8Th August 2025
I had just arrived home when I noticed Graham ride by my window. I opened the front door to see Graham standing over the front of my car. When he saw me he turned with a cheeky grin across his face. “What are you up to? Pal“ I asked ,knowing that he was probably up to something silly, he replied “Just checking how long you’ve been home pal “ with his hand resting on the bonnet of my car, Graham continued“ I’d say about 5 minutes ago “ like some kind of Red Indian tracker.
The evenings weather was quite warm but Graham pointed out that the wind was quite strong and out of the sun made it quite chilly. With this information on board we took the decision to wear jumpers, the first time in quite a while. As I got my bike ready Peggy Lou emerged from our house and spotting Graham took the opportunity to have a quick catch up. Shortly Graham and Peggy Lou joined me in my garage where he spotted my new cordless power washer, picking it up he turned to me and proceeded to shoot me with it like a 10 year old child, well that’s how this evenings adventure is going to go I thought.
As we chatted Graham asked Peggy Lou about something in last weeks blog Off To Meet A Couple Of Birds where Graham talked about the plant ( Himalayan balsam ) that we had spotted, but Peggy Lou hadn’t read our adventure yet. This in turn then led to a discussion Graham and myself had had many years ago about the difference between Flammable and Inflammable . Peggy Lou wasn’t aware of the difference so Graham decided to set her a test, we’d put the information in our own words in this weeks Blog and if Peggy Lou read it then she’d then know the answer, so here it is. Flammable and inflammable do not mean the same thing. If something is flammable it means it can be set fire to, such as a piece of wood. However, inflammable means that a substance is capable of bursting into flames without the need for any ignition. This includes Unstable liquid chemicals and certain types of fuels. The opposite of both words is non-flammable.
This evening we were to head towards Westhoughton but first I wanted to make a slight detour to find something that I had recently been made aware of. We rode over the aquaduct in Darcy Lever and exited at Bentley St which then took us along Bromwich St .It was then across Bury Rd and on towards Churchgate via the subway. Once up onto Churchgate I began to look around for the memorial paving stone of Fred Dibnah. Up until recently I wasn’t aware there was such a thing but apparently there’s quite a few of these type of paving stones around the Churchgate area. The reason this had come to light was a local man had reported to the council over 6 months ago that Fred’s stone was damaged and needed replacing , but Bolton council hadn’t done anything about it. Step in The Bank Of Dave , they have offered to get it replaced at their expense, absolutely fantastic, proves there are still some nice people in the world. We also spotted a stone celebrating local comedian Dave Spikey ( Phoenix Nights ).
We headed through the centre of Bolton along Deansgate to the traffic lights at Spa Rd. As we waited at the lights a car pulled up alongside its music blaring out of the open windows. It was soon like the chuckle brothers :
Graham: ” What you say pal ?”
Ebay: ” Nothing pal”
Graham :” What”
Ebay: “Ehh “
Graham: ” Cant hear you”
Ebay: “5 past 6”
Eventually we left the deafening sound behind and joined the Middlebrook trail where we enjoyed a peaceful ride up to Tempest Rd. There we turned right. It was here that Graham noticed something unusual, there were three houses next to each other all up for sale. We rode up the hill along Tempest Road turned right and then crossed Manchester Road. We continued along this road until we came to an opening on our left that would lead us down to and along Hall Lee brook. A small wooded area which follows the route of the Brook. This eventually brought us out onto Captain Lee’s Gardens. It was here that Graham commented that the kerbs around here were lovely and clean with no weeds growing out of them unlike many of the places we see.
Shortly we came to the entrance to Hall Lee Bank Park with its large wrought iron archway and gate. Graham read The information sign aloud “There’s wild birds and carpets! in here “I questioned this with him and he replied “Yeah Carpets “ I read the sign myself and it said carpets of wildflowers , blooming Graham .
The park continued to follow the route of the Brook with a nice winding smooth path. We spotted a nice looking new bench and took the opportunity to rest and have a catch up. We discussed various things as well as what we were having for our teas Graham was having Jacket potato and myself Lasagne. It was here, we took our selfie. It took a couple of goes due to the fact that Graham was not happy with the results. But we did eventually get A GOOD ONE
We rode through the wooded area where it was lovely and peaceful, as we rode along I kept hearing Graham shout out “Theres a Bench pal “ then shortly “Another one “,and ” ooh that’s a nice bench” , don’t know if hes got something about benches. The exit brought us out at Daisy Hill train station at this point we turned left and as we rode up the hill, I asked Graham “Do you think it’s called Daisy Hill because it was once a hill full of daisies?” Graham just looked at me and shrugged his shoulders. He then told me that shortly before he had spotted a group of horses in a field, one of which had its head resting against its water trough, “ I saw it and thought to myself its counting, 1 ,2 , 3, coming ready or not”, ” think they were playing hide and seek pal “ he said.
Part way down Lower Leigh Rd our route took a path on our left, but the entrance was slightly hidden and with my brakes not working properly I overshot, luckily Graham with his Extreme Biker sixth sense was aware and had held back. This dirt path which was extremely rutted and muddy led us through an area strangely named John Edwards 85 acres ownership. The path, if you could call it that, took us past a large pond where Graham remarked ” Reminds me of the one from Clarksons Farm , you know when he dug one out”. We soon came to a fork in the grass path. A decision had to be made, I asked Graham, he said take the right one, so we went left. It brought us out onto Gibfield Way where there is a large housing development being built. At this point we should have followed the road round but I spotted a new gravel path on our left , so we had to go that way, like Graham said, “We’re on an adventure” The path soon turned into a small dirt path but surprisingly it led to the Pretoria Pit Disaster Memorial, a place we had visited a quite a while ago. It is a memorial for the 344 men and boys who were killed in an underground mining explosion in 1910. More information can be found here PRETORIA PIT DISASTER
We now began to weave our way home through the back roads of Atherton. It was on one of these we past a very obese man, he was so fat his belly was hanging out of his T-shirt and over his shorts, not a pretty sight. We turned the corner to see nestled between houses with sofas in the gardens and rubbish strewn all around , a take-away pizza shop, we couldn’t help but think that’s where he was heading. Graham actually commented that the area reminded him of something out of the British TV series BRASSIC .We left the set of Brassic behind us and headed on our way up towards Cutacre Park via Carbank Crescent. But once again I deviated from our route, this time it could have turned out to have be a quite bad decision. We rode along the path when I looked over towards where we were heading to see a group of teenage lads sat on the grass verge drinking lager. I asked Graham if he thought we should continue or go the long way round to avoid any possible confrontation, he said ” No pal it’ll be fine “. Fortunatley he was right they just called out some expletives as we went past. Graham by this time was now about 30ft behind me as we emerged from the path, he called to me ” That guy in the middle wants a fight with you”. I replied ” Tell him I can’t pal I’m on probation ” ,”Yeah “ Graham said ” I said did he not see your tag” . We both laughed but some of it I think was nervous laughter.
We past by Atherton Laburnum Rovers FC on our way up over to Cutacre Park . The park is a large hilly nature reserve with views over towards Manchester. We took the opportunity here to have a break before continuing over the hill. As we sat on a bench a number of joggers passed by enjoying the evening just like ourselves. After our break we continued around the hill. At a crossroads we came upon a young lady jogger, so we let her go in front of us, well that’s what gentleman do. We began to follow her but even on our bikes we were failing to gain on her. Graham commented that she was running at quite a speed but was confident we’d pass her soon. Well that’s what we thought, she actually started to pull away from us at one point much to our dismay. There’s us Extreme Bikers being left behind by a young lady jogger. At this point we had to admit that we were not going to catch up with her and to hide our embarrassment we took a shortcut. We rode up through the industrial estate passing Gregg’s. As we did Graham called out “ It’s Gregg’s pal it’s Gregg’s !” this related to a previous adventure , Can’t Have a Big One Pal, where we guessed what the building then under construction was going to be. It was shortly after when Graham pointed out “ Wouldn’t it be bad if we saw that jogger now” I said “ It would be even worse if we saw her in front of us!”.
We continued up onto Plodder Ln where I left Graham at the top of Redgate Way, the entrance to the Royal Bolton Hospital where Peggy Lou and Val both work. I said I’d go that way for a change, so we parted company there with a cuddle and a promise to text when we were home .
