Up early 5:30ish, out to the pond but there were feral gangs of youths about. Discretion being the better part of valour I didn't stay more than ten minutes. |  |
| Only one grebe pic |
Eight thirty(ish) set forth: pond & canal to town.
 | A guy at the pond called me to take a picture on his phone; he'd caught an ENORMOUS fish: he said it was a Ghost Koi (never heard of 'em). On the canal there was an angler with a less remarkable fish: |
| Proud angler |
Up through the market & back.
 | Introduced myself to Paula at her stall. She's a very nice, friendly lady & deserves to do well. |
| Smiling needlewoman |
| Back in town bought a corned beef salad sandwich at Birds the Butcher's salad bar: their sarnies cannot be beaten, thing knows why anyone buys sarnies from Gregs next door. I recommend the bacon butties and the salad boxes. |  |
| Here's one I photographed earlier |
Bus to Retford all round the houses - Manton; B&Q; Manton Wood "Enterprise Zone" & Wilkinsons - and then (it was a 43) round via the station in Retford!
 | Retford market knocks Worksop's into a cocked hat. The sheer number and variety of stalls.
| ||||
To the canal.
 | Evening Star (the narrowboat I'd seen at Deep lock on Thursday) was moored above Retford Town lock. No visible signs of life. |
At the railbridge a guy was standing with his camera. He said that a steam loco was due up, leaving Peterborogh about half an hour earlier and it should be there in about fifteen minutes. Well, I waited ... and waited ... and waited ... no steam loco. He lives next door to the bridge and said he had pictures of the Christmas replacement (the bridge was replaced, not Christmas) a ginormous crane was involved. I asked him to put the pics on the web somewhere & gave him my blogaddress. We shall see ... or not. While we were standing chatting a water bailiff cycled down - he'd tales of fish and buzzards and sick seagulls. After allowing a decent time I carried on walking.
Nothing to see apart from the view. Should just mention that the sky with cottonwool clouds against a blue background is hard to beat. The canal is great any time of year, at its lushest now at the end of spring: all the trees are in full leaf, the canal banks are obscured by grass; nettles; reeds; flag iris and numerous plants I'm not naturalist enough to name. The hedgerows are filling with embryonic fruit, there's a surprising number of apple trees on that stretch. Did you know that the Retford area was a major hop growing region until the late nineteenth century?
... records of hop plantations between approximately 179o and 183o. In Nottinghamshire the hop-growing area stretched from Retford to Southwell, and was known as the 'North Clays' district on account of its position north of the Trent and of the heavy nature of the loams developed from the Keuper Marls. Some thirty-five parishes contained hop yards. DCD POCOCK (pdf)I found a few late last year purely by accident while doing this same walk.
Plenty of fish in the water, some big, lots of small fry.
| Just a slideshow of the canal. To see all the pics go to Flickr |
As I passed Barnby Wharf bridge there was a man with his dog who'd walked from Worksop. He'd only joined the towpath at Greenmile bridge, having come "overland" (via lanes & roads) to there. Might give it a try sometime.
Though tempted to have a pint at the Chequers at Ranby, I resisted and bussed it back to Worksop.
I'll have the pictures added later: probably in the middle of the night: I'm too knackered to do all the renaming and tagging now.
Having tagged all the pics, I had a catastrophe! I'd renamed them all without the ".jpg" at the end. The stupid program "F Spot" photo "manager" doesn't include a rename facility. So I renamed them all with another prog: FSpot won't recognise them so I had to re-import them and am now re-tagging them: AAAAArrrrgggghhh!
Well, I've tagged 'em all & uploaded to Flickr, all 373 of 'em. There's only a few (52) that I've opened to "public" view yet, I think the whole lot would be overkill, I'll "free" the rest in a few days. It's 6:30 am so I'm going to bed. I'll blog some this afternoon.
Finally done @ 6 o'clock Sunday!
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