Out and about in Cheshire

Its funny. I spend so much time thinking about where to go and then sitting on trains getting there. On Sunday however I sat on my doorstep, put on my stout walking boots, stood up and started to walk. I know that it takes about 40 minutes to get to The Hollies Farm shop, on Tarporley Road, with my son in toe(farm shop makes it sound all crunky and dirty but the hollies is far from that its slick, expensive but full of good stuff). I decided to set a task of getting there in under 30 minutes. With the promise to myself that I could have cake if I got there in time I trotted along at a pace and got to the cafe counter, puffing and blowing in 25 minutes. Coffee and walnut cake as I read my book. Now I know that this project is about starvation diet and resisting things but on this one I don't feel guilty. Its good cake, made of good things in a place I had worked a bit to get to. It wasn't just a whim or giving in to temptation. I also never thought I would say this about cake servings but the pieces here are too big, before no cake was big enough to foil me. This time I left a bit. My next mission was to get to the bookstore on Chester Road. Its another wonderful place. Full of really unusual discount books, better than any trip to the works. I found a road that cuts diagnally to my destination, through some forest, Hogshead road if you want to follow my footsteps(pictured above). There were hardly any cars so I got into my element singing and dancing my way along to Stevie Wonder's greatest hits and came out just yards from the bookshop. I bought a few too many books, that wasn't the plan for my low carbon day but they were on craft and eco design. Walking back with a back pack full of books was strangely satisfying. Finding another quite road which I had not been down before was another part of the adventure, Stoneford Lane. It goes past a little path, just before the railway. This is a path we have trodden before. It leads to a picnic bench along Whitegate way. Sometimes the path is overgrown and leads through prickly undergrowth but on Sunday it was well cut back. On the picnic bench I sat and read a book. It was like being in a very open plan office. I had a conversation with a little robin who kept sneeking up on me really noisely. He was a rubbish sneeker but a good listener . As I left I thanked him for listening I aknowledged that he probably couldn't understand a word I was saying but then most people couldn't understand me either. It struck me that as long as you wern't after answers talking to a small red breasted bird might be just as valid as talking to a human. The rest of the route home took me over old ground, past where the pigs used to live and dissapeared from a while ago, I'm not sure where they went, maybe they moved house. I ran up the hill, not sure why, think I felt like I was in the army. Not sure that soldiers run up hills carrying their weight in craft books but let me tell you they should. It would get then up to speed in no time and they could throw together a charming thankyou card and an angora shrug when they reach the sumit of some enemy hillside. So it was that I ended up back at the end of my street, 4 hours later and an awful lot happier.

At 3 hours walking at 5.63 Km/hour its about 828 calories burnt. That's without figuring in the books carried and the mad run up the hill. That's the cake and the coffee seen off then.