Four Walks; or "Home off the Range"

(an Autumnal stroll across Whalley Range)

from a collection entitled Spit Mancunia by me

Wending across the Range

Through low-rise affluent suburbia

Against a proud-perched distant horizon under full-blown Autumn skies

A calm and steady afternoon full of deep colour contrasts

And fifty foot long shadows (including mine) rise up

With such potent ease that for a while I forget my troubles

And bask in the glory of hope

The glove of now

Real tidy piles adorn the park-end of Seymour Grove

Did you know ?

I’d never noticed prior

You can drive all year down here on the way to Chorlton

Countless Saturday mornings have I gone through the gears on the way to breakfast at the Beech Road Cafe

Yet it takes four walks for the detailed data to arrive

Double sized semi’s with huge rear gardens

Wide avenues of ancient beech and elm

Well appointed

Security-annointed mansion houses

Generously proportioned

Comely drums

Four walks for the truths that never hid to get known

Everything is flat for miles

Like Sussex west of Hove or the Fens

This plus the deep blue light and surprise November warmth

Lend an honourable perspective to even the drabbest of rows

And walking of course

Meeting the town on foot, as she intended, is the only real entrance to make

For God’s sake!

That old brewery-looking complex down Tennis Street

What was that ?

It’s clearly long silent yet I wouldn’t knock it down

In it’s own right it stokes and cooks the pan-fried frisson of this part of town

The humble cottage terraces stack neatly up to it - lean knowingly into it - for shelter

At the cost of light

Still standing, it explains the criss-cross nature of the streets

How everything once fanned out from where industry meets

Suggestive of how once again it might

I love waking across the Range

At this time of year, it’s more sincere here than anyway I can think of

And it’s peaceful

Deep green and dappled wide angular leaf-strewn boulevards dance and sway for mile upon mile

Then come up sharp against Trafford’s inner-city delightful dish of variance

The Baltic foodstore “Riga” with a Polish aisle

And the demolished GMP pile

On Boyer Street

Leaving just the police chapel standing exposed

It’s eight windows questioning - eye-brows forever raised

Caught out

Formerly facing just an inner quad

Now, the last man standing

The cart shawn of it’s horse

Ridiculous

Like the folly of a great house

Chatsworth or Knole

Except here - opposite the Legion and Hollywood Bowl

Back over the red bridge into Salford

The jolted knowing thrill of that instantly-over journey still rings through me

And I’ve learnt more about where I am living

The hidden depths of Whalley

And how car drivers never look or change

Back home now

Just off the Range