I spent this weekend with Heather visiting parents, both mine and hers. Despite all the other distractions, Sam the roof dog still needs exercise, so I explored their back gardens.
Right now, you’re thinking “That doesn’t sound like much exercise!”. Back garden can have a somewhat broader meaning.
This morning I walked around Heather’s mum and dad’s “extended” back garden. Their house back onto Park Wood, and Congleton Park. Almost immediately next to their house is a well tended path, down through the woods and into the park. And then there is a path all the way around the perimeter of the park. It makes a very pleasant walk, with a bit of cardio exercise at the end, climbing back up though the wood.
I know the woods and the park very well. They have been a part of my life on numerous occasions, often significant occasions. The Park Pavilion hosted a nursery school I attended, or was it an after school club? I learnt to canoe in the River Dane alongside the park. Heather and I agreed that we should get married at some point whilst attending the annual Bonfire and Fireworks in the Park. (What happened to proposals and going down on one knee?). We got married in St Stephens, the church overlooking the park and we concluded our wedding reception at another Bonfire and Fireworks display in the park.
Not only was the path down through the wood well tended, so was the whole park. For quite a few years, it wasn’t looked after. Vandalism, graffiti, litter, they all took their toll. It wasn’t always a pleasant place to be. What a difference today. Clean, no litter, no graffiti. They’ve even got some public art. I hadn’t seen these wooden sculptures before.
Then this afternoon, it was time to rediscover my parents’ back garden. Their house overlooks Dane-in-Shaw Pasture, a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). It is bounded, on one side, by a tall brick railway viaduct carrying the West Coast Mainline and, on the the other, by a tall embankment carrying the Macclesfield Canal over the valley. In fact the Dane-in-Shaw brook is tunnelled through this embankment. The Shropshire Union has impressive embankments, more often for their length and not for their height. This Macclesfield canal example may be short, but it really is one of the tallest I have seen.
The circular walk following the canal along the embankment, then the Biddulph Valley Way, then descending into the Dane-in-Shaw Pasture, finally returning to the canal, has long been know as the walk in the back garden. So obviously I decided to do the route in reverse. This was mainly because I wanted to see how much water was flowing done the overflow and into the brook. It looks like the spillway on the southern end of the embankment is continuously leaking, despite the water level being below the level at which it should overtop it.
There is a small but constant flow of the type that is only likely to get greater as it erodes more material. The Macc has had some well publicised leakage problems and is currently closed in Bollington because the embankment there sprang a leak. Let’s hope they get this fixed before it gets too serious. I am planning on mooring there for a few days at the end of this trip.
Even during a weekend away from the boat, I get drawn towards the canal.