Once more to The Moss

Christmas day had been and gone and by now I was roast dinner and mince pied out! I needed to get out into the open air and felt the irresistable pull of the Moss after another successful crossing nine days earlier.

Once again the weather looked set to be kind to me, so it was up and out before 10 a.m. I took a very straight forward route, going from our street to Roe Lane and ultimately onto Moss Lane – no sense in performing yet another tortuous route when ‘The Moss’ was the primary objective. Once on Moss Lane there were a few spots of rain but nothing which took hold and I was minorly elated when I stopped to let an incredibly gorgeous horse rider cross in front of me and she gave me a lovely smile and thank you back, result! In addition another female horse rider left her horse in a paddock and I had a few moments of joy watching it roll around in a mud pool like an elephant on the Savana might do. I wish I’d have got that on video but I have the memory and that’s enough.

Turning onto Wyke Lane now and once the hair-raising corner was out of the way then I was able to relax and take in the scenery. A very well-mannered jogger overtook me and she bade me a good morning upon passing, again I found this very pleasant. The views on and from ‘The Moss’ today were somewhat spectacular for (it has to be said) a pretty much ordinary day. I had never noticed before just how many horses are stabled across the range of the Moss, my guess is there must be a hundred of them and each time I saw one close enough to get a photograph of them…

Also out and about en mass today where the cyclists. These were the serious kind of cyclists though, not just the ones who got their first bike for Christmas like you would see and almost have to swerve to avoid on the 25th of December, these were; more often than not; in groups. I don’t know the collective noun for this phenomena; peloton, pestilence or swarm? Anyway, there was enough of them for me to take up counting their number (and it is a human number of six-hundred-and-sixty-six!) as they often flooded past me and in one case they even had the audacity to be listening to a radio, stillness shattered – tick!

I rounded the single most bumpy corner and caught sight of a really lovely copse / very small forest

and a few moments later some scary corn!

It shouldn’t surprise me to see the odd car, and by odd I mean rare, not zany, as the road is an antonym of a ‘rat run’ in that we drive there to get away from other cars knowing full well that it’s going to add three or four miles on to the journey.  The pay-off is of course that most of the road is designated national speed limit. That means the potential for traffic coming along a very undulating, single-track road at sixty miles per hour! But it’s okay, the people who reach 60 on this road only do it once and then learn very quickly that this should not be done as they mis-time a corner and go barrelling off down the ditch and into a field, trashing their beloved jalope as part of the process! Hence the reason why this on-coming procession (the photo on the left) was hutling towards me with all the speed of a charging slug! ‘The Moss’ (and yes I have now tired of typing that in ‘proper case’, has a section that I like to refer to as ‘the long corner’ – owing to the fact that it has a long corner (and therein lies the reason why I don’t write mysteries!) . I first noticed this on my second crossing (‘because everything is so brand new on the first time that a certain perception bypass occurs!) which was a somewhat icy affair. In essence there is a swing to the right, then a straight stretch of no more than a hundred metres, then a swing to the left – we could have just carried straight on really! It’s not that big of a deal really, unless you are driving a car, then the poor fools seem incapable of traversing this corner without reving the guts out of their respective engines and creating all manner of havoc – you have to see it to fully digest the spectacle. If nothing else then this gives the average walker (with a sense of humour) the chance to overtake cars with frustrated drivers in them.

After traversing the long corner I turned right on to the street that I was meant to take on my last Moss walk – Pool Hey Lane. Again, as you’d expect this is very much a rural road, but it terminates a mile or so later at a junction with the A570, which at most times is the main arterial road of Southport. With this in mind I slowed down as I wanted to make this lovely peace last. Sadly, the Audi hurtling towards me decided that was not in its itinery for the day and I had to swiftly dart to the right so as to avoid the damn thing taking me out! This caused an extremely painful jarring of my ankle – which I have now managed to twist three times in as many months! The sky was already blue, now it was joined by the air as I vented my opinion of this prick! Why is it that all Audi drivers are the most self-entitled, arrogant bunch of ignorant gits on the face of the earth??? Yes, my ankle hurt, a lot. I stayed still for a few seconds wondering whether this was going to abruptly end my walk and would I have to ring for Chris to rescue me (being roughly five miles from home by now). Thankfully I was able to carry on, however, I am really dubious about my ability to walk February’s Amble now as one more twist might just render me immobilised, frigging Audi drivers!

All the same, before long I managed to get two more wonderful photographs which further endorsed the walk.  The photo of the stream on the left does its very best to gloss over the fact that this body of water is indeed a field drain. I have to admit that on this (and all other photos featured in the last few posts) I have let the IOS photograph enhancer app do its thing, I am certainly pleased with the end result.  Although I had at least another five miles to walk back to home, I knew that the photo opportunities were now coming to an end, so there was no stopping me when I saw these cuter than cute Shetland ponies >>> As it was the birthday of a friend of mine (Mark),  I decided to give him a call to say happy birthday and spent the next seventeen minutes (yes, I checked!) chatting away about houses and spaniel dogs, like you do! I knew that I wouldn’t be able to hear Mark whilst walking along Southport and Norwood Roads so had to say goodbye once I’d hit the A570.

I made my way a rather straight and clandestine route back along the Norwoods (Road, Avenue, Crescent) back home and celebrated a lovely walk to round off my walking year.

Total distance was around seven and a half miles, height climbed was negligable and as for song of the walk: I don’t remember there being one!

Belated Happy New Year folks, see you in 2020!