Thursday 4th October, Dunham Big Tree

Not the rather good beer produced by The Dunham Massey Brewery but a walk starting from Dunham’s Big Tree.

An email from Rick popped into my Inbox this morning as I was luxuriating over a freshly brewed mug of coffee and plotting my day’s activities. Would I like to go for a walk? He promised good weather (okay, so I’m gullible) and a short walk. The Plan was to recce part of the route that Rick had plotted for an East Lancs LDWA 15 mile walk, set for 5th December, entitled ‘Out on a Lymm’….it’s from Lymm y’see. Rick’s clever with words.

We drove to Dunham’s Big Tree which is a bit old. In fact the trunk is filled with concrete and there are various bits of metalwork holding the poor thing up. Without these aids to verticality (is that a real word?) the tree would have fallen down long ago.

Setting off at around 1020 – 10.30am we walked south through Dunham Park and out the other side, passing the (not yet open) Swan with Two Nicks….that just happens to sell Big Tree Bitter, amongst other good cask beers.

The Bridgewater Canal – A.K.A. The Duke’s Cut

Gaining the Bridgewater Canal towpath we walked towards Lymm, passing the rather dilapidated building that Rick tells me was once the hospital for canal horses.

Like I said, I’m gullible.

The former hospital for canal horses. Honest.

Actually it’s true, the place was indeed a horse hospital - probably doing a profitable side-line in glue. It’s difficult to imagine how horses would have been brought into the building, there isn’t a towpath on that side of the cut. They would have had to go under the canal using the road bridge in order to get in.

We followed the route the poorly horses would have taken, and followed the road south, then walked west to walk south on Oughtrington Lane. Passing St Peters Church we once again head west.

Those paying attention will have noticed that EAST doesn’t appear just yet. Patience, it will.

This dynamic duo then left the road and headed west-ish (which still isn’t east) in the direction of Lymm. entering the eastern (see!) outskirts of Lymm, a bit of leftery and rightery had us on Mill Lane in Heatley. It would have been rude not to pay homage to the site of the Railway Hotel that mysteriously burned down in the early hours of 2nd November 2011. Of course we dutifully paid our respects. How fortunate that a JCB was just around the corner when this happened, it completed the job of demolishing what was left of this once excellent listed building.

What incredibly good fortune. For the property developers.

The Railway before it was finally flattened.

(Photo nicked from Bernard’s Lymm Folk Club website)

Time for some eastwards travel at last, now along the Transpennine Trail.

Rick, ahead of me as usual, walking towards the River Bollin bridge 

The sun had shone all morning although the air was cool. We enjoyed a quick coffee whilst sitting on the River Bollin bridge where we plotted a bicycle ride to Liverpool along the Transpennine Trail. The return journey will be by train….we’re not THAT daft!

Leaving the T.P.T. just to the north of Dunham Town we were delighted to see that a ceilidh was being advertised, to be held in the village hall on 13th October. I hear the band are very good. And they have a very good caller. And tickets are available.

I think you should all go. It will be good. After all, the band is ‘famed’. It says so on the poster so it must be true. It IS true.

Back at the car we were quite satisfied that the recce had been a success. We half-knew where we were going to go on the day of the walk, the sun shone, and I didn’t go for a run. Result!

We were out for around 3 hours and walked 14.9km, near as dammit 9 miles, with 80 metres of up and downery.

Who said Cheshire was flat?

Thanks to Rick for the invite, it was good. I just need to squeeze in a longish run before Saturday and all will be well.

 Where we went. Sort of.

Don’t forget Rick’s walk on the 5th December – oh, and that ceilidh too. The band and caller will be brilliant.

Wednesday 3rd October, A bit of exercise

I’ve been back from my Via de la Plata trip for a few days now. Since returning home nearly all my time has been spent catching up with various administration duties and being a carer. Whenever I go on a trip I need to ensure that I have care-cover in place for the the family members I’m responsible for. This certainly makes me appreciate my trips away.

I’m off out for a run this Saturday and feel terribly unfit – even though I’ve just walked around 200km in Spain. I tend to work by the axiom: Train for walking by walking, for cycling by cycling, for running by running, and so on.

For those not in the know, the term ‘running’ is very much a generalisation. There’s a huge difference between road running (on the flat, on a hard and solid surface) and cross-country-running – where you can be running on (and through!) virtually any surface imaginable.

It’s cross-country running wot I do. Not very well, and certainly not very quickly….but it’s fun and I enjoy it immensely.

From time-to-time I run with the Cheshire Hash House Harriers (A drinking club with a running problem) but mainly with the very splendid Cheshire Tally-Ho! Hare & Hounds running club. Whilst the Hash run throughout the year, the Tally-Ho! season runs from September until April. Tally-Ho! is a fascinating club with a well documented history going back to the club’s birth in 1872. The club is the second oldest running club in the country, beaten only by Thames Hare & Hounds.There are suspicions that some of the founder members are still running with the club. There aren’t many (any?) young members. 

Tally-Ho! What a fine bunch of, er, athletes. Ahem.

Tally-Ho! usually run around 8 – 10 miles, following a sawdust trail left by the trail-layers. Well what else would you call them, eh? Only the trail-layers (the hares) know the route in advance, it’s up to the runners (the hounds) to keep their eyes open when following the route. This often results in some interesting and varied routes taken by the hounds!

A typical Tally-Ho! route.

Both these clubs are non-competitive. This suits me perfectly. I don’t race. I’ve run various marathons, half-marathons, 10k etc, but I’ve always tended to use a race as a motivator to get / keep fit. Mountain Marathons (KIMMs, OMMs, Saunders etc) are a bit different, ‘going steadily in the right direction’ is the key to a reasonable result. Having said that, there always seem to be 95% of the field who are better than me going steadily…etc. Oh well.

Anyway, back to the exercise thing.

Saturday’s Tally-Ho! run will be around 8-9 miles in the Peak District…..but I haven’t run that sort of distance for a while, and certainly not over hilly ground.

I went for a gently undulating 6 mile run this morning. This went well. Nothing dropped off and it didn’t hurt. Not bad for a man with knackered knees. This afternoon, as part of my caring responsibilities I had to visit my father. I decided to cycle over to see him. It’s not far, a 12-13 mile round trip, but it’s gentle and low impact exercise. Tomorrow I’ll repeat the run, probably extending it by a couple of miles.

As autumn closes in it’s lovely to see the hedgerows filling with berries. Theories abound on the subject of the volume of berries produced. Does a large crop of berries mean we’re going to have a cold winter? Or does it mean the summer’s been very wet? I don’t know, but the berries look nice!

          

I suppose I’d best get on writing up my Via de la Plata trip, it won’t write itself.

Sat & Sun, 15 & 16th September, A Lakes Backpack

 
But not just any Lakes Backpack, this was the Backpackers Club long-awaited Treasure Hunt.
The were a few hurdles to overcome before my weekend could get underway: Dad needed sorting, I had some business to deal with, stuff like that.
Nick, No2 son, was supposed to take part in this event with me but a university friend's wedding got in the way. Margaret, aka Beryl the Peril, stepped into the breach and did a handsome job of entering into the spirit of the event – which is a sort of weekend-long orienteering event....but with knobs on.
The basic plan (Plan?? Ho-ho!) is to navigate around as many predetermined locations as is possible and then when at each of these locations, answer a question. The question is relevant to the location so can only be correctly answered when you visit the spot. Cunning eh?
Oh, and there's a wild camp on the Saturday night.
I collected Margaret from Preston at around 7.45am (the one in the morning) on Saturday and we stormed up the M6 towards the Lake District. At least that was the general idea. Unfortunately the traffic gods were against us...big time: the M6 was closed due to a fatal accident. We should have arrived at Skelwith Bridge around 9am, we didn't actually get there until well past 11am. Not a good way to start a (slightly) competitive event.

Skelwith Bridge in the sunshine

I was a little nervous of competing with Margaret, she's a powerful and very experienced walker….whereas I'm a wuss. I needn't have worried. Margaret was getting over a bad dose of lurgy and consequently I was just about able to keep up with her in her weakened state.

At NY335032: ‘Evidence of an old school?’

We set off from the campsite at around midday and started picking off various checks. Two heads are certainly better than one on this event.

At NY328031: ‘What is special about this tree?’

The weather was glorious and we both really enjoyed navigating the fells and dealing with the questions. A tea shop appeared, well it was a tea garden really.

Tea-shop: bearing 10degE, range 80 metres and closing

Well, it would be rude not to....so we did. A large pot of tea and a couple of freshly baked scones were ordered and demolished as we sat in the warm sunshine. We probably spent the best part of an hour enjoying our break.

Alan take note: this was in danger of turning into a Daunder. You should come next year!

Slater Bridge

Colwith Falls

We trundled through High Colwith, then close to Little Langdale, before heading south through the many disused quarries towards Tilberthwaite.

Searching

We slowly but surely ticked off the checks one by one.  Our late start (and long tea break!) meant that we didn't tick off all the checks we wanted to on Saturday.

Fading light

At 8pm we came to a halt as the light was fading. Searching out a campspot we found a suitably flat spot adjacent to a disused quarry at Low Tilberthwaite, plenty big enough for our two tents. Inside the steep and high walls of the quarry and on it's grassy floor, were half a dozen tents – all fellow treasure hunters. There was insufficient space to fit our tents into the protected enclave so we made do with the grassy patch outside. But we had the better view from our tents:

A mainly dry but quite breezy night followed. The breeze was a bit of a worry because the ground only allowed tent pegs an inch or two into the ground. Sliding the pegs into the ground at a very shallow angle was the only way to hold our tents anything like taught. Fortunately the tents stayed up all night.

The disused quarry at Low Tilberthwaite

Next morning the happy campers awoke to a very light drizzle. Breakfasted, tents down and all packed up, the Treasure Hunters set off to continue their searches for checks.

Packed and ready to roll

Before the rain started in earnest

Margaret and I had A Plan (Ho-ho!) to pick up three fairly high scoring checks close to our overnight pitch. We stashed our packs and set off, unburdened, to navigate our way to the checks and after some faffing, successfully solved the clues.

NY305007: What is found at the end of this short gully? Ans: A cave.

By this time the drizzle had turned to rain -  and it was getting heavier. Two more checks were picked up quite easily, at High Yewdale and up the road at Glen Mary Bridge.

No pies, and it certainly wasn’t sunny!

Over to Tarn Hows and then Knipe Fold had more points successfully collected before we had to head back to base in order to beat the 2pm deadline. Arriving after this time would incur a heavy points penalty. A fruitless struggle to grab one last check very close to the event base, meant we arrived just inside the time allowed – just a minute or two to spare. 
We presented our answers to Colin, the organiser and course-planner of the event. Colin must have spent months putting the Treasure Hunt together, he worked really hard to make it such a success.

 Colin Smith pointing out where Treasure Hunt participants went wrong

Colin presenting the worthy ‘winners’, Bruce & Harry, with their award

It was good to see that Bruce and Harry ‘won’ the event – they are past organisers of the Treasure Hunt and I felt it was fitting they finished ahead of the rest of the field.

 

Some of the checks we used

There were many more checks, these were just the ones we used. I’ve no idea of our mileage or ascent, neither were excessive.

My kit caused me a fairly major problem over the weekend – I got absolutely wet through. The heavy rain on Sunday somehow worked it’s way through my ‘waterproofs’. The relevant kit was my Paramo Velez Adventure Light smock and Berghaus Goretex Paclight overtrousers. In addition to ME getting wet through, some of the contents of my Golite Pinnacle rucksack were soaked, in spite of a waterproof rucksack cover. The problem needs further investigation.
In spite of my sogginess I’d enjoyed myself. I think Margaret did – the other competitors certainly did. Thanks go to Colin Smith of the Backpackers Club for working so hard to put on such a successful event. Oh, and to Margaret too, her navigation skills certainly helped us complete the route efficiently – and having that extra head and extra pair of eyes made all the difference to our end result.
The next morning I was to fly to Madrid (the one in Spain) to walk a section of the Via de la Plata so I needed to get home to pack. The sogginess of my rucksack contents extended to my (paper) Driving Licence….the same Driving Licence I was to need the next day in order to pick up my hire car in Madrid. Oh well…. 

Oh, and that fence....23 nails - the bottom left section was only secured by one nail. Go back and check if you don't believe me!
More pictures are here.

New toy

The purchase of a Panasonic Lumix G3 came about after an increasingly unhappy relationship with a Fuji FinePix S1500 camera which frequently crashed, losing photographs. This is a shame because other than that it’s not a bad camera for the price. Replacement memory cards, new batteries, changing the settings etc didn’t help – the damned thing just wasn’t reliable.

Anyway, the G3 came on offer so I took the plunge and bought one, it’s virtually an SLR without actually being one. So far I’m very pleased with the results – although it’s very early days. First results can be viewed here. Many of the photos on this link are very severely cropped and most are taken without a flash, which is why some will appear grainy.

I’m going to Spain soon to walk a section of the Via de la Plata and I wanted a camera that I could rely on. I rather feel this is the one.

A few features that persuaded me that this was the camera for me: A decent sized image sensor, accepts filters, viewfinder, reasonable battery life, much smaller and lighter than an SLR, very little time-lag taking photos, very fast auto-focus, idiot mode (fully automatic if needed, ie: point and shoot)….and lastly: Ian Cotterill reckons they’re a good buy.

‘Nuff said.

Wednesday 12th September, Getting the aerial up higher

Winter is approaching fast so I’ve been messing about with my aerial system at home.
The aerial is a half-wave dipole for 80m fed with twin feeder. My garden isn’t long enough to squeeze 132’ of wire in a straight line so the ends are folded down. The centre of the dipole was only at about 22’ agl, nowhere near high enough for the system to be an effective radiator. It performed adequately but that’s all.
Time for a re-think. I’ve managed to get the dipole centre up to around 30’, still not high enough but certainly better. This afternoon’s little job is to make a coax balun although the poor weather means it probably won’t get installed today.
The aerial is now certainly a better radiator on 80m & 40m, but receive noise is still a problem. Next door have a noisy TV, it may be plasma…the work of the devil!  Unfortunately my neighbours are unapproachable so I need to deal with the problem on my side of the fence. The RF noise next door’s TV generates makes 80m difficult to use in the evenings. I’ve treated myself to a noise canceller (MFJ1026)but I’ve not tried it out yet, I just hope it works!

MFJ1026 Noise Canceller

This little box works by mixing signals from the main station aerial with signals from a ‘noise’ aerial – an aerial that is aligned to pick up the interfering noise. The phase and level of the interference is then altered by the box in a manner that allows it to cancel out the noise received by the main aerial = much reduced noise. That’s the theory, we’ll see.

My main interest is using low power (2-3 watts) CW (morse) on the 40 and 80m bands. Winter is a good time to play radio, hopefully my tweaked aerial system will pay dividends.
Apart from the noise canceller, my main station will remain unchanged: Yaesu FT817 transceiver fitted with a narrow CW filter, and a Bencher squeeze key. A ‘T’ Match ATU is used to optimise the match between transceiver and aerial system.
        
                        Bencher Key                                                   FT817

My FT817 has a microphone but it’s rarely connected – it just gets in the way!

Bromyard Day 2, Sunday 9th September

 

The previous night’s entertainment had been spectacular – Scottish supergroup Session A9 were tremendous in spite of one of their fiddlers, Adam Sutherland (ANOTHER Sutherland, they seem to do a lot of this musical stuff), being down with a bad cold. TGO Challengers who pass through Ault-na-Goire may well be familiar with the Sutherlands.

Session A9

 

The Copper Family from Rottingdean in Sussex have been singing their songs for generations. They had three generations on stage at one point – their songs are some of the most well-known in the English tradition. Listening to their singing brings me out in goose-bumps! 

The Copper Family

Keith Donnelly’s late night (early morning!) spot meant it was 2am by the time I got to bed. Keith is a favourite of mine – and of the Mrs JJ, she’s normally early to bed, but not when Keith Donnelly’s about. His absolutely insane humour had his audience in stitches, I went to bed with aching sides.

Keith Donnelly

After such a late night I felt justified in having a lie-in on Sunday morning….but even I was surprised to sleep until 9.30am.

The previous day had been extremely hot, with clear blue skies and a strong sun. The clear skies made for a cold night and I was glad to be in my caravan.

I had a hurried breakfast and headed off into town to meet up for another lunchtime music session in the Falcon. The usual suspects had gathered in the bar and the session was in full swing when I arrived:

The Falcon does an excellent Sunday dinner, it’s one of our Bromyard Festival treats. The rest of the time we self-cater so we feel justified in pushing the boat out just this once over the weekend. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I have to leave the session early because the chef goes home at 2pm. Still, it’s a nice treat.

Back on the Festival site the festival was winding down towards the final concert. I have to confess that the line up didn’t float my boat – perhaps I was folked-out. I popped into the concert for a short time then headed over to the beer tent to meet up with some old friends and to listen to the impromptu music session that had sprung into life.

By 11pm I was in bed.

I seem to recall that Bromyard is a sunny festival, hot during the day but cold at night. My journey home on the Monday morning always seems to be in gloomy weather, leaving Bromyard and the summer behind. This year was no exception.

Once at home it was back to parent-caring and trip planning: the Backpackers Club Treasure Hunt (a laid-back orienteering event with an overnight wild-camp) is next weekend, in the Lake District. Then I need to plan my trip to Spain to walk a section of the Via de la Plata.

I really must get my finger out.

More photographs are here.

Bromyard Folk Festival 2012

 

The Falcon, Bromyard

 

Flos’s English Music Session in the Falcon

 

? on fiddle, with Sandy on box – two very competent musicians

Eh?

A Cotswold Morris side on the festival site

Although I dipped into Whitby Folk Festival for three days in August, this year has been very quiet, festival-wise. I normally go to Sidmouth, Dartmoor and Shrewsbury festivals, but other stuff has meant that I've not really been in festival mode this year.

Bromyard Folk Festival is always a 'must' for me and I wasn't going to let other stuff get in the way of this weekend of excellent music, singing, dancing and, er, beer. Bromyard (= Ambridge?) is a lovely village in the heart of the Herefordshire countryside.

I have wonderful warm memories of this delightful village, it has become a special, almost secret, place for me. Being here is wonderful although visits will always be tinged with some sadness.

The weather yesterday was cookingly hot, sadly the beer at Bromyard's Hop Pole was well below par: 3 different brews that were decidedly sub-standard. The beer on the festival site, Wye Valley, more than made up for this short-coming.

Last night's excellent concert, compered by the hilarious Keith Donnelly, consisted of sets by The Askew Sisters, The James Findlay Trio, and the very excellent John Spiers and Jon Boden - front men of folk supergroup Bellowhead.

Much of today, Saturday, has been spent in the bar of the Falcon, playing in the English music sessions run by renowned fiddler, Flos Headford.

I always learn new tunes from Flos, his encyclopedic knowledge of English traditional music is legendary.

The Wye Valley Bitter was as good as ever, and the comfort and warm welcome offered by the Falcon equalled that of my visit earlier this year and previous festivals.

Tonight's plan has yet to be finalised, but will include a shanty session, a ceilidh, a concert and an entertaining hour with Keith Donnelly....although Keith's performance isn't due to kick off until well past midnight.

It will be a good evening

More tomorrow.