The local walk of Saturday, November 18th.

My Meralgia paresthetica has returned with a vengeance, this means that Friday night I had practically no sleep (and the same for Saturday) so I ended up going out quite early: 08:20 or thereabouts as to stay in bed with this particular complaint could be compared to going to a rock concert in order to relieve a migraine! I ambled my way down to Birkdale Cop and used a highly scientific method of deciding which route to take, “ip-dip-sky-blue-it-is-not-you” which dictated that I turn left in the direction of London Road (or at least that would be my choice of route). I had some misgivings, there had been plentiful rain recently and this was a definite turn for the rural, so the outlook was for mud, and then some!

For a change, Birkdale Cop – the road, was not busy, it never gets congested as such but sometimes there is a seemingly ever-present string of fast-moving vehicles, but not today. I made it across the road without incident and onto London Road. And it was as puddle-punctuated as I’d anticipated! All the same it felt warm here for a late autumn morning, London Road should be thought of as open and exposed but for reasons beyond my comprehension it feels like its own microclimate. Once in a while the lines of geese put some volume into the sky, otherwise all in the immediate locale was still, further afield I could hear the Birkdale Cop traffic becoming quieter and the New Cut Lane traffic increasing in noise levels. It was a fairly straight-forward crossing of what would be rather wet terrain if it were not for the track put in by a former occupant of one of the adjoining farms. The only really sticky part was within a hundred metres of the end of the track when a heavily laden tractor appeared to have gouged out a section of the surface which made for a densely muddy couple of metres, I hoped this would walk off on the rest of the route.

And so I ambled onto the fast moving New Cut Lane. I should add that the traffic was fast moving, extremely fast moving and given that there are large stretches of road without accompanying paving this can make for a hair-raising traversal of Halsall Moss! Luckily the only incident was when one lady driver took objection to me gesturing that I’d like her to move further away from me, and presented her middle finger! Of course this was returned with interest – 100% interest and an indication that she may have been in possession of a cranial appendage! I’d like to think neither one of us really came out any better or worse in our little exchange, silly cow! The rest of the walk to the junction of Guildford Road went by peacefully and before too long I was entering Birkdale along Liverpool Road.

As the temperature was kind of changeable I decided to try and buy a packet of tissues – I’d left all of mine at home (doh) so called in at a very clean and tidy Spar minimart. They had no tissues but they did have Hovis Wholemeal thick which is pretty much the only bread I want to eat so I got a loaf and a small bottle of semi skinned milk for me to drink on route. Shopping over and done with I made my way to the junction of Cemetery Road where I turned right and headed in the direction of Southport but of course took another right when I reached Southbank Road. I followed Southbank Road / Town Lane up to the junction with Town Lane Kew (no, seriously it really is called that!) where I turned right, crossed the road to take the more rural path to Wight Moss Way before eventually getting back home just on ten-thirty. Yes, I had been out for just over two hours and on a local route this is quite some outing as I had cleared another six-and-a-half miles from my 1,000 for the year. The target is still in sight, it’s still reachable unlike last year when by the end of October I had pretty much given up hope of hitting a thousand. As I write this I am now left with under a hundred miles to go. This could get exciting, well, maybe for me! No matter, I did really enjoy walking this cute little route and even the altercation with the silly cow was mildly amusing, who else gets fingered that early on a Saturday morning!

Thanks for reading.

 

Walk type: Mostly urban, around a mile of grassy / muddy / gritty track

Suitable for couples: Yes, in most places you won’t be knocking one-another off the pavement, apart from New Cut Lane where I’d advocate extreme caution.

Families: No, not really, Birkdale Cop and New Cut Lane can have truly terrifying traffic

Dogs: Mainly yes, as I have seen people walking dogs on London Road (and came close to standing in a doggy deposit!) again Birkdale Cop and New Cut Lane are scary!

Time to complete: around two hours for a reasonably fit person with time for a photo or ten.