Today’s walk was only 5½ miles so a late start of 10.15am should have been adequate for us to have a leisurely stroll and be back for a pub lunch at 1pm.  We had parked by the old sandstone building of St Peter’s Parish Church in Aston (Cheshire) which provided both good parking and a bench seat which could be used by some of our less agile  members when booting up.  As we walked down Aston Lane we passed some old buildings near Aston Lodge.  The group photo taken in front of these buildings shows how they are being allowed to fall into disrepair which, in Cheshire, is very unusual as every old countryside building seems to have been converted for housing or offices.  Moving on we passed the intensive farming units at Aston Grange and were now walking down into the broad flood plain of the River Weaver.  Reaching the river we turned to our left and started along the bank side footpath leading towards Pickerings Lock.  The commonest bird of prey was definitely the Buzzard with at least four in the air.  The odd Kestrel was about but Sparrowhawks were totally absent. On reaching Pickerings Lock we could see  on the far side where the old River Weaver used to run as the next few hundred yards, called Pickerings cut, were the result of the creation of the Weaver Navigation whose construction started in 1732.  We passed two isolated cottages at Pickerings lock.  The first displayed a for sale sign and from the second emerged a very playful Labrador pup which was obviously delighted to meet some more people who were prepared to tickle its tummy.  This second cottage used to be occupied by the winchman who operated the swing bridge that spanned the river until the 1940s.  A little further along  the river we came across a concrete post displaying the number 200 which was the distance in yards to Pickerings Lock and then after passing the post we reached some fishing ponds on our side of the river.  These ponds were again the result of the canalisation of the Weaver at this point though without this evidence you would think the river was totally natural.  Behind these ponds were the massive arches of the Dutton viaduct carrying the railway line over the river.   After passing under the Dutton Viaduct we reached a footbridge which crossed  the course of the old river which looped off to the left.  Crossing this footbridge would have kept us on the bank of the Weaver leading to Dutton Locks but our route followed the old river loop as we made our way towards Dutton Lodge Farm.  Passing the farm we again met the railway line but there were no grand arches at this point, just a little tunnel.  Now walking along a farm track soon brought us back to the road and we were now following our outward route back to our cars in Aston.  The time was 1.15pm and it had taken us 3 hours to cover 5½ miles.  Considering that there was no hill walking and virtually no flowers this was even slower than usual so we could only attribute our slow speed to the bird watching.  However the weather had been excellent and a good meal at a local pub completed a most enjoyable day.

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