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.