Breaking the ice with the neighbours

Like most places in the North West of England, our little patch of Newton-le-willows has been frozen solid these past few days.

Boxing Day was the worst. Snow had turned to ice and our road was a deathtrap. Cars were sliding around and people were actually finding it difficult to stay on their feet when they walked uphill.

Cue one of the strangest things I've ever seen happen in our street.

Armed with just a spade and a garden hoe, a couple of our neighbours started trying the break up the ice that was making the road so treacherous.

Then, one-by-one, and whether through community spirit or peer pressure, almost everyone else in the street emerged, armed with garden tools, and joined in.

I counted at least fifteen houses that were represented on the job including builders, a teacher, Police, a travel agent, a prison officer, A PR kid (ahem), even - and I kid you not here folks, a professional footballer. We're already friends with some of them. Some people who turned out I swear I've never even spoken to before.

What a stranger would have thought if they stumbled their way across this bizarre chain gang I can't imagine.

But it did the job. Within three hours, a two inch thick sheet of ice had been cleared from the road and it was safe to come and go again.

I've no idea what this says about the folk who live in our road or about Christmas spirit. Maybe it's nothing more profound than we all own a shovel or a spade each, although I'm community-minded enough to suspect it's a little bit more than that.

Solid ground

We've only got a few things veggie-wise hanging around in the garden now.

The Summer and Autumn glut of tasty homegrown beans, courgettes, spuds, strawberries, onions, tomatoes, salads and the likes seem like a distant memory.

I pulled up some baby beetroots a few weeks ago and, following a preserving recipe I found on the internet, I've pickled them, making use of an old jam jar in the process, so even better. Hopefully someone will eat them, although there aren't many beetroot fans around these parts I'm afraid.

So all that's left to pull up are a few leeks (note to self: if you bother to thin them out properly they might actually get to a reasonable size next year) plus some carrots and parsnips.

The carrots and parsnips are a bit of an issue. I've deliberately left this last bunch in the ground during Autumn, thinking we can use them to add a bit of homegrown flavour to the Christmas dinner.

Unfortunately, in an error of Michael Fish-sized proportions, I failed to foresee this White Christmas we're all 'enjoying' and my planned winter bounty is frozen solid, jammed firmly into the ground.

Looks like we might end up getting carrots from the supermarket. Oh, the shame of it!

Travellers Rest revisited

My brother-in-law had the misfortune to pop into the Travellers Rest in Lowton for something to eat last week.

How things have changed. Last year I was raving about the organic and local produce they were dishing out, but Andy's report is that the food on the two for a tenner menu was pants.

You could argue that you get what you pay for but even so, it's a shame. The Travellers is a great pub in a good location. That the locals took against the previous chef for trying to carve out a place for it on the good food map of the north west is to their eternal discredit.

Tubes raps to Ian Brown

Regarding physio Les Parry's appointment as the new manager of Tranmere Rovers, I shall restrain myself from saying I told you so and will also veer clear of commenting on how ridiculous the chairman has made the club look in the last 12 months.

Instead, I will play a video. My brother Glyn sent me this on Facebook and has been badgering me ever since, asking me if I've watched it.

Well, Glyn, yes, I've watched it now. And yes, it's very funny!

A plea to Tranmere Chairman Peter Johnson.

Not for the first time this season I found myself willing my own football team to lose on Saturday.

Earlier this year I celebrated every defeat as if it was a victory, safe in the knowledge that each goal against us was one step closer to ending the John Barnes debacle. Eventually, Peter Johnson capitulated and finally agreed with the fans that he had made one of the worst managerial appointments in the history of football.

I feel slightly more guilty this time around. Les Parry seems like a very nice man, he's Tranmere through and through and I certainly don't want to see us relegated, but you just know what's going to happen. After proving unable to beat Aldershot in the FA Cup, squeezing past relegation rivals Southend, letting in three but drawing at Huddersfield and then beating not-one-shot-on-target-Brentford at the weekend, the local press are positioning this little run as 'four without loss' and wondering if Les and his cohorts are the men for the job.

You can't argue with the facts I know. We have gone four games unbeaten and the defence is unrecognisable from earlier in the season, but we're kidding ourselves. This is not an achievement. The results in the last four games should be a bare minimum and there's no way we should be accepting the performances themselves as satisfactory. Against Aldershot we looked like we wouldn't manage another goal this side of 2010.

But I could see all this coming.

I've always supported Peter Johnson. Fans with short memories get on his back and I'm the first to appreciate the good things he's done for the club in the past. More than Aldridge or King, Johnson should be credited with Tranmere's success in the 90s.

However, his current stance is positively doing us harm. It's no secret that he refuses to spend another penny on the club these days and you can't blame him for that, but make no mistake, this is disastrous for us.

He has been waiting and waiting for Parry & co to put enough caretaker results together to justify appointing them without having to pay compensation to another club (see Rochdale's Keith Hill, who we were linked with). I almost suspect he was prepared to lose ten games in a row, waiting for the day when he could credit Les for turning things around and get a manager and physio for the price of a spongeman.

No. Les Parry is not the answer. He's a top class physio with a good line in comedy programme notes, but that's it. Appointing him would just be a sign of how bad things have got at the club - and I've seen enough of them already this season.

Don't do it Peter. I know you want to, but please don't.

Choices on the menu in Newton-le-willows and Warrington

After waiting a good while for planning and the likes to get sorted, it's great to hear that the farm shop at Red Bank Farm in Newton-le-willows opens for business today.

I probably won't get chance to take a look until the weekend, but it was a great success when it staged a trial run a couple of years ago, so hopes are high. The girl who runs it seems like a really nice person too, so I hope it works out. Her biggest problem is likely to be Highfield Farm in Winwick, which the locals seem to have really taken to in a big way over the last six months or so.

Choices, choices.

And to make food shopping in these parts even more tricky there's another new option opening this weekend too. Asco is a new supermarket chain whose first store opens in Warrington on Saturday, with a store in St Helens also set to be introduced before Christmas.

I was cheered to read the pre-launch PR stuff. Asco says it's going to be a real alternative to the big four supermarkets, it says it's going to be using lots of local suppliers and its pre-launch website makes it all seem very fresh and free range.

In fact it makes it sound like we are getting a Cheshire version of the mighty Booths - and who wouldn't be happy about that?

All that's left to trouble me though is why, given that they could have called their shops any name in the whole wide world, Asco chose to merge the words "Asda" and "Tesco".