Helsby

Linnets

I'm feeling a lot down lately, partly because I'm still feeling a bit broken after last week's heatwave, partly because this past week every time I make plans for getting anywhere by train those plans, and any contingency plans, get scotched by cancellations due to a shortage of train crew. I was starting to wallow in it a bit this morning so I decided to drag myself out for an afternoon walk, intending to catch up with either Leighton Moss or Martin Mere, neither of which I've visited this month. Martin Mere was favoured as I was substantially less likely to be stranded for hours due to cancellations. Either way I'd be getting the Barrow train through to at least Wigan, changing there for the Southport train to Burscough. 

Which train, of course, was cancelled.

I hadn't long to wait for the Llandudno train and it had occurred to me the other day that I haven't visited Frodsham Marsh since January so I got a return to Helsby, the intention being to walk down Rake Lane onto the marsh and get the train home from Frodsham.

The journey to Helsby was uneventful and I was looking forward to a good walk. After I'd crossed over the motorway the sun started to come out and a fresh breeze cut through the muggy air. Swallows hawked low over the fields of barley and linnets twittered in the hedgerows. At the corner by the farm the swallows were joined by half a dozen sand martins flying slightly higher and they, in turn, were joined by a dozen house martins flying at rooftop height. A couple of fields away a flock of a couple of dozen black-headed gulls foraged with a couple of carrion crows.

Along Rake Lane

I'd nearly got to Lordship Lane when I had to give up: a lorry had tipped itself into a ditch, was being laboriously winched out and then left where it was because it was pulling the witching lorry into the ditch.

Road closed

On my way back I assayed another path which the map reckoned would eventually get me onto Lordship Lane. I got as far as a farmyard littered with "Beware of the dog" signs and gave it up. I retraced my way back down Rake Lane, pausing every so often to make room for a passing tractor which was pulling a cess pool emptying trailer up and down the lane for no apparent reason. Unless the driver was being paid by the visit.

Rake Lane, Helsby Hill in the background 

The only option was to walk back into Helsby and go up Smithy Lane and take the path to the next footbridge over the motorway. A buzzard was feeding on something or other on the field by the railway line and as I passed the church a sparrowhawk put the fear of God into a flock of pigeons and was seen off by a black-headed gull that was too close to the drama for its liking.

I walked up Smithy Lane, over the railway and past the last of the houses. The footpath quickly got very unkempt, A hundred yards further on one had to wonder if it had ever been kempt. I got to the corner where the path runs parallel to the motorway and stopped. The last passerby was probably Æthelstan, on his way to sort out the Vikings. I admitted defeat and walked back into town.

I wondered if the path had ever been kempt

I got the number 2 bus into Frodsham, telling myself I could still get over to the marsh from there and knowing full well I hadn't the energy or patience to bother trying. I'd spent the best part of an hour and a half walking three and a half miles to get no closer to Frodsham than a hundred yards from Helsby Station. A dead waste of time, money and a sunny afternoon.  Days like today make me wonder what the hell I imagine I'm doing with this life.

Black bryony