As usual, we started the year not with a workday,
but with a gentle stroll at a local NT property. Four of us (Tim O’D,
Tim L, Phillipa & I) congregated at Styal for an occasionally muddy
amble through the Southern Woods. There was plenty
of water pouring over the weir upstream of the mill, testament to the
recent heavy rain.
We passed the stretch of river where we did some
spiling in the summer, where a few dogs (one appropriately named Flo)
were swimming around, and coming perilously close to undoing our good work while scrambling in and out
of the water.
At the back of Jim Evison playing fields, we
searched in vain for the chestnut trees planted by Phil’s Mum a couple
of decades ago, before making a short detour to meet the lady herself!
Mrs Greaves was not expecting her daughter to be
accompanied by three men, and appeared at the doorway in her dressing
gown, proving that Phil doesn’t have a monopoly on the minor social
scandal in her family.
We arrived back at the mill after just over an
hour and a half, but not a moment too soon, as the forecast rain arrived
bang on time. We had a brief chat to Simon in the yard, then headed
indoors to enjoy a bite and a warming drink in
the cafe, just in the nick of time to beat the lunchtime rush.
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