Stretford Meadows

Long-tailed tit

It was a pleasant and still relatively mild sort of a day. The spadgers and great tits quietly found the mealworms I put out yesterday then made a lot more noise about my filling up the sunflower feeders this morning. I put some suet pellets out, too, I think the coming week's weather warrants them.

Common gull dancing for worms 

I've been seeing the occasional common gull on the school playing field with the usual dozen black-headed gulls this week. Today one was close enough to the fence for me to get a photo. It's not often safe or wise to take photos of the school field and the odd times that it is there generally isn't anything to photograph so I took the opportunity while I could. They've been a few weeks later than usual which I think is a reflection of the mild extended Autumn we've had. A rather small juvenile herring gull not a lot bigger than the common gull made me scratch my head a bit but I couldn't turn it into anything but a rather small juvenile herring gull.

Juvenile herring gull

I didn't want to have anything to do with Sunday public transport so I limited myself to a wander round Stretford Meadows. On my way over I noticed that the starlings are congregating in the trees by the allotments, just three dozen of them but after a largely starling-free Summer it's good to see them in any sort of numbers.

Business as usual 

After the recent downpours the paths onto the meadows had returned to normal. It was fun while it lasted. I decided not to take the path by the Newcroft Nursery car park, I walked a way down the Transpennine route and took the steep path up the rise of the meadows.

Not all the long-tailed tits were willing photographic models

A mixed tit flock, a dozen long-tailed tits and a handful of blue tits, bounced through the trees by the car park. A couple of robins and a blackbird made themselves known. I bumped into a second, smaller, mixed tit flock by the motorway bridge and this one included a couple of great tits, too.

The Transpennine route 

The knees were not altogether happy about my choice of path up the rise and we were all happy when I got to the top. Jays and magpies made a racket as they flitted about the trees in the open meadow, the jays were collecting and caching acorns while the magpies were busy in the apple trees. Carrion crows, jackdaws and lesser black-backs flew overhead, three woodpigeons flew by and finches flew to and fro. Most of the finches were greenfinches heading to roost in the brambles even though it was still only mid-afternoon, a few goldfinches and chaffinches flew by. It was nice to see a flock of a dozen linnets pass overhead, I don't often see them on here these days.

Stretford Meadows 

I took a zigzag course across the meadows, trying to stick to the metalled maintenance paths wherever possible. Robins, blackbirds and wrens complained as I passed by. A buzzard in the trees by the cricket pitch was very vocal but difficult to find as it had taken cover from a group of magpies intent on giving it a hard time. The male kestrel was easier to spot atop his usual tree after a long absence.

The male kestrel was back in his favourite tree

At last I came to the path through the woods taking me into Stretford town centre. A couple of parakeets made a racket as they came to roost. I blame them for upsetting the great spotted woodpecker that flew into a bate and spent the next five minutes shouting over them. There was another mixed tit flock in the undergrowth here, invisible under cover and betrayed by their quiet contact calls. I noticed a couple of redwings in the top of one of the bare trees. The Merlin app picked them up, as well as the blackbirds, robins and long-tailed tits in the trees. I'll forgive it for mistaking my left knee for a firecrest.

Bramble 

Local patch

Great tit, Stretford

Even I had the sense not to go out for a walk yesterday. The wind and rain didn't stop the spadgers' sitting in the top of the rose bushes because they'd eaten all the sunflower seeds and what was I going to do about it. A wild and woolly night became a wet and breezy morning and a quick check of the disruption to the train services told me that if I was going for a walk it was going to be somewhere on a bus route and I wondered where would be okay underfoot.

An early morning errands had me finding a couple of woodpigeons picking the last of the berries from the street trees down our road. A handful of greenfinches flew South, one of the parakeets flew East and a couple of herring gulls flew in to join the black-headed gulls on the school field. On my way back the collared doves had woken up and were fighting over territories. I decided I'd need to let my knees warm up again before assaying a walk. By then I might have some idea where I was going.

The first bus at the stop was the 25 to the Trafford Centre so I decided I'd go over and play bus station bingo. The journey to the Trafford Centre suggested this was not a good idea. I know where the roadworks are (Barton) but I think there must also have been an accident somewhere, there was a big Emergency Diversion vibe to the shape of the traffic in Davyhulme. I'll be largely avoiding the Trafford Centre in the run up to Christmas.

So I walked home, which was quicker than getting the bus back (it also reminded me how pedestrian-unfriendly the Trafford Centre is). There's usually a lot of pigeons about the roof of the centre and around the bus station, today there were hardly any. There were more than plenty of gulls about, mostly herring gulls with a few lesser black-backs and black-headed gulls. More black-headed gulls and lesser black-backs flew by as I walked down Barton Dock Road.

Barton Clough 

My local patch was on my way so I had a nosy round. A traipse up and down the stretch of old freight line netted me the sum total of two magpies. It was dead quiet. I could see where the blackbirds had been, though, there was literally only one berry left on the Pyracantha bushes by the old trackside and that was half-rotten.

The park was similarly quiet, just a couple of magpies fossicking about on the football pitch. Just as I was telling myself I should have stayed at home and seen more birds I bumped into three blackbirds stripping the last of the berries off a hawthorn bush. A couple of robins and a dunnock complained as I passed them near the skateboard park. And I thought that was it until I got to the exit and bumped into a mixed tit flock in the trees by the gate. A dozen long-tailed tits gamboled about the newly bared twigs and branches with half a dozen blue tits and at least one coal tit while a goldfinch twittered in one of the treetops.

Lostock Park 

It'll be all change next week when the unseasonably mild weather gets replaced by Northern winds and a cold snap. I can't say the ageing joints are looking forward to it. I nipped out to get a few bags of bird food, they'll be needing it.

Mosses

Long-tailed tit, Chat Moss

November borrowed one of September's frocks for the day and treated us to a bright, mild day. After yesterday's efforts I really didn't want to be having anything to do with trains today but I needed to get out and about and get a walk in after a few particularly lazy days and I didn't want to waste a nice day.

By Cutnook Lane 

I got the 100 from the Trafford Centre to Irlam and walked up Cutnook Lane. I was barely over the motorway when I bumped into the first mixed tit flock of the afternoon. Picking the runners and riders out of the flock was hazardous because it's a blind corner and the noise of the motorway traffic masks the noise of oncoming vehicles. I left it that there were a couple of dozen long-tailed tits, a few great tits and blue tits and one, possibly two, treecreepers and moved on. But not very far. 

Pigeons

There were no birds at all in the horse paddocks to my right, not even a magpie or two. On my left a field of turf had been stripped, turned over and seeded and was heaving with birds. At a glance the most conspicuous were the fifty-odd pigeons feeding in tight formation. Way over the other side were a couple of dozen magpies. What really caught my eye, though, was the very skittish flock of finches feeding in the near corner and retreating to the hedgerows whenever a pigeon opened its wing. There were about a hundred chaffinches, a lot more than I've seen for a couple of years, together with handfuls of linnets and goldfinches and at least one male brambling. A few pied wagtails were flitting about the centre of the field, it was a nice surprise to find a female white wagtail amongst them showing ghostly grey against the dark peat.

By Cutnook Lane 

I bumped into the next mixed tit flock just after the entrance to the fishery. There were fewer long-tailed tits, a few more blue tits and as well as a treecreeper and at least one goldcrest a couple of chaffinches were along for the ride.

Walking up to Croxden's Moss

I walked up to Croxden's Moss expecting to bump into another mixed tit flock and not finding one. The mallards on the pools were heard not seen. The pools can be seen now the leaves have fallen from the birch scrub but scanning them from the path is like having a net curtain over your binoculars.

Croxden's Moss 

Croxden's Moss looked big and empty and the illusion woukd have been successful had the carrion crows and blackbirds kept quiet.

Although the weather was lovely it was very damp underfoot, the sort of conditions where it's best to stick to firm surfaces so I headed back to Twelve Yards Road, adding a buzzard and a couple of bullfinches to the day's tally. Half a dozen black-headed gulls made a racket as they flew by. I wasn't sure if the mixed tit flock at the crossroads was my third one or the second one doubled back on itself. Picking out the runners and riders was complicated by its sharing a stand of hawthorns with a grey squirrel and a bunch of blackbirds, and by the warm breeze rattling all the leaves.

Twelve Yards Road 

The finches were leaving the fields for their roosts in the trees as I walked down Twelve Yards Road. A couple of dozen linnets fidgeted about as a flock. A few more linnets and a handful of greenfinches passed overhead with about sixty chaffinches, the chaffinches passing over in fives or sixes and all of them flitting between the trees along the hedgerows like they were stepping stones. Another mixed tit flock in the dense hawthorn hedge by the farmstead I nearly missed until the long-tailed tits decided to take umbrage and scold me on my way. A lesser black-back passed high overhead, a meadow pipit flew over the road. A meadow pipit. A bit further along a yellowhammer flew by. No flocks of pipits or buntings today. Three mallards flew past with a volley of quacks, a cormorant grunted as it flew over to the fishery.

Twelve Yards Road 

Twelve Yards Road 

I was approaching Four Lanes End when I saw the first kestrel of the afternoon hovering over a field of rough pasture. As I got to Four Lanes End I saw a short-eared owl rise from the rough pasture on the other side of Lavender Lane and quickly float back down again. I stood on the corner and scanned round. The field was ringed with birdwatchers and photographers, most of whom were standing in the field. I honestly couldn't think that the three yards' difference between standing on the lane and standing in the field would make or break a photograph. I decided I wasn't for walking past them and into Little Woolden Moss and turned onto Astley Road instead.

Kestrels

I hadn't gone far when I saw two dark shapes in a tree and wondered if they were my first woodpigeons of the afternoon. It was the pair of kestrels settling down before sunset. There were a couple of woodpigeons further down, in the trees by the empty stables. Chat Moss without woodpigeons is a bit spooky.

Chat Moss from Astley Road 

Between the school run, the lorries and the tractors the road was very busy. The fields were nigh on empty save a few carrion crows. A buzzard was digging for worms on the far side of the turf field by the motorway. I've not seen this individual before, it was a golden brown shade which was heightened by the setting sun and it had a very big white bib.

Shaggy ink cap

Over the motorway I walked down Roscoe Road and got into conversation with a lady walking her dog. Her house overlooks the fields and she sees the local peregrine go by most days. I know there's a local peregrine and I see reports of it frequently, I've never seen it. But it's good to know it's about.

Irlam Moss

I walked down to the bus stop and struck lucky, I had a minute to wait for the 100 back to the Trafford Centre. It had been a splendid afternoon, I'd got my exercise and there'd been plenty of birds about.

A day out

It was a grim-looking day from the start, with the promise of following on foul. I didn't feel like braving the elements so I decided to use up one of my Delay Repay compensatory return tickets. The past few months I've had a nostalgic yearning to travel to Nottingham to see how things have changed en route. I'm doing the stretch between Manchester and Sheffield quite regularly, I've not done the stretch between Sheffield and Nottingham for forty years — they were still building Langley Mill Station, trains weren't yet stopping at Dronfield and Ilkeston Station was a couple of decades away from the drawing board.

As I left home the spadgers and blue tits were looking daggers at the squirrels that were hogging both the sunflower feeders. Doubtless they were waiting for the coal tits to come and sort them out. Over on the school playing field the black-headed gulls were drifting in and a lesser black-back had already settled in amongst the rooks and jackdaws. I had plenty of time to watch more gulls drifting over the railway station: half a train arrived ten minutes late, was dangerously overcrowded and was only allowing people off not on so a crowd of us had to wait half an hour for the next one. The trackside spadgers and wrens woke up, the magpies tormented the crows, the parakeets made a racket as they flew by. Mercifully the next train was full-length and we got on, there'd have been an hour and a half to wait for the next one.

I'd missed the train to Sheffield, which is an hourly service. Luckily we were held up at signals at Castlefield so in the end I only had to wait quarter of an hour for the next one. And off we set.

There were plenty of carrion crows, magpies and pigeons to be seen as the train headed for Marple and thence into the Peak District, stopping at nearly every station along the way. The hills were greens and golds and purple browns and the fields were busy with sheep, crows and jackdaws. As we emerged from the tunnel before Bamber Bridge the train disturbed a flock of fifty-odd fieldfares that had been sitting in the trackside trees. Mistle thrushes bounced about with the jackdaws outside Edale. But woodpigeons were few and far between.

Things changed as we emerged from the tunnel and passed through Dore. Sheffield and environs had the woodpigeons that Northwest England was missing. Magpies were building nests and one pair seemed to be settled down making sure their nest was a cosy fit.

The hourly Nottingham trains leaves Sheffield as the train from Manchester arrives so there's a bit of kicking of the heels to be done waiting for the next one. I took a trip out to Meadowhall and back; the track runs alongside the River Don and sometimes there's more than black-headed gulls and lesser black-backs about, especially at the weirs. Today the river was high and the water turbid so there were no ducks or egrets.

The dull grey day got duller and it started to rain as the Nottingham train approached Dronfield. As we progressed through Derbyshire the trackside trees became peppered with damp woodpigeons and there were magpies all over the shop. The waterways we passed didn't have much bird life save occasional black-headed gulls, the still water looked muddy and all the moving water was moving fast. 

St Mary and All Saints, Chesterfield 

I remembered the wonky steeple at Chesterfield as being closer to the station than it really is. Alfreton and Mansfield Parkway is now Alfreton Station, which makes sense as the town's expanded to meet the station and Mansfield's half a county away. Blackbirds chased each other round Langley Mill Station. A large tree apparently in full leaf on the approach to Ilkeston Station turned out to be full of woodpigeons.

Going into Nottingham the mixture of the utterly familiar and the strikingly alien was a bit jarring. I'd timetabled in an hour's wandering round the city centre to see how much, if any, still felt familiar but I'd lost that hour with the trains this morning. Had the weather been any better I'd have had the wander round anyway and gone home in the dark but it was teeming down so I stayed on the train. I'll come back next Summer, have the nosy about and have a walk along the Trent.

I'd switched sides on the train so on the way back up I had a view of the flood meadows by the meandering River Erewash. Lots of black-headed gulls and the occasional moorhen but no ducks. A vivid memory, which is a frequent component of the landscape of my dreams, is of this area when it was awash one Winter and scores of mallards cruised between the trees as the train went by.

It was only mid-afternoon but looked like twilight as the train got into Sheffield and dozens of herring gulls and black-headed gulls were settling to roost on factory rooftops. I looked at the train timetables and decided to stay on the train to Leeds where there was an easy connection for a train back to Manchester. As the train meandered past Wombwell and Barnsley I nagged myself that I really should have got round to visiting some of the South Yorkshire sites this year. A pocket handkerchief of a puddle in a field near Hanley had a teal swimming in it, which sort of underlined my point.

On the approach to Wakefield the train skirted Pugney's Country Park, the mute swans, coots and black-headed gulls on the lagoons and ponds visible through the bare trees. Beyond Wakefield a pair of gadwalls were on one of the pools on the Southern Washlands. Rather to my surprise I saw people feeding the ducks on the canal just outside Leeds Station, the first time I've ever seen any waterfowl on Leeds' canals.

The train sat outside Leeds Station for quite some time. I missed the easy connection but managed to put a bit of a bob on my changing platforms and got the train leaving half an hour later with a good seven minutes to spare. By the time that train left the station it was twilight and by the time we got to Bradford the magpies were going to bed.

We had a bit of a wait before the train got into Victoria and the tram I took across town to get my train home was delayed while a road traffic accident got sorted out. It was one of those days. Even so, I'd had a day out, an unalloyed nostalgia trip, and I'd seen plenty of scenery and birds along the way. It seems apparent that our local woodpigeons have joined the exodus to the cork forests of Iberia and the Autumn influx from the continent is being a bit slow getting over the Pennies this year.

Wirral (again)

Meadow pipit

It was another day of eternal twilight with the promise of rain. I quelled ideas of yomping over hilltops or the wide open spaces of the mosses and found myself on the Liverpool train heading back to Leasowe Common where the firecrest and yellow-browed warbler were still being reported and had been joined by a Lapland bunting. Surely with three scarcities kicking about I'd have a fighting chance of seeing one of them.

The journey was notable for an absence of woodpigeons most of the way along. It started raining as the train passed through Hunts Cross. The rain was steady when I arrived at Moreton but eased off a lot once I reached Kerr's Field and it became an okay afternoon for a squelch about in muddy puddles.

Kerr's Field 

Kerr's Field was busy with magpies, carrion crows and lapwings. The hedgerows were quiet again though a couple of robins sang in the hawthorns. There was a steady, and heavy, traffic of herring gulls to and from the industrial estate to the seaside. A buzzard sat on a fencepost in the field, dropping down every so often to grab an earthworm snack.

Lapwings 

Buzzard and magpie

The hedgerows behind the lighthouse were chock full of house sparrows, chaffinches, greenfinches and goldfinches. The meadow pipits and skylarks passing overhead between the fields were vocal but tricky to pick out in the dull light. 

It was a quieter squelch through the woodland on Leasowe Common. Long-tailed tits and blue tits passed by in ones and twos. A couple of chiffchaffs squeaked. Magpies rattled and carrion crows croaked. I passed a stand of reeds and a Cetti's warbler took exception, jumping out, making a very rude noise, and jumping back again.

A birdwatcher passed by and asked me if he was heading the right way for the yellow-browed warbler. I told him where I'd been told it and the firecrest had been and wished him luck. He told me the Lapland bunting was still in the field with the tyres in it. Oddly enough, I knew precisely which field he meant, last time I was there I was looking at wheatears.

I walked past meadow pipits, chiffchaffs and blackbirds up to the bridleway that goes up to Park Lane. Walking down the bridleway I stopped every so often to scan the fields. The horses were being moved between fields, a bunch of magpies supervising the operation. Way over I could see a group of birdwatchers standing on the little path by the appointed field, which boded well.

The field with the tyres in it
(They're embedded in the ground near the top of the fence post at the right.)

By the time I got to that point the group had dwindled to three, two of whom were walking off and the third packing up. They'd seen the Lapland bunting but it was being very elusive. It had sat on the fence long enough for the chap I was talking to to get a photo of it but it disappeared into cover as the horses were being taken into the field. So then there was just me. I hung on, taking in the group of half a dozen little egrets and couple of herons loafing in the next field along, the carrion crows and magpies fossicking about in the fields, the immature kestrel pounce-hunting from the fence and the greenfinches passing overhead. 

Kestrel

Little egret 

I'd been there about a quarter of an hour when a couple of pied wagtails bobbed up onto the fence on the far side of the field. They bobbed back to the ground and disappeared behind clods of broken-up earth. Then bobbed back up again. This was oddly reassuring: just because I wasn't seeing the Lapland bunting didn't mean it wasn't about. A few minutes later I started hearing a couple of reed buntings in the reeds by the path a little further down. I'd just started getting used to them as a background noise when I heard another call that was similar but definitely not a reed bunting, there was something of a wader-ish echo in there. I followed the call but couldn't see the bird. It took a while but just as I'd reconciled myself to a heard-only, probably, half-tick for the bird it bounced up onto the fence rail. It was a good way away and the light was worsening but it was an obviously chunky bunting with a surprisingly conspicuous thick chestnut brown bar on its wing coverts. I walked back along the path a bit for a better view but I wasn't going to get a closer look. After a minute or two it bobbed down into the ground and I lost it. But at least I'd managed to see it.

As close as I was getting to the Lapland bunting (the pale protuberance by the top of the middle fencepost)

I carried on down the path onto Leasowe Common, passing a few more birdwatchers along the way. I told them where I'd seen it and wished them luck. They included the lady and her son who I'd met at Oglet, they didn't get to see the shore lark in the end. I wished them better luck this time, I hope they had it.

Carrion crows 

I was nearly back into the woodlands when the heavens opened. I decided I wasn't going to stop and look for any scarce warblers. A chiffchaff squeaked from the depths of a bramble patch to tempt me into folly but I was having none of it. 

Looking towards Wallasey and Liverpool Docks
(I promise you, this is a colour photo.)

I did, however, take the five minutes detour to go and have a look at the sea. You can't go to the seaside and not do so. It was high tide, the weather was filthy, the herring gulls on the water looked thoroughly browned-off and I couldn't blame them.

Leasowe Lighthouse 
(Also a colour photograph.)

I was surprised to find I'd spent two hours dawdling round. It was a productive effort and I can't really complain that a November's day had  November's weather.

Train stopped play. (Well, nearly. Whiz for bloody-mindedness).

Common darter

The plan was to go yomping up some hills today. The knees were not keen on the idea. I paid no attention, we were going to get the train to Bolton then get a bus and go yomping up some hills today. Climbing the stairs up the footbridge to platform 2 at Oxford Road the knees staged an intervention that persuaded me that perhaps today wasn't the day. And that I need to be ordering a couple of bushels of fiery rubbing cream for the Winter. I'd received yet another complimentary return ticket in yesterday's post and my wallet was full to busting with them so I thought I'd use one up on a trip out to Cumbria.

The regular reader will be unsurprised to learn that the train to Barrow was cancelled at Preston.

At Preston there was an announcement telling passengers to get the next train to Lancaster (I think it was a Transpennine Express one). This sounded like a workaround until I looked at the train schedules at Lancaster: instead of waiting an hour and thirty minutes at Preston for the Windermere train and hoping to connect with the Carlisle train at Lancaster you'd be waiting ten minutes at Preston and waiting an hour and twenty minutes at Lancaster. Buttons to that, I thought.

On the way back I got off at Chorley and played bus station bingo, which is how I came to get the 347 to Mere Sands Wood via Eccleston, Croston and Rufford, joining up a few more dots in my mental map of West Lancashire along the way. And along the way I noticed that Stretford isn't the only town missing its woodpigeons.

Mere Sands Wood main entrance 

I got off the bus on Holmeswood Road near the entrance to Mere Sands Wood. Next time I come this way I must remember to get off at the bus stop on Cousins Lane in Rufford and go down the footpath round the back of the houses into the wood. The main entrance is not for the faint-hearted pedestrian, even with very considerate drivers. A skein of pink-footed geese passing over was a welcome distraction.

Mere Sands Wood 

It was another blowy day, thick cloud and sunshine alternating at irregular intervals. Once inside the shelter of the wood it was a very pleasant warm Autumn day. I had a meandering wander round the paths in a generally anticlockwise direction for a change. I don't know how I got into the habit of going clockwise round nature reserves and I have no idea if it makes any difference one way or another.

Mere Sands Wood 

Robins were singing and goldfinches and chaffinches were busy in the trees near the visitor centre. As I walked into the woodland I started hearing mixed tit flocks but it was only when I leaned back to stare up in the treetops that I started seeing them. The great tits, blue tits and nuthatches worked the upper reaches of the middle canopy while the coal tits and goldcrests stayed right up top. I could hear treecreepers but only saw the tail end of one of them as it flitted between trees. Even that started in the middle and worked its way up. An over mature female Southern hawker had me puzzled for a bit as it zipped around some bushes, all the bright colours had faded on the thorax so at first sight it looked entirely black and the abdomen had faded to a dull, pale blue-green.

Bathing gadwalls

The pools weren't overly busy, a few mallards, coots and gadwalls on the water and a few common darters basking on the wooden railings of the viewing platforms.

Coot

The woods were very picturesque in the low November sun. 

Mere Sands Wood 

Mere Sands Wood 

Turkey tail fungus

There were more chaffinches and tit flocks, there were some siskins with the goldfinches in one stand of birch trees, woodpigeons clattered about, magpies rattled, dunnocks and robins squeaked and wrens sang. I spent five minutes getting a crick in my neck watching a mystery squirrel building a drey in the top branches of a pine tree. It wasn't until it made a sortie for some more twigs that I could see it was a grey squirrel. In the end all the ones I saw today were greys.

The footpath to Curlew Lane

On a whim I took the footpath out of the wood that eventually leads to Curlew Lane and thence either Martin Mere or Burscough. I thought I'd walk into Burscough Bridge for the train home. Unfortunately I wasn't sure whether or not the path into a farmyard was the footpath or not and couldn't get a good enough 'phone signal to download a footpath map so I retraced my steps back into the wood. I'll have a go at walking up from Curlew Lane some time.

Pied wagtail 
The plumage pattern makes more sense when it's not a car park or railway station.

The cabbage fields had been harvested and left to the attentions of pied wagtails and skylarks. A field away something had brought a crowd of black-headed gulls and jackdaws over to one corner.

Looking over towards Tootle Lane

Mere Sands Wood 

Back into the wood I carried on along the path by the woodland margin and was seeing much the same as before, and very nice too. 

Mere Sands Wood from Rufford 

I took the path out of the wood and followed it as it jinked round the edge of the houses, accompanied most of the way by a very confiding goldcrest that disappeared into the hawthorn hedge any time the camera got it in focus. In the end I put the camera away and we almost walked hand-in-wing down to the top of the road.

I had a couple of minutes to wait for the next bus. The 347 to Southport, the 2a to Ormskirk and the 2a to Preston arrived within two minutes of each other in that order. I got the middle one, got off at Burscough Bridge station and had five minutes to wait for the train into Manchester and caught the train home from there because although we were stuck at Castlefield Junction for ten minutes my train home was eleven minutes late so I still had plenty of time to run across the platform to get it.

Despite Northern Rail's efforts I'd had a good day out.