Rowan and friend

Here is Rowan with Oscar, John and Katy's dog. Friends for life.

Heritage Ride 15

Another beautiful day. I cycle off from the overly attentive / needy B&B lady and head past the station to Sandside. The siding at Arnside station was used by the Queen in the Royal Train for an overnight stop en-route to the launch of a tanker from the shipyards at Barrow when I was at school there. We were all marched to the station to watch her emerge from her siding and head off to Barrow. It was hardly top secret, not likely to be replicated in today's climate.

I cycle on a backroad to Levens Bridge then take a new Sustrans route to Grange. It is a great pleasure to be on these routes, one of the good things to have happened in the last 20 years. Grange today is as full of older folk as ever, I head towards Cartmel. I pass the Quaker Meeting house. We went here with Pete and Sarah 18 years ago. We were welcomed with such gusto [“we never have visitors, and never young ones!”] that we feared we might be kidnapped.

Heritage Ride 14

I pass Arnside Tower then arrive in Arnside and get a posh “boutique” B&B on the front, three doors down from my prep school where I was from 8 to 13. The view across the estuary to the lakes is still exactly the same – nothing has changed. The grounds of the school [long,long since shut], where we used to play, are now a nature reserve that you can walk around. It is a strange feeling, the paths in the woods are just as I remember them over 40 years ago, really weird. I talk to a couple from Preston. Quite emotional

Heritage Ride 13

The road to Cockerham runs parallel to Pilling Sands, a great area of salt marsh and sand for seeing flocks of waders. When I was at school a teacher brought me and a friend here to watch the Knots and Dunlins in wave after wave as the tide came in. I have never forgotten the experience. Near Glasson Dock I pick up the old railway line that is now a Sustrans route into Lancaster. I discover the Cafe de Lune cyclists cafe and follow the route through the town before picking up the Lancaster canal again as it heads north. It is a lovely contouring route above Hest Bank and Morecambe Bay. I come to Carnforth, where a friend and I had a ride in a Diesel cab when I was about 11 courtesy of our French teacher who was ex-British Rail. The route leaves the canal and heads on back roads to Silverdale. The limestone hills that hang like a collar to the south of the lakes are usually overlooked, they cannot compete for grandeur or majesty with the mountains of the lakes, but I love them. They are to the Lakes what the Wolds are to the Dales – less dramatic, less visited, very evocative

Sun Farm

On the old air-field in Ro & Pete's village a Windfarm was nimbyed out of town, to be replaced by this sun farm which is being installed over 300 acres. Impressive.

NRM

Each time Rowan wants to go to the National Railway Museum here in York I always imagine it could be the last time she wants to. Sad but true. It has not come to that yet, so we had a nice time today looking around. We found this small engine at the back of the museum.

London 3

South Bank

We ended up on the South Bank, having tea at Wagamamas outside in the sun. I saw this image and liked it - had to wait until a graduating student made it up the stairs to provide the unusual head profile. Pretty pleased with it.

London 2

When I moved to Tottenham 27 years ago, the Broadwater Farm riots had taken place the year before. As a result quite a bit of money was put into the area [the estate was half a mile from my house]. One of the initiatives was the planting of a "wood" in a park. I remember thinking how unlikely it was that the saplings would survive, let alone grow into a wood. Now, all those years later it is indeed a beautiful and relatively cared for wood. A great achievement.

London 1

Dunbar Road

Last week Rowan and I went down to London for the day. She wanted to see the house we lived in when she was born, where I lived in Tottenham etc. It was a lovely day and we had a great time walking around. Here she is outside of Dunbar Road - our minimalist front garden has been replaced by a jungle and double glazing has arrived but it still looks like our house.

Pub

The pub in Ro & Pete's village has been re-opened and seems a great success. We ate out there on Friday evening. Here are the women of the party on their way back from the pub - you can probably tell.

Latitude

Just back from Suffolk where we combined seeing my Mother at my sister's with going to the Latitude Festival where we met up with Mark and Mandy. The festival was brilliant. We saw lots of stuff - Rowan and Danielle watched some comedy, I saw Charles Bradley [great soul singer], a band from Mali playing traditional instruments through wah-wah pedals [brilliant], Daughter [a really good doomy band] and Bo Ningen [a Japanese guitar drone, racket, crazy band] and we all came together to see Kraftwerk.

Mark, Mandy, Danielle

Heritage Ride 12

I pause at Gynn Square [I vaguely remember a drunken charity bed-push here when I was at school] then carry on past the castle like Norbreck Hotel to Rossall where I was at boarding school aged 13 to 17. Looking at it again makes me shudder.

I hasten on to Fleetwood, where a nice old lady who kept coal in her sprouts was subjected to “community care” from me and a friend when I was at school; it was our escape from playing soldiers in the cadets. I take the foot ferry across the Wyre to Knott End. There are two other groups of cyclists so I have a good chat with them.

The Sea Front at Rossall

Heritage Ride 11

Blackpool

So to Blackpool. South shore has been regenerated quite nicely; still tacky though. The old green and white trams have been replaced by modern bland ones that lack the character. You can now cycle the whole way along the front to Fleetwood, 10 miles or so. It is a great day to do so; sunny but not too busy, a real fresh feel to the day. I pass the three piers, Talbot Square where we once had to wait outside Yates Wine Lodge whilst mother and gran had a drink. Beyond North Pier the lottery-funded regeneration vibe gives way to an altogether older style which I like.

Wales

I was working in South Wales last week with a new client and a new colleague - both were a pleasure to work with. This is Neath castle.
I take the train via Manchester and the line down through the borders [Ludlow, Hereford etc]. It is a beautiful line - but slow.

School Games

Rowan has been selected to represent the North East of England [Yorkshire, Tyneside, Teeside, Lincoln etc] in the 2013 School Games in September http://www.2013schoolgames.com/home.php It is like a mini Olympics with an opening ceremony, athletes village etc. She is delighted, and jumped a new best height in training on Saturday to celebrate.

Here she is by her bedroom door that she has recently "decorated" with numbers from her various athletic events over the years.

The Heritage Ride 10

Lytham Green

I come to Lytham. The docks are now a residential development, the bread factory is now a converted office [disused] but the green is the same as it ever was; lovely and uninterrupted. Lytham has neither dunes [unlike St Annes] nor beach [unlike Blackpool] just salt marsh and mud, but I like it best – always did. The windmill is still there, and now open to the public. At St Annes I see the rock gardens that I used to love. I see the Pier amusement arcade where gran took me one day; she did a fine job of pretending to enjoy it.

The Heritage Ride 9

Day 2

Day two broke sunny and lovely. Back into Preston down the old tram road then steeply up through Avenham Park past Bank Parade where my gran used to live, and Winkley Square where my father's office was. I pass the record shop [long gone] where we would queue for the latest Beatles singles, the marvellous covered market and St Walburge church with its steeple, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_St._Walburge,_Preston, the highest of any parish church in England, then reach the start of the Lancaster Canal which I follow towards Kirkham. I see a Tern, one of the most beautiful of birds, flitting above the water.

The Heritage Ride 8

The Old Tram Way

I cycle down to the Ribble and through the majestic Avenham Park before crossing on the old Tram Bridge. This was a favourite place that my father would bring us to walk. The tramway connected the Leeds and Liverpool canal with the Lancaster canal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancaster_Canal_Tramroad . It is now a great cycle track heading south from the town which connects with another cycle track through CuCuerden valley that takes me to Whittle le Woods. A beautiful evening, so I cycle up the hill to Brindle where my mother was raised when my grandfather was vicar of the parish. Brindle is a lovely little village on the edge of the Pennine hills. Finally get to my hotel which does what I need it to do – wash, eat, sleep.

Summer

Rowan was off to a bbq / sleepover at a friends yesterday. Here she is ready to go. The weather has been unbelievably beautiful over the last week. Real summer. A bit hot for the dog though.

The Heritage Ride 7

I take back roads through the fertile wealthy lands of Hesketh Bank and Tarleton. When I was young in Preston my mother tried to encourage a friendship between me and neighbour Simon Booth who was heir to Booths grocers [big around these parts]. The friendship never blossomed but Booths obviously did as I enjoy an Americano in a swish Waitrose-esque supermarket. I cycle on through Longton and pause in Penwortham where we used to live. Whitefriars, our old house, is one of the few things from the past that actually looks bigger than I remember it. A magnificent Victorian pile that is now a heavily guarded nursery.

Whitefriars

English Schools Two

We stayed with some friends of Danielle, Bill and Tania, who live near Stoke. Their son had also competed at English Schools in the past, so they understood the event etc. We had a great time with them.
The photo shows Rowan clearing the bar and landing on the mat advertising the diamond league [the world league for athletics - Mo Farrah etc] that had been on the same track the week before.

English Schools

Rowan was competing this weekend at the national English Schools Athletics Championships. This is like the national championships and the main focus of the season for young athletes. She was jumping for North Yorkshire in the intermediate girls high jump. This is a two year age-group and she is in the lower end of it, so it was a tough group.

She jumped very well, equalled her personal best [1metre 65] and came 8th overall - a really good result.

The Heritage Ride 6

I pass some other cycle tourists using the Sustrans network then carry on the old railway line to Southport, via the lovely wooded dunes at Ainsdale. The contrast between the fertile farmland of the plain to the barren but welcoming dunes is stark.

There is more contrast down the road as the natural dunes give way to the concrete of the pleasure park. This was the fun fair that Rosemary and I were first taken to. I remember candy floss, the house of fun and the helter skelter. Rather disconcertingly they all seem to be still there. Even the go-kart track that I loved; it is still there.

There is something odd as I look out past the pier – I can see the sea. My memory of Southport sands was that the sea was never seen. Must be climate change.

North of Southport the sands are replaced by salt marsh, with Blackpool in view across the estuary.

Southport Pier

The Heritage Ride 5

Once at Aintree the route skirts the race-course, leaves the line and runs along the Leeds & Liverpool canal for a short while. When I was at Liverpool finding a quiet bit of the canal to revise by in the hot summer sun was something I did each year; there is something about the stillness of a canal on a hot day that I love, especially on the fertile Lancashire plain.

My first bike tour was along this canal. Borrowing girlfriends father's bike [very old, 3 gears, very heavy] and totally unprepared [no tool kit, no tent, not much money, not a clue] I set off one day from Liverpool following the canal tow-path on its 90 odd miles to Leeds. Back in the day the tow-path was far less welcoming to cyclists than it is now. There was little in the way of a surfaced path, and around Blackburn and Burnley I was having to hoik the heavy bike over barbed gates and barriers. By the time I got to Parbold, I had broken the chain, found a garage, got it fixed and carried on to sleep in a field above Blackburn. Feeling good I cycled over the summit tunnel near Barnoldswick and then got a puncture at Skipton. No spares, no knowledge. My course of action? Ring girlfriend's mother for a lift to Ilkley. Pathetic but true. Nevertheless I was bitten by the cycle touring bug and I have never been cured.

The cycle track across the Lancashire Plain

Produce News

The gooseberries have been good so far, tomatoes are coming on stream, spinach, cabbage, courgettes lettuce all producing. The chillis just keep on keeping on. So far it has been a good year for the garden. Plenty of time for it to all change but so far so good.

The Heritage Ride 4

Liverpool Loop Line Cycleway

I pushed on through suburban Liverpool to join the Sustrans route that runs along the old Liverpool Loop Line. This was a railway that looped around the city to the east. The fact that it was ripped up by Beeching was very short sighted [it would make a brilliant rapid transit route nowadays] but on the plus side it does make a great cycle route. I had not ridden on it before; when I was in Liverpool it would have been a series of forbidden and dodgy cuttings and embankments. It cuts from neighbourhood to neighbourhood as it works its way North and West. From leafy Childwall to blood-stained Norris Green it is a journey through a segmented city. At one stage it looked like I might have to pay “admission” to an impromptu substance abuse day centre on one of the bridges but I negotiated a way through.

The contrast between the “say hello to everyone” culture of York and the grim faced mistrust of Merseyside was noticeable. 

The Heritage Ride 3

Princes Park and Sefton Park are lovely examples of Victorian municipal munificence, big and bold. They have definitely seen better days, but they are both being slowly regenerated with bits and pieces of Lottery funding.

I am not sure if the regeneration is even fast enough to hold off the decay, but it is better than doing nothing. This is the Palm House in Sefton Park which is free and impressive, and can give Kew a run for its money.

In 1977 the Milk Race bike race had a stage here. I was living in Carnatic Halls of Residence just up the road so we popped down to watch. I had not a clue about cycle racing and could not work out what was going on; just that a big Russian bloke won and the British riders were not very good. Times have changed.

I rode up past Carnatic and down Penny Lane, past where Penny Lane Records used to be where I bought the first Buzzcocks single, to Cassville Road where I lived in a house with Andy, Katie and others – still in touch with them too. The smart streets seem little changed, although the Woolies has gone, and a pub has been opened in this previously dry area.

Le Tour Commence

The Tour de France started at the weekend. Always a day of great excitement. Even Google have caught on this year. I love this logo.