Another virtual meeting – this time with Bob McC. He had been the first person to sign up as a meetee back in January, so it was a particular pleasure. He suggested The Farmers Arms, on his home patch of Poynton. (I don’t know how many farmers there are, so I’m not sure where the apostrophe goes. The management don’t seen fussed about having one at all, so I’ll go with that.)

Although it was a great experience to be cheered on my way by the staff at Trafford General, I was quite pleased to be back in the swing of meeting in pub/restaurants. If you don’t grasp why, you probably haven’t been reading these pages.

There is a branch of Waitrose across the street from the Farmers Arms, so I helped myself to a free coffee courtesy of my loyalty card. I generously brought (as opposed to bought) one for Bob too, and after introducing myself held his cup while he took a photo.

After coffee in the sunshine we moved inside to the bar and Bob returned the compliment. I didn’t tell him the coffee had been free as I thought that would only serve to confuse matters. This time he took his drink with him when he took a photo. I couldn’t help thinking he had worked me out very quickly.

I told him my journey was now to head in the direction of Congleton before turning westwards towards Shropshire. He said to begin with I had a choice of the Macclesfield canal or Middlewood Way, a disused railway line that has been turned into a trail. I decided to start on the latter and switch to the canal at Macclesfield. Here I am having just joined the trail at the bridge behind, a couple of miles after leaving Poynton.