Martha's Marvellous Munchies

The air was on the move. Vast mounds of atmosphere were in a hurry to get somewhere else, pulling leaves off the willows, pushing water into waves, flicking flags into a flap as they rushed past. The sky was full of sunshine and the world was full of sound. It was a good day to be out. At Trent Lock the ground was scattered with conkers: glossy brown nuts and their spiky cases. Ahead, past the Erewash Canal, the land was once farmland; then it was dug for gravel. Now the gravel pits are flooded to create a network of lakes and have been designated as a nature reserve. Immediately after Trent Lock I was on another man-made section of water: the Cranfleet Canal. There was a memorial by the River Trent sign - Bob's Spot - with flower spinners which were whizzing around in the wind. A long railway viaduct crossed the canal and the river, and boats were moored alongside the towpath, hopefully with anything loose well tied down. The canal section ended at Cranfleet Lock. From here I cont...

The River Trent is the UK's third longest river, flowing almost 200 miles from the Staffordshire Moorlands to the Humber Estuary. I have walked barely a tenth of that. The section between Dove Mouth at Newton Solney and Derwent Mouth near Shardlow comes to just under twenty miles. So I thought I'd better go a little further. The North Sea is a long way off, but Nottingham seemed quite manageable. There is a well-paved path all the way along this section of the river. The only problem, from a walking point of view, is that it is FLAT. Oh so flat. The only things to climb are flood defences and railway bridges.  Beautiful view of Derwent Mouth But there were compensations. Plenty of interesting things to see, and it was practically impossible to get lost. Four walks would take me to Nottingham; this first one was from Shardlow to Trent Lock. It was the first day of school, and the boys - both of them! - were off to secondary school. My years of walking to the local primary were o...