NST September 2022 Picture yourself on a boat on a canal

hazeldreams

Gratitude - Feeling so grateful today for everything HM did for this country. One incredibly strong and inspirational lady who will be truly missed.

NSDs/ Pausing before purchasing 4/10 NSDs.

Yoga/Meditation meditation done this morning - no yoga. I've strained my neck somehow so I did some neck stretching instead. 

Eating and drinking just focussing on drinking 2L of water a day - I managed 2L yesterday.

DrCarrie

Inspirational stuff ldee - thank you for sharing. NSD#3 yesterday - so far behind!

Grateful for, getting to yoga, some sunshine and coffee. 

Shrewbie

Hi turtles, here’s my check in for yesterday. Still on NSD 4.

 Yes R.I.P queenie. I’m certainly not a royalist but  she did kind of feel like all of our nans and now she's gone I've realised there was something comforting about her presence. 

MPs, breathwork and meditation done. Gym at lunchtime. Went out after work to a bar with some old work mates. Ordered a glass of red wine, had a few sips and then left it on the side of the bar. Enjoyed a goats cheese tosta instead. bf rolled in at 2:30am announcing his presence quite loudly (he’s still on hols)

Grateful for not feeling like drinking atm, for cheap food, for getting a good night sleep despite rude awakening at 2am. 

Have a great day turtles. xx

Toni'sfriend

A very, very sad day yesterday.

grandmanerd

Friday 9th September 2022
Quotes for Difficult Days
It's Okay
To make Mistakes
To Have Bad Days
To be Less than Perfect
To do what's Best for You
To Be Yourself

Love yourself
Love yourself when you're tired
Love yourself when you're weak
Love yourself when you're confused
Love yourself when you're broken
Love yourself until you're restored

(I think I'm a work in progress)

Today
More rain yesterday and overnight but it looks like it's going to be a bright clear day (if a little bit more nippy than we've got used to). A couple of the barges have temporary repairs - when we get to the Old Boat Yard at Worsley they can go in the dry dock (or whatever the barge equivalent is basically they get hauled out of the canal, perhaps they sail into it and then it's emptied so that people can work on the underside of the barge) but they'll be okay for now (although f0xh0les volunteered for going in the water duty so feel free to throw her in to work off the frustrations of the day).

So we're at the top end of my town (well western edge, top would be North towards Bolton) in an area called Plank Lane. The road crossing in front of us is Plank Lane, we're going to duck under Plank Lane Swing bridge and into the Marina built a few years back. Plank Lane Bridge doesn't swing. The original bridge built in 1848 was a brick arch (damaged by mining subsidence - the whole 'natural' landscape we've been travelling through was once a network of pits, slag heaps (the 'hills' I climbed as a child) and dump sites. In 1910 the original was replaced by a swing bridge, as were the 1934 and 1973 versions.  In 1977 this was replaced by a Bascule  bridge which was only a single carriageway. Traffic lights stopped traffic in one direction then the other and pedestrians walked through a railed off bit at the side).

A Bascule is like the ones that go over the Thames but this one only opened from one side. It was operated by a bridgekeeper at limited times (the 2010 - 2011 hours state that the keeper is unavailable between 12 noon and 12.45 pm). The single carriage caused huge congestion problems and heavier vehicles put too much pressure on the structure built so when the area was redeveloped it became 2 way. I've only been driven over it a few times. Small boats can pass under (I've never seen the bridge open but it is still known as Plank Lane Swing Bridge - locals have been calling it that for over a hundred years and don't see any reason to change.

The local recycling centre is a little way down the road (we're not allowed on unless we're in cars and have proof of residency within the Borough). Facing it is a free range farm - it's quite fun to see hens scrabbling about on the small hillocks by the side of the road (I'm a bit vague about the development because I usually cut this road corner off and cut across from the cut between the remaining reclaimed rucks, I only saw the housing estate when it was just a sea of builders wooden markers). The brook enters the Flash (Pennington Flash Country Park which f0xh0les has seen from the far side) at this point but the flash widens a little further down the canal and there are paths leading down from the canal bank. Abundant bird life, several bird hides, lots to see, good fishing (in both canal and the flash), there were some animal sculptures cut from fallen tree trunks (may have decayed by now), special  moor hen areas, many many geese, mum brought DS2 on one of the 'bat walks' many moons ago. There's a children's play area (soon to be redeveloped and an adult area - an outside gym for apple.

I'm going to stop now and will do a separate Heritage Events post

f0xh0les

Happily volunteering to be shoved overboard - just let me know when to shout 'Spl0sh!!'

Really annoyed that I did not explore as much as I should have when I lived up your way @grandmanerd .

Today I need to escape the media coverage of the queen's death, but it is hard to do.  It is sad, and I feel sympathy for the family (Andrew excepted)  but at the end of the day, a 96 yr old lady died peacefully,  in her favourite home, with her family around her after a life well lived.  She did  put a proper shift in though. 

Spl0sh!!  (I'll save you the effort on that one!! )

grandmanerd

Heritage Events
Unfortunately we're too late to book a tour of the Solar Farm in Bolton on Monday (must put a note in my diary to book next year if I'm sufficiently mobile). It mentions water treatment so I suspect it's somewhere on Rivington Pike up above Horwich rather than in the town Centre. The 'Behind the Scenes' tour of Bolton Library and Museum is on the 17th - that is in the Town Centre. The library and museum form one arm of Le Mans Crescent with the Court, Police Station and Social Services on the other arm. They curve round the back of the Albert Hall which has dancing, performances (tours and musical events) with the rest of the building being the centre of local government (complete with underground nuclear bunker, I've been told). The front has lots of steps, 2 large stone lions (unfortunately fenced off now) and a large square which has had many incarnations over the years.

The whole area is used quite often in films and tv programmes. I saw the Crescent most recently in Peaky Blinders. The square was the scene of a programme in the second series of Between the Lines (Tony Pearson, Siobhan Redmond and Tom Georgeson) where police actions at a 'riot' (started as a peaceful demo) lead to a young girl's death (some echoes of Hillsborough) and also appears in the 1966 film 'The Family Way' (Hayley Mills, John Mills, Hywel Bennett and Wilfred Pickles).

In Leigh we have the Town Hall and Archives Tour. I did this a pre-pandemic but was familiar with most of the building (I attended Council meeting as an observer and have organised and spoken at public meetings there as well as paying bills at the Council hub and visiting the Registrar (both facilities now housed inside the library). I'd invite you all to my house but I can barely squeeze between the boxes of records - we can picnic on the Town Hall Square and play games on the car park. I think the football art events are still on until tomorrow but I'm looking forward to the new exhibition. If anyone wants to go to the Diggers Festival in Wigan Town Centre (see my placard) tomorrow with live music all day + poets, food and other stalls (which help ensure it happens again next year).

On Sunday there's a photographic exhibition celebrating 50 years of the Caribbean Festival in Manchester (Alexandra park in Moss Side - the area's not like it's newspaper reputation, in my experience). Lots of events in Manchester but we've time yet.

Local History 
A  short way along Plank lane from where we are now is a street called Heath Lane which again takes you out into the fields (reclaimed pit rucks and spoil heaps). At the end of Heath Lane there's a space which was the site of the Willow Tree Inn and farm (the ruins were only knocked down a few years ago). The pub was known as The Last Shift as it was the route taken by miners from the pit to their homes (and it would be unfriendly not to call in, wouldn't it). It's featured in quite a lot of old Leythe photos and books and it's where my grandad lived, with his parents, before he married my grandma. In the 1990's I rode a bicycle (mum and her partner had pulled it out of the canal) across from here to Bickershaw - rough former coalfield area between several pits - hilly in places, boggy in others. This was after some idiot decided to cancel a meeting on the day it was to happen and I had to notify everyone. This was the last time I rode a bicycle and I was very wobbly - I got off and walked a couple of bits with blind turns at the Bickershaw end.

Plank Lane isn't glamorous but it has also featured on tv. It was used for some scenes of the itv drama Sam (30 years of the history of a mining family) which ran between 1973 and 1975 (well worth a look - Mark McManus played the adult Sam before going on to play Taggart) although the village scenes were shot in Gin Pit Village (we will pass that on the far side of town) which was also the site of the original itv drama  of the Full Monty (the tv version was better, the characters were miners during the 1984/5 strike). Some of the bbc's Play for Todays were shot there (it was relatively quiet in the middle of the day) and there was a documentary made in the mid 80s about some young lads and their ferrets. It was made by regional tv but the lads accent (specific to the Plank Lane area) was so dense that the producers added subtitles.

Well it's becoming obvious that I'm avoiding work so I'd better get on. I've just found a paper bag that's my temporary paper bag and a bag that will hold quite a bit of rubbish (the bin bag's at the top of the stairs) so will sort what's nearest to me (rubbish/ recycle/ keep - if possible jot bits down in a fresh notebook rather than keep all the pulled out scraps of paper then transfer to the correct notebooks whenever they show up). Lots of domestic stuff to do downstairs but will wait until my knees are less creaky.

grandmanerd

f0xh0les said:

Happily volunteering to be shoved overboard - just let me know when to shout 'Spl0sh!!'

Really annoyed that I did not explore as much as I should have when I lived up your way @grandmanerd .

Today I need to escape the media coverage of the queen's death, but it is hard to do.  It is sad, and I feel sympathy for the family (Andrew excepted)  but at the end of the day, a 96 yr old lady died peacefully,  in her favourite home, with her family around her after a life well lived.  She did  put a proper shift in though. 

Spl0sh!!  (I'll save you the effort on that one!! )

I hope you checked for blue-green algae first f0xh0les. "She's fallen in the waaater"

Toni'sfriend

"Today I need to escape the media coverage of the queen's death, but it is hard to do.  It is sad, and I feel sympathy for the family (Andrew excepted)  but at the end of the day, a 96 yr old lady died peacefully,  in her favourite home, with her family around her after a life well lived.  She did  put a proper shift in though. "

Couldn't have put it better, F0xh0les.

Suffolksue

I am very sad at the death of the Queen and feel for King Charles and her family 
She died on what would have been my beautiful daughters 49 th birthday ,she is forever 37 .
Whatever you think about the monarchy , would you really prefer ,President Putin  ,Mugabe or Trump ?
I admit I cried last night
I realise I am out of step with this thread