Play Day

I was up quite early yesterday morning and so was this guy flying his microlight.

It was a noisy machine and he kept coming down low over the flash and canal and scared most of the wildfowl away so I gave up trying to watch and photograph anything and settled for coffee and toast and an episode of "Breaking Bad" instead. Have you seen this programme?  Last time he came to visit, my son gave me the past 5 series to catch up on and I have to say I'm hooked! I'm trying to limit myself to 2 episodes a day which I usually watch with my headphones plugged in while Roger plays his guitar or when he's outside fishing.

After lunch we took Chico for a walk around the flash.  There were some beautiful flowers and lots of fruit trees, although the apples aren't ripe enough to pick just yet.

If you're into foraging, there were lots of mushrooms peeping though the bark chippings.  They looked edible but as I'm allergic to mushrooms I wouldn't risk picking them.

This was the view from the other side of the shale pits.

We walked back along the towpath from Platt Bridge. It's locally known as the "yellow brick road" because it's made from imprinted concrete. It's part of the Route 55 cycle way and was very busy. Most of the cyclists slowed down and were friendly and polite, but you always get one lycra lout who thinks he's in the Tour de France!

There were lots of garden gates for Chico to have a sniff and a nosy. He once met a dog at a similar gate and he's never forgotten.

This is the towpath near our mooring.

It conveniently has compass points inlaid in the concrete which could be helpful if you need to set up a satellite dish.

While our evening meal was cooking (greek rabbit stew) I finally managed to set up the telescope which had been one of my birthday presents back in May.  It's amazing!  It can be used for watching wildlife or astronomy and the best thing is that it all packs into it's own backpack. Perfect kit for a boat.

Now that the microlight had gone, the wildfowl were back in abundance. There were swans, several herons standing in a group on the opposite shore, greylag geese, cormorants, great crested grebe, coots etc. etc.

We didn't have a spectacular sunset but the view was pretty good none-the-less