Even in Manchester, the Rochdale Canal usually looks a bit more aesthetically pleasing. Perhaps this is an accidental draining — it happens, people sometimes leave locks open. Or there is some big clean-up about to happen. Future archaeologists will love all this crap. Meanwhile, the runner on the left ponders whether a) he will be allowed to proceed more than another few yards and b) whether he is about to step on a pigeon.
15th July is the feast day of St Swithin, and according to the legend, if it rains on St Swithin’s Bridge in Winchester on this day it will rain for another 40 days. Apparently there is a certain basis for this: this is about the time of year when the jet-stream kind of settles in and decides where it is going to sit for the rest of the summer: over Britain (we get wet) or to the north of it (we stay dry)? I don’t know what the weather was like in Winchester today but in Hebden it was chucking it down, the wettest day for months, let alone weeks. If the legend is true let me be the first to come out with that old chestnut, “That’s the summer over.”
The picture was taken mainly because of the bright orange water of the Trent and Mersey Canal at this point (Kidsgrove, on the Staffordshire/Cheshire border). Such things are not usually a good sign. The mystery of why this colour is there was not solved until just a short while ago, as I prepared to post this by looking up some information about the Harecastle Tunnel, the north entrance of which is just visible in the background, to the left of the guys on the towpath. There is an old version of this tunnel running parallel to it that has been closed for over a century now, and apparently, leaches iron ore into the water. So it’s always orange — this is not some recent chemical spill. I don’t imagine drinking the water does anyone much good. Unless they’re anaemic I suppose.
The wife was doing her latest excessively long bout of exercise, as she trains up for her second marathon in April. 22 miles today I believe. 9 miles in, our paths crossed briefly, then, off she went eastwards.
My summer holiday has finally started, and being the type of person that I am, I went exploring, going to Dudley in the West Midlands largely because it was somewhere I had never been before, with not just one but two County Tops (report to follow). And it gave me the chance to walk 1.7 miles, more or less (2,776m according to the sign at the entrance) under ground, through the Netherton Tunnel, which accommodates a branch line of the huge Birmingham canal network, and was the last major canal tunnel ever built in Britain, opened in 1858.
This was taken as I approached the south entrance, which for me was the exit. A bit damp, but by no means an unpleasant experience, though the distant sound of many voices screaming that reverberated down the tunnel towards me for a few minutes — either a school sports day, or the tortured souls of Hell — was a little eerie.
One of the hi-vis army does his valuable stuff on the banks of the Rochdale Canal. A beautiful morning today, and a real ‘Indian Summer’ day. Fine by me.
Being 42 