wet afternoon

I left the house midafternoon. It was fairly gloomy all day. There were perhaps a little more than two hours light left. Still I decided to walk rather than take my bike. It had rained all Saturday and through the night so the ground was likely to be soaking. Cycling I was likely to get wet and muddy.

The walk took me through Chorlton to the waterpark and the Mersey. Alongside the footpath I took there's normally a narrow shallow ditch around three metres below.

Today the water level was close to the path. The water came up to the underside of a pedestrian bridge. Beyond that bridge and closer to the Mersey the water came up over the path.

To continue I had to climb up onto the embankment and through trees and brambles that were often very thick. A few other people had the same thought and managed to make their way through.

The walk wasn't easy. On the other side of the embankment the ground was also deep in water.

The Mersey was equally high. The levee on either side sometimes has two paths - a lower and a higher path. In places the water was over the lower path.

Later walking back along the footpath and still in daylight such as it was a bat flew around under a tree overhanging the water. I've never seen one in that sort of light.

There were other pleasures along the way. Crocuses beginning to emerge. Before I got anywhere near the waterpark by the roadside in someone's garden a bare tree with what looked like a leaf at the end of every branch. They were birds. They stayed in the tree long enough for me to pass by.