Having promised to visit my friend Tom, at his house in Manchester, I started at 6.30pm on New Years Night to fulfil my engagement and give him his ‘Century’ Certificate.  It was a miserable, rainy night, and the roads were in a super state of oozy mud.  From Walkden I took the Worsley road, then over Barton Bridge to Stretford.  A weary run along the Manchester setts brought me to Piccadilly, from where, with an entirely false idea of the right way, I struck the Stockport road.  As time – and miles – went on, it became obvious that I was wrong, and enquiries, at first of no avail, later proved that I was wrong, and had wandered in an entirely different direction.  By a system of careful noting, and by passing through a number of squalid, dark, murky streets, I at last got in the vicinity of the big electricity works in Stuart Street, near which Tom lives.  Soon I was being welcomed into the comfortable kitchen.  After the usual formalities, and after ‘listening in’ to a wireless concert, supper was prepared.  Later I took my departure accompanied by Tom who insisted on showing me the way.  After another half-hours chat in Piccadilly, we took our own ways.  The setts, via Pendleton, Clifton and Kearsley conveyed me erratically home at midnight.

30 miles