The writer Alan Garner has been a travelling companion of mine ever since I was nine, when our teacher, Miss Ward, read 'The Weirdstone of Brisingamen' to our class, and our recent holiday in Lancashire offered the opportunity to visit Alderley Edge, where so many of his stories are set, on the journey up.
Except the Northerner realised he'd lost his phone the morning of our trip, and the ensuing (fruitless) search meant we were late leaving, and this in turn meant we had to postpone our visit to Cheshire till the return journey - a very different prospect, because by then the focus would have switched from forthcoming-holiday-adventure to getting-home-and-getting-the-laundry-in-the-washing-machine.
All the same, we were there, and even though it was the Saturday of the August Bank Holiday weekend and the Edge was bearing all the signs of being irrevocably National Trustified, there were, nevertheless, indications that the Morrigan was still in residence.
I'd found a map online of the walk I wanted to do, to take in the main sites of Garner's stories - by Seven Firs and Goldenstone! - but it was only when we'd parked and I looked at it properly that I realised it hadn't printed in full. What's more, the Northerner was still having problems with his knees, which hadn't responded properly to his latest steroid injection, and so we decided - reluctantly, in my case - to follow the blue arrows that marked a much shorter 'Wizard's Wander'.
The Edge was crowded at first, but as we walked further from the car park and tea room, there were fewer people about and something of its wisht-ness was evident. In places, where there were gaps in the trees, you got a sense of its geography, and how proud of the landscape it stands.
I was delighted when we reached Stormy Point, which features heavily in the stories, with its views towards the Pennines ...
... and even more pleased to find a fragment of blue and white pottery there.
We also reached the Armada Beacon, which consists of a stone-built platform on top of a Bronze Age round barrow, and plays an important role in 'The Moon of Gomrath'. Because the immediate area around it is wooded, it's quite hard to appreciate how high this actual spot is and how visible the beacon would have been from the surrounding area.
The woods were lovely, though, and there were some magnificently gnarly, individual trees, which added to the atmosphere ...
I was also thrilled to spot the Goldenstone at the side of a footpath. Believed to be a fallen menhir, it was used as a boundary marker for centuries, and it really does have a golden sheen to it, though it's hard to capture in a photo. It really did feel a bit magical.
By this stage, the Northerner's knees had had enough, so we decided to go full National Trust and had a cream tea with the nicest scones I've eaten in a long time. (So impressed you can get clotted cream and cider in the north these days.)
Sadly for me, we missed the Wizard's Well, which is at some distance from the other sites, but this means, of course, that I'll have to go back, and that's a pretty good way to leave a place, I think. And once home there were souvenir feathers from the Morrigan to gloat over, as well a tawny feather, three jay feathers and one from a Great Spotted Woodpecker. A special place.
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