Stretford Meadows

Stretford Meadows, Stretford House in the background

I haven't been out for a walk round the park for a few days so I thought I'd add twenty minutes to the usual walk and for a change have a wander over Stretford Meadows (the posh name for the old municipal tip). Hadn't realised how much I'd needed to see a big green space.

The hedgerows were full of singing robins, wrens and chiffchaffs and the paddock fields at the end of Newcroft Road were thick with blackbirds. Carrion crows, stock doves and ring-necked parakeets flew overhead and, a sign of the time of year, for once there wasn't a single gull of any sort. I was surprised by the pheasant calling from the copse near the cricket club, and rather a lot less so by the solitary blackcap singing from one of the sycamores. In a few weeks time there'll be whitethroats in the brambles and perhaps even a lesser whitethroat skulking in the undergrowth.

I resisted the urge to carry on down Kickety Brook and on into the Mersey Valley, confining myself to walking halfway across the meadow then back home. When we're allowed out into the wild again I'm going to be horribly out of condition.