Bear McCreary - Warsaw Progresja (21-04-2025)

 A few nice shots from the Bear McCreary concert at Warsaw Progresja last Monday:

This gig was a fantastic audio-visual experience.

Bear McCreary and his great band provided a perfect balance of material from McCreary's film/video game tunes and recent Rock album, The Singularity.

From The Singularity, the standout tunes, for me, were Tatarigami; The End of Tomorrow; and, of course, Tears for the Dead Life'.

From the film tunes, Dance of the Druids was amazing.

In fact, everything was amazing on a great night.

Class musicians on stage with two completely different kinds of singers (Brendan McCreary and Morgan Sorne), this worked really well.

And, of course, a great finale with Godzilla (Blue Oyster Cult = one of my favourite bands, have been blessed to see them quite a few times).

 Bear McCreary and his band taking thoroughly deserved rounds of applause at the end of the gig:

 Came out of this gig feeling really uplifted, in the night-time air.

Another Buckwheat Meal

Yet another buckwheat meal.

This time, with cottage cheese accompanying chick peas, cherry tomatoes, green olives, camembert cheese, and of course, the tried and trusted, buckwheat.

Palm Sunday 2025

 

Inside a Catholic church in Warsaw on Palm Sunday 2025.

 

The windows around the church show Christ's journey to Calvary, upcoming Easter:

 

  The Stations of the Cross:

 

It's good to be reminded of the real meaning of Easter, of course.

My April Wine Tour T-Shirt

Very rarely buy tour t-shirts but made an exception for April Wine (after waiting for many years to see them).

Was happy to see that the back of the t-shirt was full of tour dates:

The setting where I saw April Wine (with Uriah Heep and Tyketto), Manchester Bridgewater Hall, was brilliant:

The sound quality for all three bands was fantastic.

Healthy Buckwheat Meal

My healthy buckwheat meal here, with beetroot, chick peas, camembert cheese, and olives.

Kotek's Favourite Kipping Place

 Kotek's favourite place for a kip, inside a felt-type, small hut:

Birtle: Passing the Old Policemans' Lodge

After the Pack Horse, I reached the last part of my Birtle-Carr Wood-Ashworth Valley circular walk.

Heading back towards Castle Hill Road, I found myself passing the Old Policeman's Lodge:

The lodge seems to be now, in some way, connected to the new housing development on Elbut Lane.

 With only the housing scheme residents allowed to walk round the lodge.

Turn right at this clutch of houses below, and you can actually walk underneath a house into the Secret Garden:

 Shortly after this, I saw the Old Hanging Barn in the distance:

Have never really found out if the barn was really used as a place for hanging felons in the past or whether this is just an old wives' tale (years ago, a friend used to tell me all kinds of old wives' tales about Birtle, probably passed down from his mother).

Ashworth Valley to the Pack Horse

 After crossing the green bridge and climbing a small hill:

 Getting out of Ashworth Valley was easy:

 A nice walk across the damp fields took me to the Pack Horse pub:

 And a pint of ale was really tempting during a long walk, of course.

Finally Seeing Hooverphonic with Geike

A few shots from a fantastic evening with Hooverphonic yesterday.

This was the third time I'd seen Hooverphonic over the years, but the first time with Geike (I rather foolishly missed the opportunity to see the band with her many years ago).

Last night, it was an absolute treat, as the band started off with the whole of The Magnificent Tree album, with the title tune and Out of Sight really sticking out for me.

 

After The Magnificent Tree, it likewise remained one great track after another (Eden, You Love Me to Death, Anger Never Dies, The Night Before etc.).

 

With Geike singing the songs from all the Hooverphonic eras beautifully, of course. 

Ashworth Valley: A Big Surprise

Upon entering the wonderful Ashworth Valley:

 I was greeted by a big surprise:

Yeah, someone had built a kind of wooden hut.

From all angles, the wooden hut looked great:

I showed these pictures to a friend in Kent, who, quite rightly, stressed that somebody has put a lot of hard graft into the hut:

Inside the hut, there was no wooden floor, just thick mud, but wooden sleeping places were attached to the sides of the building.

All in all, seeing this wonderful hut was well worth my brief venture into Ashworth Valley.

From Carr Wood to Ashworth Valley

Upon reaching the waterfall at the top of Carr Wood, instead of going straight ahead to Norden, I turned left hoping to cross into Ashworth Valley somewhere.

 

Not long up the road, I passed a small, still used church hall:

 

 

Not long after, I found myself turning left again, and this time passing a small group of sheep:

Then a pack of silage bags:

 And a farmstead:

 Which all kind of led me into Ashworth Valley:

It was great to be away from Bury town centre, which, rightly or wrongly, is often viewed as a sh%thole.