Widnes to Liverpool

With the chemical works of Runcorn and Widnes as my backdrop I left my charming boarding establishment (the rough pub) to try my luck at finding something to eat at Hale Village. You could have rough breakfast but you needed to have ordered it the day before - oh - and the everything else looked exceedingly unappealing and rather hard work. Of course Hale Village offered nothing whatsoever in the cafe department. It was a church and a post office and a bus stop where I duly caught a bus to Liverpool which gave me a head start on Mother Rita, my mother-in-law.

The very expensive hotel was rather disappointing. I changed our rooms for ones with a view as ordered and they did kindly give me free breakfast - maybe they sensed how starving I was. I met Mother Rita at 1pm and we museumed and sight saw. Liverpool is a great city with magnificent buildings. The Liver Birds, two cormorants perched on the top of the two towers on the Liver Building, are tied on to prevent them flying away. It's not too Beetles mad and we didn't have take a Furry across the Mersey. We took a train to Port Sunlight which has one of the best art galleries I have ever visited.

Cheshire

After Manchester I trudged towards Liverpool staying in a vile B&B on a farm near Altrincham. It wasn't vile really but seemed to have inadequate bathroom facilities for the guests - only one bathroom containing the one loo, all in bright turquoise. And the lock was rubbish so I barged in on a rather surprised older lady. I met her and her niece at breakfast and we had a good bitch about the place. They looked so nice before I got to them. The woman who ran the place obviously didn't like me and resented showing me round when I arrived as she was missing Wimbledon. It went downhill from there as I sat in the wrong place at breakfast - I wasn't allowed a placemat as I wasn't having cooked breakfast. I soon sorted that out. The dining room smelt of cat. I asked her husband for directions and she constantly told him he was getting it all wrong. Actually, thank you Mr B&B, your directions were great and I am sorry your wife is so ugly.

I walked through posh Cheshire and along the Manchester Ship Canal until it became the Mersey. The pubs were few and far between and closed. I eventually staggered the last few miles along the Mersey to the shite hole of a town Widnes. The pub where I was staying looked very rough at the end of a terraced street. My room was nice with a spectacular view of the Runcorn Bridge right outside my window. However, there were no eateries of any sort and the streets looked like the kind of place you'd get mugged. I went to bed hungry.

Claudia and the Trannies

I met the Lovely Claudia at Stockport, a great market town with a hat museum. We hatted then went to Manchester for a two day break from the walk. Weehee. We met transvestites, stayed in the most comfortable hotel in the world and did much culture, as one does. It was brill.

Royston Vasey

Rivers were followed, pubs visited, mountains staggered over and county boundaries crossed. I left Yorkshire through Woodhead Pass into Derbyshire. Oh I am so so so pleased I decided to do this walk from East to West as I was going downhill for the really steep bits. I don't think my backpack and I would ever have made it up. I spoke to a cyclist who told me they prefer up as going down having to break all the way or carrying your bike is very difficult.

I stayed in Hadfield, also known as Royston Vasey as this is where they shot League of Gentlemen (which I have never seen but had to pretend I knew all about it). It has a sign saying You will never leave. When I got to the station I saw that you really could never leave as it's single track and there a buffers at the end which seemed odd and it was not the last station on the line. They must shunt a lot. I went to Glossop, off the trail but I was interested to see this little market town - very uninteresting and not as pretty as its name.

I then walked to Broadbottom and got lost. Now in Cheshire and being stared at by nasty scarecrows outside every building, I walked towards Stockport and got lost again - twice in one day. I turned round and I found my destination, Haughton Green, through a lovely wood by a river and canal and over a bridge and up beside a church that looked like a tudor house. The hotel was no great shakes but it did look quite pretty. My walk was long and I slept well.

Madly walking

It didn't rain after that. In fact it has been baking every day and I am brown with sunburnt legs. I followed the Humber then the Ouse through Howden to Selby then onto Snaith following a canal towards Doncaster where I met my mother-in-law at a castle on the route. I have subsequently followed the River Dearne then the Dove to end up in Silkstone Common, the home of Mr Smith's family. I have probably done about 120 miles so far and I am looking forward to doing more. I really love this walk. I average 2.5 mph and can walk up to 10 miles a day with ease. The Yorkshire countryside is so beautiful and there are constant surprises. People are so friendly and the typical conversation goes along the lines of "How far have you come?" From Hull. "Ooll, thou must be barmy woman walking all that way." I used to think that about walkers. Who'd want to walk when you can take a perfectly good train? But now I'm hooked.

Sludgy Brough

For anyone who might wish to know, the Transpennine Trail is closed between North Ferriby and Brough for drainage or summat. Anyway, it doesn't tell you this so you have to take an ENORMOUS diversion right round an airfield. Prior to this you have to sludge through Humber mud as the riverside is almost impassable. I staggered and am now trying to work out how to demuddify my boots in a hotel bathroom full of white fluffy towels.

Today I leave Hull, a city I have come to love, and wend my way to Howden then on to Selby leaving the River Humber for the Ouse, though I have a sneaking suspicion they are one of the same.

It's raining.

Hull to Hessle

It was a blistering hot day and I left my walk to the afternoon when it got even hotter. This walk looked quite promising on the map. The best part was walking over the warehouse roofs looking over Hull and along the coast at the Humber Bridge in the far distance - my destination. After that it was all industrial wasteland of old fishery buildings, now boarded up or in decay, followed by a retail park of the B&Q variety. When it turned the corner and I thought "Oh goody lovely riverside stroll" it was in fact a trudge along the groovy A63 with thundering lorries to Hessle. I found the unmanned station (the ticket office is now a diving shop) and waited dutifully for 10 minutes for the train which never came. I phoned train enquiries in India, as one does, to ask when it might appear. About an hour and a half later it slowly dragged its arse into the station then to Hull. At least nobody made any attempt to sell me a ticket; I might have hit them. Today promises to be better.