A flying visit to Alderley Edge

The writer Alan Garner has been a travelling companion of mine ever since I was nine, when our teacher, Miss Ward, read 'The Weirdstone of Brisingamen' to our class, and our recent holiday in Lancashire offered the opportunity to visit Alderley Edge, where so many of his stories are set, on the journey up.

Except the Northerner realised he'd lost his phone the morning of our trip, and the ensuing (fruitless) search meant we were late leaving, and this in turn meant we had to postpone our visit to Cheshire till the return journey - a very different prospect, because by then the focus would have switched from forthcoming-holiday-adventure to getting-home-and-getting-the-laundry-in-the-washing-machine.

All the same, we were there, and even though it was the Saturday of the August Bank Holiday weekend and the Edge was bearing all the signs of being irrevocably National Trustified, there were, nevertheless, indications that the Morrigan was still in residence.

I'd found a map online of the walk I wanted to do, to take in the main sites of Garner's stories - by Seven Firs and Goldenstone! - but it was only when we'd parked and I looked at it properly that I realised it hadn't printed in full. What's more, the Northerner was still having problems with his knees, which hadn't responded properly to his latest steroid injection, and so we decided - reluctantly, in my case - to follow the blue arrows that marked a much shorter 'Wizard's Wander'.

The Edge was crowded at first, but as we walked further from the car park and tea room, there were fewer people about and something of its wisht-ness was  evident. In places, where there were gaps in the trees, you got a sense of its geography, and how proud of the landscape it stands.

I was delighted when we reached Stormy Point, which features heavily in the stories, with its views towards the Pennines ...

... and even more pleased to find a fragment of blue and white pottery there.

We also reached the Armada Beacon, which consists of a stone-built platform on top of a Bronze Age round barrow, and plays an important role in 'The Moon of Gomrath'. Because the immediate area around it is wooded, it's quite hard to appreciate how high this actual spot is and how visible the beacon would have been from the surrounding area.

The woods were lovely, though, and there were some magnificently gnarly, individual trees, which added to the atmosphere ... 

... as well as lots of fungi. 

I was also thrilled to spot the Goldenstone at the side of a footpath. Believed to be a fallen menhir, it was used as a boundary marker for centuries, and it really does have a golden sheen to it, though it's hard to capture in a photo. It really did feel a bit magical. 

By this stage, the Northerner's knees had had enough, so we decided to go full National Trust and had a cream tea with the nicest scones I've eaten in a long time. (So impressed you can get clotted cream and cider in the north these days.) 

Sadly for me, we missed the Wizard's Well, which is at some distance from the other sites, but this means, of course, that I'll have to go back, and that's a pretty good way to leave a place, I think. And once home there were souvenir feathers from the Morrigan to gloat over, as well a tawny feather, three jay feathers and one from a Great Spotted Woodpecker. A special place.

A birthday hedgehog

 

How lovely birthdays become as old age approaches. No need any more to spend the evening partying, or perched on an uncomfortable bench in a restaurant, before going home to do battle with one's digestive system, armed only with a blister-pack of Gaviscon - no, these days we go out for breakfast, which is a far more civilised time to be out on the town. This year we went to Riverstation. As the name suggests, it occupies part of the original course of the River Avon that is now Bristol's Floating Harbour, and is roomy and dog-friendly. We sat snugly at our table in the window and watched Storm Ashley do its worst for an hour or so.

Can I have some avocado on flatbread, Mam?

Well, maybe not quite its worst. That was reserved for when we stepped outside to hurry the two minutes back to our car, only to get absolutely drenched when the skies opened. 

The final advantage of this arrangment is that it frees up the early evening for birthday cake, this year white chocolate and raspberry, in the company of the 25% of my children who were in Bristol on the day. 

I had some lovely old lady presents too: an Alaskan Husky faux fur warming throw at which Cwtch the Collie actually turned up her nose; a bunch of my favourite anemones from my children; and a plant and books on art and poetry from friends. Even a book I'd treated myself to - 'Powsels and Thrums', a collection of essays by my favourite author, Alan Garner - turned up with perfect timing.

I also went for a couple of walks. On Saturday afternoon my friend of 58 years, Liz, joined me and we had a wander around Three Brooks Nature Reserve at Bradley Stoke, followed on Sunday by a squelch around Charlton Common, once the sun came out. 

On the way to the latter, I slowed at a junction near the local church, only to glance down and see a young and still quite small hedgehog pootling about in the middle of the road, just a few inches from the wheel of my car. It was almost the colour of the fallen leaves around it, and I had a horrible feeling that unless we intervened, it would come to a tragic, if somewhat predictable, end. So I pulled over and the Northerner scooped it up and deposited it in the churchyard, safe from passing cars (for as long as it stays there).

And later we learnt there are other hogs living there, and a hedgehog house installed by the council, so clearly it'll be a good place to hibernate in.

 

And the encounter with the hoglet was, of course, the best present of all. 

All Change in the Edgelands

 

I don't much care for change. Part of the stress is waiting for it all start - or, if it has, to reach you. 

Back in the cold snap before Christmas, we wandered over the fields on the far side of Fishpool Hill, where the development of Brabazon is already under way, and became quite disorientated, thanks to the removal of a short stretch of hedge that made two large fields into one huge one, and seemed to alter completely the lie of the land.

We've also heard - and seen - more goods trains running on the Henbury loop, which only used to happen at night, and which signals its reincorporation into the infrastructure of the area, as it becomes more densely populated.

There have even been changes in the Small Dark Wood of the Mind. I walked through with Cwtch, my dog, the other day, after an absence of three weeks, and was surprised to find the path that leads to the Grove of the Silver Chair (and Ruby Crown) had rebranded itself as Golden Gate Way ... so I had to go down it and find out what was happening. 

When we got to the clearing where we first saw a roe deer a couple of years ago, I was shocked to find that all the trees on that edge of the wood had been felled, and then I remembered hearing a chainsaw a few weeks ago and being relieved to find 'they' weren't cutting down the magnificent ash at the entrance to the wood. Now, sadly, I know what 'they' were up to. Here's how it is now, and how it was in April 2021. 

The Grove itself - and the discarded patio chair and builder's helmet that inspired its nickname - remain unchanged, but are themselves now right on the edge of an even smaller Small Dark Wood of the Mind. There might well be an excellent reason for this work being done, but it does seem a shame to reduce cover, in a wooded corridor where tawny owls (amongst other creatures) live, at a time when so much of the surrounding area is going under concrete.

Here's some more folklore in one of the gardens in the trailer park, namely, Blodeuwedd. ('She wants to be flowers but you make her owls. You must not complain, then, if she goes hunting.')

There have been a few more treasures to spot at this most apparently barren of times:

oak leaf with rivets, blackberries, a waxcap dancing the dying swan, badger poo studded with damsons, more waxcaps, a sea green snail shell, a little daisy showing its head, a bramble leaf, and sycamore leaves

As for fauna, apart from sparring magpies, jays, crows and rooks, which we hear and see most days, and grey squirrels, which are ubiquitous in the extreme, there's been little to note, though the gulls, which are always present but which fly so high they're seldom on my radar unless they're mobbing predators, have been a lot noisier than usual these last couple of weeks. 

And of course there's the aforementioned Cwtch, who might count as fauna, I suppose. She's certainly attempting to interact with some down that hole.

The hollowing oak has changed too, losing the last of its leaves. I realised a few weeks back that it features on the 1844 - 1888 OS map on the Know Your Place website, so it must have been a noteworthy tree even then.

And of all changeable things, the weather is most, from frost and ice and residual snow ... 

 ... to wind ... 

... and some welcome sun.

Strangely, there was no one standing to my left when this photo was taken ... 

... though here you can jut see Cwtch at my right.

And more than any other sort of weather, there has been rain, characterised first by stormy skies ...

... which then turn dreary and grey as soon as the precipitation starts. 

It's rained so much that the ditch is a winterbourne with a current ... 

... and even the badger path is flowing.

As for the formerly helpful step in the kissing gate out on the farmland, it's now a lot more precarious in its broken state. (More change.)

In fact, it's been so wet, the golf course was closed for a couple of days over New Year, which was doubtless a disappointment for the golfers, but lovely for us, as it meant we could have a wander without the risk of being brained by a golf ball. (Most golfers we've encountered are pretty friendly, but we've had balls hit at us even when crossing the course on the footpath.)

Here, in addition to the landfill at the northern end of the course, and the new pitch and putt, work on which seems to have stalled, there is yet more change around the two largest ponds. The Northerner had warned me, when I was laid up with a sprained ankle back in October, that both ponds at the top of the course had been fenced off, but this was the first opportunity I'd had of seeing the work for myself.

Of course it's impossible to guess what the plan is, without being in the know, but lots of the vegetation has been cut back around this, the smaller pond, and some youngish trees felled, which is a shame, given the ponds form one of the more biodiverse areas of the course. Here's how it is now vs how it looked in July of last year. 

Meanwhile, it looks like the larger, very shallow pond is being made deeper, with an island, which is funny because a golf club member, who's also a dog walker, told me a while back that the management had originally intended to drain it and establish a green there, and capped the spring feeding it in readiness, only for the level of Henleaze Lake, a couple of miles away, to drop dramatically, much to the consternation of the swimmers, therefore requiring a change of plan. Here's how it looks now and back in September 2021, when it was a large muddy hollow, and I walked right through it among the reedmace and loosestrife, fleabane and Michaelmas daisies. 

Right at the bottom of the course, where she first learnt that ice melts and water doesn't support even the weight of a small pup, Cwtch eyes the potential for a wetting with suspicion. She might take a sip but nothing will induce her to dampen even a paw. The change from warm fur to sodden is not one she'll entertain.