What I talk about when I talk about walking

I love walking, I love walking pretty much anywhere, but I have my favourites and here are a few in no particular order.

1/ The River Mersey – my home turf.  It’s the best path for a Sunday.  It requires much more than just the movement of my legs, as I tend to daydream a lot I need to concentrate enough so I don’t go flying.  Its rocky path and slushy plants, with the overhead flying golf balls mean I have to be vigilant.  This morning on my walk I was accosted by two dogs and to end it I was greeted with 2 scally wagers being put in hand cuffs by the police.  You can guarantee Mr Heron will be sat on some rock or other and the sounds of the distant traffic create a serene setting for autumn.  I love the colour of all the leaves on the path, they are the amberest by far I have seen. 

2/ Wythenshawe Park – It’s huge and I often get lost, I still haven’t discovered where the running track is.  There is the hall, and the petting farm which stinks, it’s a really lovely park to go around and the oriental tree garden is sweet in its understated way.  Wythenshawe was called the garden city because it is so green and many people moved here because of air pollution.  The area may not have the best reputation, but the park is a beautiful place and a good cut through to get to Baguley Tesco

Here’s a little ditty 2 lovely women told me about the park:

Lord Simon gave away

Wythenshawe park

green walkabouts

walk through the green,

a hall to some Chinese plants all yellow

daffodils in spring

Cross a lake a little bridge

a beautiful rose garden

full of beautiful rose

The pigs and the smell

the horses and the chickens

They called it the Garden city

“Come to Wythenshawe for your health”

3/ Mirrlees golf course in Woodsmoor – though I’m not sure anyone uses it as a golf course anymore.  There have been rumours for years that it was going to be built over into a housing estate, but the path is still there.  It holds many memories for me, from riding my first bike, to stumbling back from the bamboo night club in Hazel Grove in the pitch black where I couldn’t even see my own hand if I held it in front of my face.  The more recent days memories are of riding my bike past the wonderful Woodsmoor allotments, past the fishing pond and watching the smoke rise from Stepping Hill’s chimney.  

4/ Happy Valley – this is a great walk as the name suggests, my only problem with it is if I walk from my mum and dad’s house I tend to feel I have done my walk before I get there.  I like a walk you can just walk to and this one tends to be a little far.  It again is a great site for heron spotting and stepping over the river on stepping stones, it tends to be a dog walkers sanctuary, it makes for a beautiful walk and there’s many ways you can take the path. You can go a route to Norbury farm where they have a great little farm shop for lemon curd, coffee, tea and wine.  We won’t be getting our Turkey from there this Christmas though, let’s put it this way I could have a Nintendo Wii for almost the same price.

5/ Middlewood way – a great fat cycle or a lovely stroll.  You’ve got the canal, you’ve got country pubs, ice cream huts, fishing corners, and diversions through Marple or High Lane.  This is my childhood path of all time, as it was the best taking my bike in the back of mum and dad’s car and getting saddled up ready to pedal our way to a Sunday lunch at the Miner’s arms.  Last time we did the trail was in summer mum, dad, Adam and me, got the train to Whaley Bridge, cycled up towards Marple stopped off at The Ring O Bells pub had some dinner and a pint then made our merry way back.  Because it is such a flat ride it was painless to cover 18 miles, even for me and Adam who never ride bikes anymore.  A beautiful place for anytime of year.

Now snuggled up at home its nice to think about being outdoors and not be.

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Today and Thinking too much with a headache especially about childhood self inflicted trauma

I’m not normally a headache sufferer, but I am today. I’m drinking beer of the wheat and dark varieties to try and ease it. This agrees with me better than paracetamol, but less so than sleep with an eye mask.

Woke up this morning to drive home, collect breakfast, and shower. I listened to the radio, no mention of the station, as it is really not very good, plays a lot of The Killers and Kasabian, and that stupid fucking song about a monster.

Well I was listening to this station (XFM) and DJ was saying about scary childhood memories, and the guy mentioned Jaws. Now fuck me I was terrified by that film was shown to me by my horrifically gleeful father, and still to this day I cannot embrace the line, “we’re gonna need a bigger boat,” with any sense of iconic status that it has warranted.

But scared as a child here it is, add yours to comments.

  * Jaws – I saw it and thought the shark was going to come up out of my bed if I thought about it for too long.                       

 – I thought if I was in the bath and the water turned to muggy then Jaws was going to appear out of the plug hole.

What the hell was my fear doing there? as if a plug hole sized shark cannot possibly gobble ten year old Becks.

(Oh the good old days of bathing in bubbles with Ames where we used to run a bar with the biggest heads on beers this town has to offer.)

Still to this day I cannot swim over the black lines at the swimming pool or cracks in the floor without the idea popping up that a shark could attack me at any moment.

My predictive thinking, which is not a fear per Se but more of a thing that has led to fear, is thinking that I have power just by enacting a situation in my head that it will become real.

I used to think if my mum loves me the bus will come round the corner in 54321.

If I say Candyman three times in my head then he will appear, and if  I don’t check my wardrobe then the killer from Scream will be hiding in there. (do the maths – I was old)

More tomorrow . . . maybe