High Life in the Lanes

I know, I know. It has been a while between posts. I can't think of any legitimate excuses, and I can't blame a lack of material because there's been plenty happening...

Which brings us to this post. As new members of our neighbourhood group, the Didsbury Lanes Association, Kel & I received an invite to the annual Laneway Residents Festival. For the grand sum of £5 a head, we were promised 6 hours of food from local restaurants, wine and beer, music and entertainment. Good deal? You better believe it! As you can see from the photo below, Kel wasted no time securing a glass of vino bianco.

Our fellow festival-goers were a mix of young families, retirees, young professionals and the ubiquitous local Member of Parliament. The 'theme' of the festival was European; but, regrettably, nobody had the foresight to arrange a Eurovision-style song contest. In fact, to my gross disappointment there was very little Euro-kitsch on display anywhere, with the exception of several enterprising young kids who came dressed in their finest Swiss milk-maid and Gerrard Depardieu costumes.

The range of food on offer was astounding, given the meagre entry price. Spanish paella (see accompanying photo), Scottish haggis, Italian fettucini and penne pasta, Irish stew, and...errr...Indian samosas (note to festival organisers: unless I'm horribly mistaken, India is NOT part of the EU).

True to form, I was roped into organising and running an activity - boules (or petanque, or bocce, depending on your euro-perspective). To my complete astonishment the boule tournament, played in the backyard of nearby resident, was a hit with the locals and gobbled up at least 2 hours of festivities. It was a divine miracle that I happened to coordinate semi-intoxicated people hurling heavy metal balls into the air without any property damage or minor flesh wounds occurring.

It stands to reason that next year the theme will be Australian and I will be asked to stage-manage the entire event, write funding applications and convince Peter-Russell Clarke to come out of retirement and whip up a pavlova or two. Watch this space.

More of the Moors, Please...

After a day walking about the Dark Peak section of the Pennine Ranges, I have come to the conclusion that Heathcliff of Wuthering Heights fame was on to a good thing: to wander about the moors is actually a pretty nice occupation, thank you very much. While Emily Bronte scripted Heathcliff and the moors as having brooding and mysterious qualities, our experience was quite the opposite. Bathed in brilliant sunshine, the upland moors between Manchester and Sheffield were a canvas for all things green, lush and earthy.

A train from Manchester ferried us up to Edale, a tiny hamlet of stone buildings with a church and a few pubs. A myriad of walks, strolls, hikes and rambles emanate from Edale - it was just a matter of us deciding how energetic and adventurous we felt. True to form, Kel and I settled on the 'ridiculously-fit-and-overly-ambitious" option, a 19-kilometre epic that nearly circumnavigated the entire valley and, fittingly, ended in a beergarden.

Our walk included a scramble up a narrow rocky gully, an encounter with a pair of red-grouse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Grouse) and the spectacle of a nervous mountain biker flipping over his handle bars during a tricky descent. After a week working in the urban jigsaw of the city, the sensation of open space was delicious. Although we were by no means alone in our wanderings, there were a few moments of solitude which have been burned into the memory banks.

The Edale area sits within the Peak District National Park, which itself is about 30 minutes drive for millions of Northerners. You'd expect the place to be overrun with people, given its location, but I felt much more at ease here than in Chester. The landscape is not as physically imposing as the Blue Mountains or the Barrington Tops, but shares some of the 'rounded' hilltop characteristics that can be found in the Snowy Mountains. The dry stone walls are a treat, and the farm pastures particularly verdant for anyone who has grown up in an arid climate. To paraphrase Arnie Schwartznegger: "we'll be back".