age where lingerie shops are interesting ! We found a cafe which was doing takeaways so we bought some lunch there ( a bit pricey ) and took it back to the car to eat. We were then ready to set off on our walk to the castle. Our ...

With heavy rain predicted for the Wigan area, I went for the bad weather option of Clitheroe. We went by train. Simon swa his friend Lily May on the opposite platform with her mum and a friend. We first had a look round the Platform Gallery where I asked for directions to the Post Office. There I managed to send a parcel out. We then did a bit of shopping on the high street going in a bookshop and a record shop where we bought some CDs. As it was nearing lunchtime, we looked around for some take-out options. There weren't that many. We eventually settled on Toasted sandwiches from Costa. The service wasn't that great. We ate our food out of the rain under the archway of a closed pub. There was a female Santa not attracting much custom in the car park. Simon had a word with her. We then headed for the castle , the main purpose ...

With the shops re-opening, Simon chose to go to Manchester this week. We took the train to Manchester Victoria. We got some breakfast at the Gregg's on the station. Simon noticed the tiled railway map on the wall. We had a look at the Irwell then movved on to Waterstone's. Simon couldn't find the Manga book he wanted but I bought the Steve Morris memoir. We moved on to HMV. Simon bought a Gorillaz CD and I bought a Morrissey CD We then took a tram to Piccadilly looking for something to eat. We settled on Archie's and took our food to the station seats to eat. We then took the tram to Victoria. I noted the queue of vultures waiting to get into Debenhams as the tram went past. We had a half hour wait for the train so we went to the little park area outside Orbis just to take our masks off. Simon had a play on the ...

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...