Lockdown Exploring – Re-discovering Local Locations

The UK lockdown continues with no end in sight, although mid February review may offer some hope, as the rates seem to be dropping. Who knows what will happen. This week I’ve continued my photography in some more local spots. I decided that I would try to stay within walking distance of my house, and the regular readers will have seen that I’ve been exploring the River Mersey around Stockport. I’ve had an abscess under my tooth over the weekend and haven’t really felt like doing very much but I decided to force myself out.

Until such times as I can start to go out walking with Tracey, I will be exploring some of the locations that I became very similar with when Ben was a small boy. This week I explored Bruntwood Park. I’ve recovered from many a hangover on a Saturday and Sunday morning by chasing Ben around the playground when he was little. A quick look on the OS Map site told me there was a bit more to explore than I remembered.

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The entrance to Bruntwood Park was always through the main driveway past the Gatehouse, just off the main road near Schools Hill. I’ve driven past it plenty of times but this time I took the time to look at the house as I was on foot. It’s a lovely building but not one I’d like to live in as its a little to public. I was only maybe 200 yards along the access road when I spotted the small stream that winds its way around the park, and as I approached it, it became clear that the weather of late has caused a bit of damage. As you can see from this first image the stream has a mix of uprooted trees, stones, concrete posts and other odds and sods dumped in it by what I can only image was the bad weather we’ve had of late.

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What I really like about this time of year is that you can come across some wonderful shapes and colours that would otherwise be buried in all the lush foliage that comes in the summer months. This second image is of what I think is an old fence type concrete post, or at the very least a concrete slab of some sort. As you can see this has been made home by lots of mosses, and this stood right out to me as I explored the bank that runs alongside the stream. I’m literally no more than 20 feet off the main path here. All of these images are taken with my walk around camera Sony A6600, with my 16 to 55 mm F2.8 G lens. This is perfect for walking around due to its small form factor but is super sharp with a full frame equivalent of 25 to 82.5 mm. Most of my images seem to be taken in this range.

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The more eagled eye of you will spot a partial glimpse of the children’s playground in the background. Without this you’d be forgiven for thinking that this might be in a fancy garden somewhere. I love the colours here, the light although overcast, casts a lovely glow onto this plant (I have no idea what it is). This pond is right beside the children’s play area and the coffee outlet. I stayed clear of this area as there were quite a few people around. I followed the path around the back of this pond and my eye was drawn to the small building that you can see in the next image.

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It seems rather strange place to build a small tower like this but I’m sure when it was constructed there was a good reason for it being in this spot. As you can see its a bit derelict now and has a padlock on it. I’m not sure if its a storage facility of things the park rangers may use, but the colours and the run down state of it caught my eye. To be honest as I’ve thought about it over the last day or so, you will start to see a few more derelict buildings as I work on a project launched by my good friend Chris Sale. More to follow on that in the coming months.

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Scattered across the Uk there are lots of examples of Pagan Worship sites (allegedly) think Stone Henge, Castlerig Stone Circle etc. Now I’m not suggesting for one minute that this is one of those, its just a group of old tree stumps that have been chopped up and made into a circle. These are good to sit on in the summer as your dog does a runner around the filed behind it. My mind wanders all over the place, when I’m out and about. As it happens I was listening to the new Fleet Foxes album as I walked around, maybe it was this that got me thinking about all things “folky” who knows. The new Fleet Foxes album is well worth a listen.

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There’s such a lot of ground to cover in Bruntwood Park and time was marching on and I needed to call into the shops in Cheadle village on my way home. Plus wanted to watch City play Sheffield United on the TV, so I needed to get my skates on. As I made my way back to the road that winds its way down towards the Village Hotel, I saw this small pond. The tree behind it stood out marvellously as a reflection in the pond and although a messy scene there is something rather engaging about this image. a metaphor for reflection on the lockdown? There is so much to show Tracey around this area but I think we will be off into the national parks first chance we get. Until such times as this is allowed I will be exploring this area a bit more and stay tuned for more of those images.