I write this in front of a roaring log fire after three dull and damp post-Christmas days. Listening to cool jazz on my new CD Player, I’m old-fashioned, I know. I am also trying to work out the intricacies of my ‘new’ camera, a present from one of my sons who has more cameras than sense.
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It was a misty Boxing Day walk with the family on Turn Moss, Chorlton. Turn Moss is a recreational area in Stretford, a green gateway to the Mersey Valley: water meadows, woodlands, ponds, brooks and ditches—a great place to explore and walk the dogs.
Chorlton Brook.
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Turn Moss.
River Mersey.
Yesterday was worse. Misty from the word go. I eventually braved the damp and drove up to the fell. I was surprised at the number of cars parked up on Jeffrey Hill, considering there was no view. The sun just couldn’t break through.
I couldn’t face the mud on those tracks, so I settled for a short circuit of Cowley Brook Plantation lower down the fell. This is my go-to place for some quick exercise, surrounded by nature, for my well-being. I am the only one in there. I take photos as part of my year’s monthly observations, almost like a time-lapse sequence. I need to get January to complete the cycle. 
The spider webs hold water droplets from the air as well as the pine needles.. 
I love this tree stump on my round.
More pine trees from the plantation are down since the last storms; some uprooted, and some simply snapped. I wonder if the original plantation will slowly dwindle in my lifetime. 
Today, as the anticyclonic gloom persists, I am happy to walk from home. Up Mile Lane and through the village.
‘Mile Lane’
And from 1969, clinging from a cloud…
