My itinerary will be back on course tomorrow after the last 2 days around the Wirral. I can only imagine I'd planned to walk across the Wirral to Wales but in fact I walked round which I'm glad about. Hoylake and West Kirby may not be well known places but between the two is the Royal Liverpool Golf Course, yet another home of the Open Championships and has some very fine houses. Most of today's walk from West Kirby to Neston was along the disused railway now popular with cyclists and dog walkers. Cyclists are very bad about dinging their bells and there's no code about which side they pass you on when coming from behind. They can see me but obviously I can't see them so I need a ding! Neston is a very pretty estuary town. It used to be a ferry port for Ireland when the channel of the River Dee was allowed to do its own thing but 20th century man pushed the channel towards Wales by building an enormous steelworks so now there is a mile of grass in front of the small town. The steelworks are gone and have been replaced by an equally enormous industrial estate and on the marsh the military do target practice so it was no go for walking. Flint, my original destination had no accomodation and it was pouring with rain as I left Neston. A bus to Chester turned up so I hopped on and within an hour was sitting in the choir of Chester Cathedral listening to Byrd's Five Part Mass being sung at a Eucharist Service for the Feast of the Transfiguration. The visiting choir were quite superb. I booked in to the Backpacker's Hostel, then went to eat and explore a city I neither knew, or knew I'd be visiting. What a great place. The Rows are a network of covered shopping malls above the street level shops below. Sophie, my waitress at Pizza Hut lives on the north coast of Wales and speaks Welsh as well as French and German. She speaks Cheshire English in Chester, Scouse in Liverpool which is for fun and shopping and Welsh in Wales. Carlisle is in a very similar position in relation to Scotland and is also of course very Roman. Chester's Roman Wall is more in tact and I intend to walk it before going into Wales. Gymnast, Beth Tweddle, is a local girl presently in Beijing to compete on the floor and bars.