Photo Safari III - The oldest buildings in Manchester

Sunday morning has a post-party, hung-over induced quiet that no other morning of the week can provide. This past Sunday was sunny, warm and glorious. I got out an hour early before church services and walked around the city. The only people out were the street-sweepers, people rushing to Starbucks for their caffiene fix, and others dressed in their Sunday best. I walked a long way down Deansgate, which is usually so crowded with pedestrian and auto traffice that it's a little daunting, turned around and came back toward the cathedral.

These two building, along with the cathedral are in the Medieval part of Manchester. The one on the left is the Old Wellington Inn, serving drinks and food all day long. Next to it is Sinclairs Oyster House. You should see these places after work. They're packed. I haven't been brave enough to go inside either one of them, as we're not big drinkers and pubs still hold a mystique for me. I don't ever see families around them, which is the only way we'd approach them.

These are the oldest buildings in Manchester, dating to the 16th century. The survived the blitz, the IRA bombing and two moves. The 15th century Courthouse and Town Hall stood up the road, as well as the Market Cross, stocks, pillory and whipping post. They were removed in 1815.

On the other side of the cathedral is Chetham's Music School, with the oldest and first free public libary in England. It has over 100,000 books, half published before 1850. The church is offering a tour through the library for members. If there's a spot open on the 9th, I'd love to tag along, maybe take some pictures.

Row, Row, Row your Boat

Summer has finally arrived and it's hot! Not that I'm complaining. Ever since we arrived in June, the weather has been lackluster. Texas weather has nothing on England in its ability to change rapidly. It can be sunny, cloudy and rainy all within the space of minutes. Mostly, it's been overcast and cool, which really depresses me. I was starting to wonder if I'd wear my shorts at all while we were here. But school let out for summer break on the 23rd, and along with it came the sun. (They only get five weeks for summer this year!) It's been getting steadily warmer every day. Now I'm thankful that Bill requested to have an A/C unit placed in our apartment.

Brendan and I celebrated the sun's arrival with a trip to Heaton Park to get a little exercise and breathe some fresh air. That's my biggest complaint with city living. Even though smoking has been banned inside public places, people smoke like chimneys outside. Not matter how hard you try, you can't avoid walking into and breathing in clouds of second-hand smoke. Brendan attributes some of his headaches to the stuff he inhales. At least Heaton Park is more spread out and the smokers are fewer and farther between.

We rented a rowboat and rowed around the tiny lake that was hand-dug by unemployed workers back in the 1800's and hauled away in people-pulled carts. It's not a very big or deep lake, but it's tree-lined and there are lot of geese and ducks to mess with. Rowing is a great upper-body exercise. Brendan did the bulk if it, but after about 45 minutes, we were done. We walked around the park, enjoying the cool breeze, but heating up with each step. We didn't believe it was going to get hot, and wore jeans instead of shorts.

We had to stop to look at these two long-haired cows in the paddock with the burros and goats. They look like a cross between a cow and a yak. I've read about them, but never seen them. They are Highland Cows, raised in the Scottish Highlands for their hardiness and lean beef. Most of their insulation comes from their fur. They have the prettiest ginger coats and sweet faces, and now we can say we've touched on.

Also, this past weekend, we took the tram out to Altrincham, and an area know for it's beautiful homes and scenery, to attend the RHS Flower Show at Tatton Park. It's like a home and garden show without the home stuff. There were lots of display gardens and lots of stuff to buy for the garden, food and a band playing in the bandstand.

We didn't get to explore the area as much as we would have liked since we didn't have a car. But, it's good to know that there are "leafy" places not too far from Manchester that we would enjoy living. If this contract job ever turned into something more, we could live well here.

By the way, I learned a new verse for "Row, row, row your boat" when I was working with a Moms and Tots group at Grange Park Church. It's my favorite.

Row, row, row your boat,

Gently down the stream.

If you see a crocodile,

Dont forget to scream, aahhh!

Further Afield

Finally, after being in Manchester for three weeks, we decided to get out of town and explore. It took a tram and two trains, but two and a half hours later, we were in the picturesque town of Skipton, a place we knew from "The Calendar Girls." It's better known for Skipton Castle.


It was a lovely trip on the Trans Pennine Express, leaving the city behind and watching the green mountains (really just hills) roll on, dotted by pretty little and no-so-little villages and towns.


Skipton is a big barging town. It had canals with locks through the centre of town, and there were scores of longboaters enjoying the part-sunny, part-cloudy, part-rainy day.

The castle is situated at the top of the High Street. We arrived late, so we didn't have much of a chance to browse in the shops. they close pretty early on Sundays. We ate some great fish and chips and headed to the castle to get in the whole tour before it closed.

Skipton Castle was begun in 1090, and has been added on to several times. It is one of the best preserved Medieval castles in England. It was the last Royalist stronghold in the North during the Civil War, holding out for 3 years before surrendering to Cromwell in Dec. 1645, who removed the rooves. Lady Anne Clifford got permission to replace them as long as she promised they would not be strong enough to hold cannons. It was lived in by the Cliffords at least until 1900 (can't find a later date in the literature) and only updated it's kitchen accomodations once. We only found one toilet in the whole castle, a small room off of the old kitchen. Brendan models for us.



Before we left Skipton, we stopped for Cream Tea and Hot Chocolate, sitting outside by the canal, and then took the long train-ride home. All-in-all, a lovely day out. I can't wait to do more.

Carpet of Flowers 2008

All this week, outside the Manchester Town Hall in Albert Square, you will find a carpet of flowers made up of approx. 50,000 mums imported from Holland, laid on a thin layer of turf by approx. 150 volunteers. Brendan and I were two of them. We spent parts of Monday and Tuesday, basking in the English summer weather (rain gear and jackets required) on our hands and knees poking toothpicks in to the flowers to hold them in place. It was fun to be a part of a community project that was larger than ourselves and had such a lovely result. AND - I was on the BBC Tuesday evening news, well at least my bum was. We could see ourselves in the timelapse piece, too. Sweet!

I found out about this project from a brochure that we picked up at the Visitor's Centre. There was a call for volunteers, so I rang. I was pleased with how welcoming they were. We got to meet some locals and some foreigners, like us, but from France, who were also helping. It was a real international event.

Photo Safari II - Urbis and Printworks

Urbis is a museum dedicated to "all things urban." It lies at the heart of Manchester city centre and has a restaurant and gift shop along with several exhibition spaces. The first week we were here, Brendan and I went to see "How Manga Took Over the World," and exhibit about Japanese graphic art that is equivalent to US comic books, but has grown to so much more. The most commerically successful lines are Hello Kitty and Pokemon, but if you spend any time with middle school kids, you'll find that they love the graphic novels that are read from back to front, and this style is used in all areas of design to communicate difficult concepts in ways that are easy to grasp. There are graphic novels of Shakespeare's plays and even a Manga Bible!

Brendan's very good at drawing these types of characters, with big eyes, tiny noses and spiky hair. Although I appreciate it, I'm not so good at drawing it. I guess I have my own established style by this stage of life.

Across the street from Urbis and up the road, are Printworks and Exchange Square, with it's scaled-down version of the London Eye. This is a great place to people-watch. The weekends are busier than the week-days, as people come in from miles around for concerts and hen/stag weekends. Printworks has all sorts of bars, clubs and restaurants. The MEN arena is just around the corner. (Last night, Kylie Minogue was playing.) And this whole area is a shopper's dream, if you want to spend double what you'd pay for it in America. We rode on the ferris wheel to see the Manchester skyline. I think it's the most intriguing side of Manchester. The combination and blending of architecture is amazing.

Photo Safari I - Manchester Cathedral

I hope this is the beginning of a series. Brendan took these brilliant shots of the Manchester Cathedral on our first walk around town. There is SO much detail in these things, that it's hard to represent it well. But I think he did a great job. We didn't take any of the inside. The stained glass was not remarkable, and we didn't want to be disrepectful of the tombs. But the choir stalls were SO ornate. We stood and stared at them for a long time.




Gargoyles are always my favorite part of the exterior. Did you know the word "gargle" comes from the sound the rain makes coming through those down-spouts. I hope you can see these. The other two are of saints and angels. There were many empty niches around the outside. I wonder if the statues have been lost or if they've been intentionally left open for generous benefactors to have a chance at putting their likeness there for posterity.

Of course, it's Church of England, very similar to Episcopal in the US. Since it was the closest church, I visited on Sunday morning for the family Eucharist service. They have a small choir, maybe 20-25 children and adults, but they filled the worship area and the tall ceilings with clear, beautiful tones, all in Latin of course. I remembered a few phrases from my choir career, but not much. So I didn't try to follow along. I closed my eyes and just listened. Then, I was doubly blessed by a concert from a South African Youth Choir - WOW! Their short concert included works from Russia, Scandinavia, and finally South Africa, which I enjoyed immensely.

I have to say, there's much more available to do in this size city than there ever was in Northampton. Brendan and I are going to help build the "Carpet of Flowers" in Albert's Square in front of town hall next week. It will be similar to the ones they do in Belgium, on a smaller scale. It's a great chance for us to be outside and useful and meet some locals.

Our Room With A View

New location. New urge to journal. If this blog is supposed to exercise my brain, my gray-matter's gotten flabby.

We're back in England, this time in Manchester, living in a corner, top-floor flat in a Victorian building that was probably a cotton mill in city centre. We're here for eight weeks while Bill does contract work for Cooperative Financial, one of the largest companies in Manchester. It's a great opportunity to come back, we never thought we would, and re-aquaint ourselves with British-isms, like four-wheeled shopping trolleys, and looking right, then left, before stepping off of the curb, and taking three hours to do a load of wash. It's different being in a city. We don't have a car, so we're working on figuring out the tram and buses, and are doing much more walking. Smoking is not allowed inside public places anymore, so everyone steps outside to take a drag. Weekends are busier than weekdays, especially at 2:30 in the morning when the bars and pubs close, turning out all the noisy drunks onto the streets.

Two sides of the flat are lined with nine large windows that look out over the roof tops and give us a birds-eye view of people coming and going on the street, on the tram, and on the buses. I enjoy looking out at different times of the day to see what dramas are unfolding. It would be easy to become a voyer if I had a good pair of binoculars. Here are my favorite views.