Down By The Riverside

I've got 30 minutes before "A Passionate Woman part 2" is shown on the BBC and I don't want to miss it, so I'll try to be quick.

After what I said in my previous post, the photographs in todays post were taken on Thursday. I spent Friday and Saturday working on the computer but on Thursday, Jasper and I had a good walk. We set off towards Broadbottom again, following Hague Road, as we have done before. Today, though, I didn't want to go all the way to Broadbottom because it seemed like a long way, I didn't want to struggle back home along a different and quite difficult path and I didn't have any money with me. If I had I would have walked to Broadbottom and taken the train home.

So we went halfway and I saw a Public Footpath sign to Woolley Bridge, which is a mile from home. A new path, a new adventure. So I took it. About a third of a mile along I was pointed over a stile and into a wood with a tributary of the River Etherow running through it. At first it was easy going, but it got steadily worse. Lots of little bits of water running down the steep hillside had turned stretches of path into almost liquid mud. Ground that looked flat and solid under a coating of last Autumn's leaves turned out to be soft and clingy mud under a thick coating of last Autumn's leaves. At times I was quite worried because my left knee is still not terribly strong and I was worried about slipping and hurting myself. Still, I had my walking pole with me, and my mobile phone (though God alone knows how anyone would have got to me if I had really hurt myself.

Still, we persevered, Jasper and me. Some of the mud must have had some rusty iron in it because he scrambled through one patch of mud and came out of it the colour of saffron. Eventually, we got out of that marsh bit. I had to climb a wall to get back onto solid footing, then lift Jasper up and over the wall as it was just a bit too high for him to jump. But he enjoyed it very much, as did I. It was very, very quiet, with just bird song for company. Lots of farm fields, but no animals despite the lovely weather. Don't seem to be many farm animals about anywhere in the valley this year. That is probably a telling statement. We were back home by 1 pm, Jasper had a shower in the garden with the hose pipe, which he hated, and I took my boots off and put my feet up for an hour.

Here are some photographs of things I saw along the way.

This picture shows the stream through the woodland. You can see the carpet of Autumn leaves. The ground along the river bank looks solid, but it was deceiving and very muddy.

A bit further on there was a rather nice bridge over the Etherow and I just thought that this view down the stream was pretty neat. Look at the sunshine on the branches and the blue sky reflected in the water.

I saw these huge fungii growing off one of the branches of an old tree. Maybe the tree was dead, but I don't know. The fungii looked like plates, or flying saucers, growing out of the side of the tree. Fascinating.

And right in the middle of the wood we found a rather strange little stone build box with two windows looking totally unused. Just outside was a small bridge (on the right of the picture) and a strange iron pipe. Inside the building (the picture didn't work) was some more iron work. maybe at one time this was part of some sort of pump. Who knows.

Anyway, it was a hard but enjoyable walk on a beautiful day. Let us just hope that we have many more such days this year.

Until we meet again, sweet dreams. Jasper says "woof" and I'll leave you to work out what he means, but he had two very good runs today so he is probably dreaming of rabbits that run fast, just fast enough to chase.