Friday 2 April

Set off on a damp Good Friday morning, we laughed about it as it always seems to rain over Easter, even as children as we set off on the usual walk to the Pike ( Rivington Pike) we always made our way up through Barrow Bridge - calling at the small fair and boating lake, most of the houses opened up selling tea to the passing walkers.

Then up the 63 steps on to Walker Fold and across to find the roman road. We also passed a large mound we called sugar loaf hill I remember one year we came across what I now imagine as a thousand rabbits eating and ignoring us, probably only 30 or 40 in reality, memory it can enhance so much.

We use to ramble over the fields heading slowly toward the Pike, We also had a TV transmitter to head for, the original Winter hill transmitter, it was later replaced by the one we have now.

At the Pike we use to roll our eggs down the hill (don't ask me why it was just done) then the area was scouted and the overgrown Chinese Gardens was our fantasy playground, they have only recently been uncovered again to show all the work that went into the garden, Lord Leverhulme (the Sunlight Soap King) built them along with a house etc., I must have seen a lot of unusual plants back then but never realised it. We always took our butties and if lucky a bottle of pop, the bottle was taken home for the tuppence we got on returning the empty bottle. If we had no pop we drank from the streams, it was clear & cool on the hill sides. As we got older we use to call at the ice cream van that managed to get as near to the Pike as possible.

As we walked today we could see the Pike and Winter Hill in the distance, Happy Days.

No Chinese rarity but Gorse is still in flower.

Happy Easter

Take Care