The Search for Vikings!

A visit to Trentham where there's great shopping, lovely gardens and a monkey sanctuary. The little creatures will tug at your heart!

Itinerary:

  • Copenhagen
  • ...with a day trip to Roskilde
  • Day trips from Manchester

May 12

Flying Cars and a Chinese buffet

It was actually a bright, sunny day today but we messed around in the morning and spent the afternoon in the theatre! Figures! The phone and internet finally came back on about 11:30 so we computer addicts shared the console to check emails before we went out. I wanted to leave a bit early because the city centre of Manchester can be brutal to find your way around. We did ok, this time, and got to the Whitworth street car park in plenty of time.

The Palace Theatre is on Oxford Road and is a big old theatre, very grand inside with two balconies. Our seats were 5 rows back from the stage/orchestra pits. We are seeing Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and as it's a matinee, there are a lot of kids in the audience. The seats themselves are very narrow so I was not very comfortable at all.

The production was really great! Bright coloured costumes and clever scenery backdrops and the car, of course, that flies! It was rigged to spout wings and lift up. There were lots of bouncy songs as well. The two children in the show were pretty good though it seemed to me the little girl was a bit better and more animated than the little boy. They alternate between three sets of kids I think. All the rest of the cast were great, too and there was even a pack of live dogs on stage at one point.

We met some friends after for a Chinese buffet at the Number 1 Oriental buffet which is right beside the car park. Two of the expected didn't show up and we didn't have a phone number to contact them. Turned out they had spent the day in Liverpool and had not got back until late. We are going to a place near Stoke-on-Trent tomorrow.

May 13

Monkey Mania

We had pretty good weather today, with sunny breaks through the clouds and not *too* chilly. This hoodie is getting good use! Today's road trip is intended to meet up with a lady that has been my pen pal for some years. They live down near Worcester so she suggested meeting half way between us, at the Trentham estate and gardens which is near Stoke-on-Trent. Once we got onto the M6 motorway, it's only about 30 miles further. We are meeting Janet and Rod at the large garden centre at Trentham and we arrived in plenty of time for me to visit the ladies' room. Turns out we probably crossed paths in the ladies'! We met outside and managed to recognize each other ok. We've been writing for about 12 to 14 years but only by email the last year.

The Trentham complex is fairly large, with the aforementioned garden centre at the head of a huge parking lot. There's a retail "village" next to it with two rows of log/wooden cabin type buildings with shops and cafes in them and a couple of small galleries as well. There's easily 2 or 3 dozen shops. We walked along window shopping until we got to a cafeteria for a cup of tea and a chat.

The café is right across from the entrance gates to the gardens and we paid for a combined ticket to that and the Trentham Monkey Forest which is at the other end of the lake, or through a separate entrance about a mile down the road. The estate house is no longer there though there are bits of buildings that were part of the estate including a church and orangery, once owned by the Dukes of Sutherland. The original grounds were designed by Capability Brown and later by Charles Barry. The hall was demolished about 100 years ago. I don't think you can go up near the remaining buildings though, they seemed to be fenced off away from the general public.

The gardens are lovely and landscaped, and are all in the process of being replanted and restored though I imagine that takes some years to complete fully. There are sculptures and statues through the gardens and grounds, too. There is a mile-long lake as well and they do boat rides on it in summer and apparently have a small train that takes you along the side of the lake where there are also walking trails. There's an amphitheatre and another lakeside café and a playground for kids. I think they have events there through the summer.

We walked through the gardens, chatting and examining the plants and the flowers that had come up so far this spring. The sun was making inroads and it was very pleasant.

The real attraction for me was the other end of the lake, the monkey forest, which is a sanctuary for Barbary macaques. It was quite a walk if you go by the trails so we all went down in one car. The monkey forest was brilliant! There is a series of pathways through wooded lands and grassy areas and the animals are free to roam around where they want. The guides there will feed them and keep an eye on them but they don't have much human intervention unless there is a suffering animal. The guides are full of information to answer pretty much any question you might think of. The monkeys seem used to the people but do not approach them and you are not allowed to go near them either.

Their little faces seem so human and so expressive. They are living in two "family" groups, one on the lower section of the park and one on the higher ground. The path to that was rather steep so we didn't go up there. We had lots of monkeys to look at as it was. They have distinct family dynamic, a hierarchy of power within the groups that's fascinating. The park's ultimate goal is to reintroduce these animals into their native environment in Morocco as they are currently endangered species. There are other sanctuaries in other parts of the world as well.

We stayed about an hour, walking and talking to the guides and taking pictures. Janet had thought they would be in enclosures and was delighted that they were not. It was all very interesting. We then headed back to get our car and followed Janet and Rod to a nearby carvery restaurant, a franchise place called Toby that had an all you can eat buffet. It was quite cheap, too. We had the buffet, a drink and a dessert for about 10 pounds each.

Time to say good bye and head back up the motorway to Manchester. We were supposed to be meeting some Corrie friends in the Ox pub by the hotel where many of them are staying. Graham was tired though, so he just dropped me off and came back for me later. I caught up with a few old friends and met some new faces including Fred, for whom this weekend's birthday party is being held. I didn't stay too long as it was crowded and hot and noisy even though enjoyable.

This weekend is a "Coroping" weekend, a gathering of internet fans of Coronation Street like we did here 10 years ago (and apparently 5 years ago though I hadn't been here for that gathering). Some of the group that is here are people I have met in person before, some that were here 10 years ago as well, and some are new faces. Some I didn't know at all and some are "voices" on a couple of the corrie forums I frequent so I knew the names if not the faces. A few came from as far away as Australia and there are quite a number of Canadians over. Should be a good weekend!

May 14

Touring Corrie locations

Today we are going on a coach tour of locations in the Manchester and Salford area that have been used for filming Coronation Street storylines. The guide is Mark Llewellyn who is an agent, a writer and long time Corrie fan and associate. He does these tours through the year, perhaps 60 of them all tolled and does a fantastic job. He has lots of inside information and stories about stars past and present and was the perfect guide and an all around nice bloke! He remembered me and Graham, too, from when he took us to the studios a few years ago with Christine who was the organizer behind this weekend.

We met everyone at the hotel lobby where they're staying, the Castlefield Hotel which is around the corner from the Granada Studios. More people have been arriving for the weekend than were at the Ox last night including good friends Glenda and Barry. I finally got close enough to Christine for a hug and she said she had something for me! She had met up with another Corrie friend in the Toronto airport in between her flights to the UK from Winnipeg and the other lady gave her something to pass on to me. It was a shiny Canadian dime. This has a special meaning for me, representing my late dad. I had told this lady the story about the dimes (too long to go into here)

So we are driving around Salford which is used for a lot of location shots, sometimes getting off the bus for photos. Locations visited included the Salford Quays, Langworthy Park, Worsley Green and the canals nearby, St. Mary the Virgin church in Prestwich, Aston under Lyne for a lunch stop. Most people scattered to see the town hall and do a bit of shopping. Graham, John, Nikki, Annie, Glenda and Barry and I had other priorities. "Pub!!!" and off we went across the road to a Wetherspoons' pub for a hot meal and catch up.

After lunch, the Portland Basin Canal museum. This was the site where, fans of Coronation Street will remember, characters Richard Hillman and David Platt drove vehicles into the water and another character, Des Barnes, set fire to his boat some years before that. We also stopped at a lovely old building, Ryecroft Hall which is used for registry office weddings on the show. We also drove past a number of other spots that have been used over the years. Graham was a bit bemused, however, as he's from Salford and was finding it ironic that he was on a bus tour around his own city *and* he'd paid for the privilege! Even the canal by the Castlefield hotel, our start and end point, was a location shoot for a couple of things.

After the tour, the same lunch group stood and looked at each other and exclaimed "Ox!!!" (the pub which is only a short stagger away). We retired there for a few drinks and some more catch up, eventually joined by another couple of pingers. Graham and I decided to head out but I think the rest of them went for a Greek meal closeby. We walked down Deansgate to where we could get the bus back home. We hadn't taken the car as didn't want to pay to park all day. We are in for the evening and staying warm!



Next up....Corrie magic and the end of the holiday



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