I never intended there to be stone stories on our route today, but as the ride evolved, I knew we were passing two 'stones' of note.
A very sunny May morning greeted us at Kingsway cafe, after several weeks of warm and sometimes hot sunny weather. It has been an amazing spring, and now the Cow Parsley (one of my favourites) is out along the lanes, with bluebells along the way too.
 |
| A friendly chap came out of the cafe to offer to take our photo, which was nice! |
Linda led the first group of 6, leaving me with 8 riders; some new faces, some returning, one maybe on her last ride before moving to Scotland.
My group set off along the greenway, past Bren bikes with a field full of buttercups - also in abundance (the dandelions have now all gone to seed). We left the Greenway at Blacon, to drop down Western Ave, crossing Sealand Road and down Ferry Lane - much to Rowena's dismay as this brought us past her house!
 |
| He's new! |
 |
| Ferry Lane, with Hawthorne Blossom - also out with avengeance! |
Over to Bretton, and our first stone. Or not, as, despite cycling slowly through the village I missed it! So here is a photo from an earlier ride (a summer evening ride in June 2017, that took some finding!)
It is on the right as you come into Bretton from the main Saltney road, if you want to find it.
(also saves me writing about it - here is the info board. You would think that would make it easy to find!)
So, anyway, we carried on through to Lower Kinnerton, where I decided to 'climb' Lower Mountain on the back road rather than straight through Higher Kinnerton, and as we rode I remembered another stone up here, but again not quite sure where (and struggling to remember the story) - no matter, I thought to myself, I will 'phone a friend', the one who first told me about it.
However, on finding (or I think I found the stone), I called Stu but there was no answer. He has kindly emailed me with the history:
He said he first found it on a lockdown ride when someone had cleared it and done a bit of planting around it so it was quite easy to see then but it's very overgrown now so it does just look like a pile of old rocks.
However, the stones lie at the bottom of a small dip, and the ladies passed by in order to get up the other side. So I was on my own anyway!
 |
| My photo from May 2021. |
 |
| Lower Mountain road, with Hope Mountain ahead (not today though!) |
Our cafe destination was a new venue, 'Park in the Past' near Hope. This is a new country park which seems to have started life in 2017 (https://parkinthepast.org.uk/fagl-lane-quarry-has-a-new-name-park-in-the-past/) I had called in last year to check it out, and one of our lady's swims here. It is also the venue for a new Parkrun, and today was their second event.
Limited outside seating, for such a lovely day, but more room inside if needed. I did have a most marvellous bacon bap (which may have been the last as other's had only bread - due to aforementioned Parkrun post run refreshments)
Then we headed home, fairly directly, with a small diversion for the last few through Grosvenor Park, as it was such a nice day (we really should have had an ice cream!)
 |
| Using Google Lens, I identified this unusual flower (but forget what it was now - Japanese something I think) |
"
