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Sprung
Awaking from my winter hibernation I ventured out to find that spring was happening already. As I had not walked for a while I decided to keep to a local River Mersey – Sale Water Park loop; if it proved to be too much I could hop on a tram half way round and return home.
It was not too arduous, being mostly level, and I managed the full nine and a bit miles.
Good to see the graffiti along the Floop is being kept up to date:
A lady interrupted my stride enquiring about a bird perched on the goal post.
“Shag?” I retorted. Which seemed to alarm her for some reason. We decided it was something akin to a cormorant – which it almost certainly was.
The heron, which is usually around the water park, was exploring the other side of the river.
The river banks are littered with the debris from the recent storms and flooding.
With a week of warm and sunny weather forecast. and the aged legs still functioning, I may venture further afield at some point.
Testing
Ten Years After
Rummaging around in here I discovered I still had a YouTube account, from the days before it became the quagmire of advertising and tracking it has become, which lead me to this old post from a decade ago:
The iPad was a mere one year old at the time but was already showing signs of its potential for making interesting noises. I suspect the missing video was for an, alas short lived and no longer available, app called Konkreet Performer which was an early attempt at new ways to interact with sounds on iPads:
Things have evolved over the years and today you have AudioBus to pump sound between apps, AUM to connect and mix instruments and effects and countless apps like TouchScaper and SoundScaper and even some that are not called somethingScaper. Although Smule still have some apps available their MadPad has also vanished; as has the Levenshulme Bicycle Orchestra.
The other video in that old post was a young Frank Zappa performing on a bicycle during the Steve Allen TV show in March 1963. Many years ago I read about this but who could imagine that decades later and thousands of miles away you can sit on a sofa with an iPad watching the video and also learn how, in late 1962, the young Zappa would hang out in Don Preston‘s garage improvising soundtracks to various film clips. Preston had a range of junk percussion ‘instruments’ he used including a bicycle.
An Autumnal Stroll
Not having left home (apart from popping out to Unicorn) for some time (7th October seems to have been the last time) and it being a relatively nice day I ventured out to Marple with my bus pass on the train. From Marple I followed the Peak Forest Canal towpath before dropping down into New Mills and then looping back towards Strines where I caught the train back.
According to the myTracks app it was 7.81 miles and took 2 hours 25 minutes. The elevation map makes for interesting viewing:
The canal sits high up on the side of the valley as it heads out towards the Peaks. As the other end is much lower there are 16 locks at Marple to lift the canal over 200 feet.
There is a steep drop down to the floor of the valley to follow the river Goyt into New Mills.
There is a long climb up the other side of the valley and then another drop down to Strines station.
