Walking on the Aire

The Twenty-Eighth of May Two Thousand and Eleven. Saturday.

Big shout out to Shu-Shu for coming up with tonight's title.

Oh, I'm aching all over. I've had a bit of a walk today, from Leeds City station to Woodlesford, much of it between the River Aire and the Aire/Calder Navigation along the Transpennine Trail. I've just checked and apparently it's about 7 miles! Didn't realise it was quite that far (although my feet are quite convinced of the fact by now). Coincidenatally, Canal Walks with Julia Bradbury is on BBC4 as I type. It looks quite good, and I enjoyed her railway walks series, but without having seen it properly I can't add it to the list of Telly Recommendations. Sorry.

I once saw a spot in the Stoke-on-Trent A to Z where a footbridge crosees the Macclesfield Canal as it crosses over the Trent and Mersey canal right on the border between Cheshire and Staffordshire. A bridge over a bridge between two worlds. That was a magical place to visit.

Always had a thing for A to Z maps. As a boy I was fascinated by the out-of-date A to Z of Manchester that my dad had. I'd go on expeditions on my Raleigh Chopper trying to find interesting looking places (for 'interesting' read 'rail-related'. Patricroft station or meeting my friend John Bramwell for the first time on the footbridge - now gone - over the Liverpool-Manchester line at the foot of Weaste Lane (flashback: a much older boy taking potshots with his air rifle at the aluminium chimney on a nearby factory and then letting me have a go! Bullseyed it with the telescopic sight. Haven't thought of that in years...)) on pages 48 and 49 (that's where Seedley, Weaste and Eccles could be found). Quite often a street I'd taken a fancy to no longer existed (the fact that it detailed the locations of Manchester Central and Exchange stations - closed some years earlier and then in ruins - was like reading a document from some lost civilization) - that was a bit of a disappointment to the budding explorer. There were also strange codes to be broken. It was some time before I realised Alpha S W Nadine St. wasn't some exotic thoroughfare but was simply an abbreviated Alpha Street West next to Nadine St. I promise you now, if I ever pull my finger out and get around to writing another story or two there'll be a character named Alpha S W Nadine in it.

Got quite a few A to Zs now and it was while perusing the Leeds and Bradford combined edition (so much more satisfying than the separate volumes) that I saw the proximity of Woodlesford station to the river and resolved to walk that route some day. Well that was today and very pleasant it was too.

Killed two birds with one stone and took a train to Cross Gates station while I was out and about. Small station, but it has an M&S Simply Food right next to it. That's got to be worth something. And I found Tranquility while I was there - it was the name of a street. Simply Tranquility, LS15.

Needless to say I popped into the City Centre and got a Frappucino and some comics (oh, is this a good time to mention Jonathan Hickman's brilliant run on Fantastic Four and its successor FF? Let's make this the First Comic Book Recommendation then).

Now I go sleep

More soonliest