pushed in, completely out of kilter with their forebears.

There are quicker ways to get from Birkdale to Southport town centre, but I wanted to follow the Coastal Road. Firstly, because it's far prettier. Secondly, it's a former railway. There used to be a line from Liverpool to Southport via Aintree, snaking its way through the countryside in elongated curves and ending with a route through the dunes. It sounds impossibly scenic, and it probably was, especially back in the 19th Century. If you wanted to get from Liverpool to Southport though, the route from Exchange to Southport Chapel Street was a dead straight line. The coastal route lasted until the 1950s, but it was never overburdened with passengers, and few mourned its loss.

The route of the railway becamethe Coastal Road, a bypass into the centre of town which avoids the suburbs, but still never gets too busy. Southport's recently made a push as a cycling town, with specially laid out routes around the town and plenty of separated cycle lanes.

I was on the Shrimp Route, apparently. Not quite sure how I feel about that.

It was October the 3rd, and Britain was having a bizarre heatwave. There's something very unseemly about hot weather in Autumn. A pleasing warmth, fine, but actual, sweat inducing heat? I want the leaves to fall into wet piles, and a cold wind to whisk inward from the sea. Instead I was walking along in a short sleeved shirt, staring out at the beautiful expanse of Southport's coast.

I formed a theory about