Freaks in the Peaks 8–10th July 2016

8^th -10^th July 2016

Venue:
Lymm Youth & Community Centre
11, Bridgewater Street, Lymm, Cheshire WA13 0AB
OS: SJ682873
Link to Streetmap

Lymm is a picturesque Cheshire village situated 5 miles East of Warrington. It offers some superb dancing venues, pubs serving very decent beer (and food!), a microbrewery and brewery tap, teashops, a chippy and loads of eating places. If you’re lucky you might spot Sooty & Sweep!
Visit Lymm.com to find out more!
If you look REALLY hard there’s an arrow in the centre of the maps below that indicates the location of the venue.








PUBLIC TRANSPORT LINKS:
Lymm is served with regular buses from Altrincham and Warrington. Timetables can be viewed here. Altrincham and Warrington have main railway stations

ACCESS BY ROAD:

Lymm is easily accessible by road, it’s less than 2 miles from M6 Junction 20.


 

ACCOMMODATION:

Indoor camping at the venue: Lymm Youth & Community Centre
The car park adjacent to the Community Centre may <koff!> be very suitable for campervans.
Campsite, 3.5 miles from Lymm: Hollybank Caravan Park
Ibis Hotel adjacent to M6 Junction 20
Lymm Hotel close to the centre of the village
Other hotels can be viewed here
The Bridgewater Canal passes within yards of the Community Centre, overnight mooring is popular.

ABOUT THE VENUE:

Lymm Youth and Community Centre is a modern building that offers everything needed for a Freaks weekend…..apart from pans in the kitchens!
Details of the venue can be found on the centre’s website.
 

Freaks in the Peaks, Lymm 2016

Friday Evening:
Meet at the Centre or at the Spread Eagle pub (100 yards from the Community Centre) for chat, music, singing.

Saturday:
Breakfast (do your own or the very excellent Saxton’s Teashop)
10am: Dance Workshop
1pm: Lunch
4pm: Saxton’s Teashop for tea & buns, or one of the very excellent pubs in the village for something stronger
Evening: communal meal followed by ceilidh.

Sunday:
Breakfast
10am: Walking dance tour. This is an easy walk that takes in the prettiest and interesting parts of the immediate area: Lymm Dam, Bridgewater Canal, Lymm Cross, The TransPennine Trail etc.
Late lunch at the Spread Eagle
4pm: Back to the Community Centre to clean up, lock up and go home.

There are local Morris sides, we hope that at least some of their dancers will come and join in the fun.
Bollin Morris
Thelwall Morris and Lymm Morris
Earl of Stamford Morris

MORE DETAILS TO FOLLOW VERY SHORTLY!

….and if you’ve got this far and you’re wondering what on earth this is all about, check out the Freaks in the Peaks website

Tractor Porn

AlanR, of 'A Blog on the Landscape' fame, really appreciates this sort of thing.
He'll be along shortly to identify each and everyone of these beauties, snapped at the recent Dunham May Queen ceremony.

Timperley Sunset….

…and brain-straightening

Yesterday’s late evening walk featured loads of midgies (not the biting kind) and whole squadrons of bats and swallows, all eager to enjoy an in-flight meal.

There was a nice sunset too.

St Georges Pool

From the Packet House road bridge

Only a short one last night: 5 miles / 8460 steps in 1hr 40m

Steps

Since having to bail out of this year’s TGO Challenge (due to family health reasons and other stuff) I’ve been out walking most days – well mainly evenings actually. The walks have all been local and of between 5 and 10 miles at a reasonably brisk pace.

I’ve just totted up my mileage for these local walks; since returning from the Challenge (ten days ago) I’ve walked 77 miles = 125,714 steps….for those wot are interested.

The walks have been pleasant diversions to other stuff: Apart from unusually high levels of grief, PLUS family health issues etc, I’ve been working hard to make one of my flats habitable. Walks, as most walkers know, are great for straightening the head as well as good exercise.

The easiest way out of suburbia from here is via the Duke’s Cut where it’s possible to walk north into Manchester or south-west towards Warrington. This makes it my most frequently used escape route.

Yesterday evening’s little walk was augmented by Sue & Martin and Long Suffering Rick – who was taking a break from a hectic weekend of dance at Chester Folk Festival.

The idea was mine, the route was Rick’s. Much of it was over ground we’d covered before although there was some ground not at all familiar to me – surprising, considering how close it is to home.

Briefly, our route followed the canal towpath towards Dunham, a wander along the footpaths of Dunham’s golf course, some quiet paths and roads into and through Altrincham, across Alltrincham golf course (where the local yoof were taking full advantage of the lack of golfers….we were all 14 once. I think)

Here’s (approximately) where we went:

7.5 miles of absolute flatness:

This route may not be entirely accurate, I’m a little unclear as to how we crossed Dunham’s golf course.

Evenings at this time of year offer great levels of light for photography. I took some snaps of the old Linotype & Machinery factory in Broadheath.

These first two were taken with my soon to be replaced Lumix DMC-SZ3 on a cloudy evening last week:

 

The second two were taken yesterday evening using my Samsung S3 Mini camera-phone thingy:

It seems that the L&M factory, quite a local landmark and once the employer of thousands, is being redeveloped to provide yet more housing. How things change.

It’s going to create traffic mayem, there’s no sign of any improvement to the local infrastucture. Oh well. 

Anyroadup, we had a lovely little walk and managed to catch up with all the scandal etc. This evening I may take the bike out – just for a change. I need the exercise.

Dog Falls video

I tried to load a video of Dog Falls on my last posting but Open Live Writer wasn’t playing – I couldn’t even edit that posting.

Hopefully this will work

I tried to embed the video but gave up….for now.