IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Thurleigh Road, MANCHESTER, M20 2DF

A look back up Wilmslow Road where another necessary piece of street furniture appears - a litter bin. Opposite is the Medical Centre which years ago would have been termed a doctor's surgery but nowadays such centres provide a range of services, though today they are under extreme pressure owing to funding which is inadequate to meet all the needs of the UK's population. House for sale notices up the road, but as with the health service, housing is even less adequate for the needs of the UK's population. Didsbury is a very desirable area of Manchester in which to live, so the prices of properties are unaffordable for most.

Taken from Ballbrook Avenue, looking south towards Didsbury. The traffic lights are at Wilmslow Road's junction with Fog Lane (left) and Lapwing Lane (right).

Houses in a pleasant street which runs down to Fog Lane Park.

Didsbury in Bloom. On entering the village the efforts of local people to enhance the environment with planted containers are evident and striking. What a difference living plants with flowers make to the inanimate hardness of the objects that cluster next to our roads! And Wilmslow Road is a whacking thoroughfare taking thousands of cars and heavier vehicles in and out of Manchester every day. Pedestrians who necessarily have to enter the maelstrom can take moments of enjoyment from the pockets of greenery. Different coloured wheelie bins tell us that rubbish collection is now a sophisticated process and also attests to the threat to the environment that the life of homo sapiens poses. Gone are the days of dumping it all in a convenient gigantic hole and forgetting about it.

Looking towards the junction with Wilmslow Road.

Large Edwardian Villas. Probably little has changed around these large semidetached and detached villas since they were built - except the road surface, kerbs, "furniture" and traffic controls. The garden walls are original sandstone ones and the hedges are trimmed evergreens. More than a casual glance (see Image) reminds us that we are accustomed to a plethora of objects, signs and signals in our roads. Here there are lampposts, smaller posts, bus stop posts and words such as Bus Stop painted on the road surface, bollard posts, bus stop shelters, metal telephone(?) junction cabinets, signs for speed limits, parking regulations, notices about a building's function, cycle lane information signs on posts and painted on the pavement, road names, logos, advertisements, etc. Most of it is necessary, some critically so for safety: it is a veritable mine of information that we should all be able to "read" in our various roles as users of the thoroughfare. Some may see parts of it, though, as a minefield. There are messages everywhere which have to be decoded, but most of us are good at it, by necessity.

Picture was taken over a high wall and shows the metroline travelling northwards to the centre of Manchester. It has been a huge success in so many ways.