Thursday, Sept. 27
Shakespeare's Globe, London Eye

The train was more crowded this morning so Nikki and I didn’t get to sit together. It’s funny seeing some people on the train, the ones that are obviously not morning people or had late nights. They doze off and sway and you think they might topple off their seat. Nikki says she’s seen that happen! One of our journeys I had a man beside me doze off and lean against my shoulder. Dave is the main one that I chat with when we manage to connect on the net and  I don’t get as much chance to talk to Nikki so I enjoyed our journeys, having a chance to talk girl talk, show off my purchases to someone who understands dressing room mirrors  and giggle over things.

After my usual tea break first thing, I made my way to the Southbank area. I got to the new Globe theatre by about 10. There was a tour of the theatre at 10:30 so I spent a half hour looking at the first bit of the exhibition in the adjoining building. This part went into the history of the rebuilding of the Globe, a project spearheaded by American actor Sam Wanamaker who worked tirelessly raising money for 20 years. The original Globe was one street away from the present location but that property was not available. Around the outside of the rebuilt theatre are bricks in the pavement that were sold for £300 in exchange for which the owner’s name is carved in the brick for all to see. You can still buy a normal smaller brick for a pound if you wish. The theatre, which can hold 900 in the seating area and 600 in the Yard  which is a bit of a squash admittedly, is entirely self supporting and the most expensive ticket is only £20.

The original Globe was built in 1599 and was actually moved to Bankside from a location North of London and was owned by Richard Burbadge along with the company of performers. A very early co-op!  You would get to the theatre by ferry boat and there were no tickets sold in advance. Royalty would not have attended as portrayed in some movies. They would summon the troupe for a private performance at one of the Royal Palaces.

The tour took the better part of an hour. We were taken outside for an explanation of how the theatre was built using methods and materials identical to those from the early 17th C. This building is the only thatch building in London and they had to have special permission from the fire department to do it. It is lined with sprinklers for safety. Inside the building we heard about how it would have been to attend a play in such a theatre in late Elizabethan times. There is no metal used in the construction of the wooden theatre other than some ornamental pieces on the doors and some used in the floor and seating structure. The beams supporting it are aged oak and the plaster is a mixture of water, sand and lots of goat hair, just the way it would have been 400 years ago. The brick base is made of copies of 17th C style brick as well. Because there were no existing plans of the interior, it’s a “best guess”.  There are however, lights for evening performances.

The stage is thrust out into the audience instead of in a picture frame sort of setting so you can see the actors no matter where you sit or stand. The “Yard” or floor is standing room only and you can buy tickets to see a play from the Yard for five pounds. In Shakespeare’s day, this would cost you a penny. The theatre is circular with pine benches in three tiers of galleries. The stage is oak and sheltered by a magnificent canopy supported by two huge oak trees painted to look like marble pillars. The boards of the stage are painted each season depending on performance or theme although this season they were left bare to see how it would work as the plays this season were mostly done in modern dress. 

When I was there in late September the season had just finished. The theatre is open to the sky and plays are performed rain or shine with rain slickers provided if necessary. No umbrellas as they would block the view.  They also used the theatre for other types of performances from comedy to music. Every year one country is invited to do a production of a Shakespeare play in their own native language. This year’s was in Brazil’s Portuguese and one year there was a Zulu production of  “The Scottish Play”.

I went back and saw the rest of the theatre exhibition which I really enjoyed and I really recommend if you are a theatre fan at all. It details the history of theatre in London and the history of the South Bank area. There are loads of interactive multimedia displays on monitors,  with interesting things like the various ways they used to produce sound and special effects in Elizabethan theatre. There was a display of musical instruments from that time, all hanging in a glass case and a nearby touch screen that you could use to find out about the different pieces including how they sounded. 

Downstairs there is an area that displays costumes and costume making, props, printing from that era, even a couple of sound booths with audio clips of various famous actors from this century performing. There were even scratchy sounding very old clips from the early part of the century. One modern actor was Sir John Geilgud though I was surprised that Sir Lawrence Olivier or Richard Burton weren’t featured in addition.

There is a lot to see, a very good gift shop and a good café with a limited menu for a light lunch. After I saw pretty much everything, I left and walked West along Bankside, stopping along the way as I felt like. The day was overcast but not threatening and there was a coolish breeze blowing off the Thames. I sat daydreaming at one point trying to decide what else I *should* do and ended up scolding myself. I didn’t *have* to do anything if I didn’t want to! No law says I have to go go go. Eventually I found myself down by the London Eye observation wheel. I bought a bottle of water and muffin at a keyosk and looked up at the wheel. I have been of two minds all week whether to “fly the Eye”, but there was no lineup today whatsoever and that made my mind up for me. I was able to buy a ticket in County Hall and walk right into a “pod” after two security guards checked my purse first.

The complete circuit takes a half hour to the minute nearly. The weather was more or less clearing though very little blue sky was visible. Still, a decent enough day for the view. The compartments can hold 20 people each and there’s a bench in the middle to sit on if you are nervous about standing too close to the glass wall. You don’t feel the movement at all, not even a rumble from a motor! You move so slowly that the only way you can tell you are even moving at all is because your eyes tell you that you are going up. About halfway up one side even my eyes started to fool me. The scene didn’t look as if it was changing at all and I thought we were stopped. There comes a point where you are above the buildings far enough that it really is difficult to tell if you are going up or down. The next thing I knew, we were cresting over the top and my brain then told my eyes that yes, things were farther down than they were 10 minutes ago. The views were spectacular. Taking photos is possible although you will probably get some reflection of the light off the glass walls. I was even able to see a bit of the Tower Bridge between two office blocks.

You only get to go around the once and you’re off. I walked across Westminster bridge and decided to head back to Liverpool Station as it was after 4 by this time. I decided I needed to use the toilet but I really didn’t want to face another assault in the pay toilets in the train station. You see, I went in the other morning, paid my 20p to pass through the turnstile but didn’t get through fast enough and it caught me on the inner thigh. Now, not only is my wrist black and blue from my suitcase, but I have a bruise on my leg the size of my fist! I look like a scratch and dent sale at Sears! I went to the McDonald’s at the station and bought a milkshake and fries (sorry Chris!)  so that I could guiltlessly use their loo and sit outside at a table for a few minutes to kill time. I also had time to make a phone call to Barb who hadn’t been able to make it to our get together last Sunday.

Tonight we had a delicious meal of salmon and vegetables and tiny new potatoes and I got some laundry done. I don’t know what I fancy doing tomorrow, my last day in London.

Friday Sept. 28
The "Square Mile"

I had my morning tea in a different coffee shop, one a bit out of the way from the crowds inside the station. It’s very nice, with wood tables and chairs and wall paneling. It’s got a toilet too so I won’t have to play dodge the turnstile! I decided to walk down through the City of London, also known as the Square Mile, and gawp at the architecture and search out the remains of the Christopher Wren churches hiding among the newer office towers. The weather is sunny but not too hot, perfect for walking.

I first headed south down Bishopsgate from the train station. I saw a lovely large official looking building with a gate and court yard that was opposite the National Westminster bank tower. If anyone knows what it is, let me know! I walked all around Threadneedle street, Leadenhall Market, Cornhill, King William Street, passed by Lloyd’s, the newish building with all the words on the outside, heating pipes, elevators etc. Leadenhall market is a covered Victorian arcade with some nice shops and cafes though I had thought it would be a stall type market. I walked down Lombard Street where the old banks used to be centuries ago. There are still little signs with all types of shapes hanging outside many of the doors, some dated back to the 1500’s. One in particular I saw was a grasshopper and another was an eagle. These were the symbols for the various banks, like today’s logos.

There are numerous narrow little alleyways and courtyards all over the place. I followed some of them and found other businesses tucked away, or an old door that looked like it might have been from an old church but which led nowhere.  Another building in a hidden courtyard had two lovely sculptured lions at the base of it’s front staircase.  There are a lot of churches, most of which were rebuilt by Christopher Wren after the Great Fire of 1666. They are squeezed and fitted in behind newer buildings. Some have tiny churchyards that you can find by walking around behind the newer building to track down the lane that leads to it. Some churchyards have benches and gardens as well. The names are very old fashioned too, St. Peter Cornhill, St. Edmund the King and St. Dunstan.

Near the 202 foot Monument to the fire  and a hop and a skip from London Bridge is St. Magnus the Martyr. This church was rebuilt after the fire and then had to be rebuilt and restored again after severe bomb damage in WWII. The floor of the main aisle contains memorial flagstones and there are marble memorials lining the walls. Most of the stained glass is post-war except for one circular one in the corner. The south wall contains tall stained glass depicting Saints Margaret, Magnus, Thomas and Michael and there’s a statue of a fierce looking bloke in Viking kit representing St. Magnus himself. The rest of the floors are blackened wood, oak probably.

The first mention of a church on this site was in the late 11th C. It’s right near the river very close to where the original London Bridge was which is a little east of the current structure. There’s a plaque in the churchyard that says the yard was probably used as the main thoroughfare to the old bridge and there’s a model of the bridge inside the church. Also, secured against a stone pillar outside is a very old post of fossilized wood that was discovered nearby in the 1930’s and has been dated back to Roman times, probably an old wharf support.

I explored a bit and walked down Eastcheap where there were a few very interesting architectural touches on some buildings across from the Starbucks where I stopped for a cuppa. The City has an enormous number of coffee and sandwich shops, big business Nikki tells me, to get all those office workers fed and watered!

I had planned to walk to where I could catch a bus back up west but I didn’t make it too far. About a block from Starbucks there was another church tower I saw. I went down the side street to the entrance and found that there was nothing left of St. Dunstan’s in the East which was rebuilt after the fire but demolished and rebuilt again in 1817. Nothing left but a few bits of walls still standing from a bombed out shell although the Wren tower had been restored after a bomb destroyed most of it in WWII. 

The remaining walls are covered in ivy and there is a little park built there, with a small fountain ringed with benches. The sun was streaming down though, lighting the water and warming the people sitting and reading newspapers or quietly chatting. I was entranced but unfortunately most of my photos didn’t turn out because either I didn’t wait for the film to rewind all the way or the camera just didn’t do it right. I opened the back of it to change films and exposed a few frames, the ones of St. Dunstan’s it turns out.

A few blocks later I spotted a pub called Hung Drawn and Quartered about a block from the Tower of London and gave in to the temptations of a pint and a hot meal of scampi. This looks to be a late Victorian or Edwardian interior. The pub is aptly named. There is a rope noose hanging from a fixture in the ceiling over the bar!  Must keep the Saturday night crowd in lined! *chuckle* Actually it’s probably there for the tourists, seeing as the Tower of London was so close by.

I walked to the bus stop by the Tower and boarded a double decker west. The traffic was very bad and the bus was stopped for much of the time but I didn’t mind the rest. I got off on the Strand and walked towards Trafalgar Square where I had seen a large cyber café. No, it’s not really a cafe I think, just a large business that has high speed internet terminals on several floors. It’s a chain called EasyEverything is owned by EasyJet, the discount airline. I purchased two hours on a voucher for a pound an hour, pretty good really and set to wading through over 100 emails waiting for me. Even after I weeded out the junk mail and stuff I could save to read for later, I had over 70 emails I had to deal with by either answering or filing for when I got back. I wrote a few general travelogue emails to send to friends and family and surfed a few of my regular sites. I used up all but 30 minutes. The little card with the login is still usable if I get to another one before I leave the country but I never did.

I was close to Covent Garden so I went up there. I always liked this area of London. I found the shop that former Corrie actor Peter Baldwin manages but he wasn’t there. It’s a little shop that sells miniature reproduction theatres, called Pollock’s Toy Shop. Another browse in another Past Times and then I walked out of the square a different way than I ever had before, finally seeing the front of the Royal Opera House! 

I went down Neal Street that comes out in a wonderful little court called Neal’s Yard. This area has a number of unusual or trendy shops including an Astrology store. By the time I got to Neal’s Yard, the populace was looking decidedly funkier to match the shops I guess! The courtyard was strewn with green and purple flagged banners, the buildings where brightly painted, the one or two trees where green and leafy and the sun was trying to get past the 4 or 5 storey buildings to reach the small open space and cast a late afternoon glow over it all. There were cafes with tables and chairs on the pavement, a few benches, some young people around with hair that happened to match the banners in it’s hues and the smell of freshly baked bread permeated the already lively atmosphere.  Must come back here again but time is of the essence.

I found my way to Tottenham Court Road to the underground. It must be one of the oldest tube stations and I must have entered it from the wrong side of the intersection because I felt like I had left the sunny surface and descended into the bowels of the earth! What a contrast to the sunlit joyful atmosphere of Neal’s Yard not so far away! There was no specifics of which direction one had to go to get to the platforms so I asked. Then I had to walk down a very long spiral staircase that had low ceilings and dreary painted concrete walls. At the bottom you turn a corner only to be faced with an escalator back up! Eh? Ok...Up, then, and continued, following a maze of tunnels and corridors until you felt like you were going through Alice’s rabbit hole. I certainly wouldn’t want to be making my way through here late at night. Finally the platform and, as if to combat the industrial scenery that brought you here, the walls of the platform were all brightly tiled with modern mosaics!

The tube was crowded and hot and I only got back to the station with 15 minutes to spare. Tonight we went into the seaside resort town of  Southend which isn’t far from Leigh, for fish and chips. Stuart, Elly and her little girl Katie came with us. Southend has the longest pleasure pier in England and it and the seafront promenade are lined with arcades and pubs. There are several amusement parks with rides as well though they were closed at night and there’s a large casino on the waterfront as well. There were strings of lights and neon “illuminations” crossing a mile or so of the main prom which was kind of neat. The illuminations were figures like flowers, birds, clowns, and other figures, some animated and some not, all made of coloured neon strings of lights. There’s also a beach here and this resort is very popular with East End London families in the summer, a short train journey from the smoke and noise of the city.

The chippie we went to is called Baileys and I finally had my fish and chips! Huge portions too! The shop was deep and narrow with wooden tables and chairs and had a somewhat fast food atmosphere to get through the hungry queues of customers. The walls are painted brightly though and the food was very good.

After eating we walked along the prom as it was a really nice night. We drove through Old Leigh on the waterfront on the way home. Leigh did and still does earn it’s living from the sea. Southend is just near the mouth of the River Thames estuary. We all went back to Dave and Nikky’s for a visit. Tomorrow I leave and Dave and Nikki are driving me to Redditch where I’ve got a B&B for Saturday night that’s just a few blocks from where Chris lives. We’re going to see Warwick Castle tomorrow afternoon and stop in Lichfield on Sunday before I make my way to Manchester for the next leg of the trip.

Saturday Sept. 29
Midlands...Warwick Castle

It was really raining when we got up and loaded the car this morning. The drive to Redditch took about 2 ½ hours plus a bit of time to find Chris’s place. Time to say goodbye! I really enjoyed my week I London and my visit with Dave and Nikki a lot!

I got checked into the B&B where the room turned out to be quite pleasant overall. A large room with a double bed and a single bed, en suite for £50 including breakfast. We dropped the luggage and headed off down the road to Warwick which, surprisingly we found without any trouble. Yes he’s been there before but that really means nothing. Chris’s sense of direction didn’t come out of the box in one piece I don’t think! ;)

A brief history of Warwick Castle: William the Conqueror built a motte and bailey fort in 1068 overlooking the Avon River with a timber stockade. The castellan family became the Earls of Warwick and the castle passed through many generations of the family. The towers began to be built in the 14th C during the dynasty of the Beauchamp family and held fast until the middle of the 15th C when the Neville Family married into the title. Richard Neville was better known as Warwick the Kingmaker for his ability to back the right monarchs during the Wars of the Roses. The Castle was expanded and improved as the centuries went on with the grounds being landscaped in the 18th C. by Capability Brown. Most of the current State Rooms are 18th C. with restoration after a fire in the Victorian years. The Taussaud’s Group bought the Castle in 1978 and several impressive exhibitions featuring their famous wax figures have opened since then. The website is very good and contains a lot of history both of the Castle and of the inhabitants.

We didn’t have too much trouble finding the Castle, there are clear signs leading through the streets and we found a space in the car park guided by one of the attendants.  We bought our tickets but the first order of business was a film for Chris and lunch for the pair of us in order to be property fortified to scale the… er… fortifications! The tickets are bought at the old stables buildings which also house the toilets, a café and a shop. On the way from the entrance, we saw a notice on the green just outside the castle gates promising an exhibit at 1:30 on “Deadly  Skills”! You just can’t argue with Deadly Skills!

That means we have an hour. We bought a pre-made sandwich in the cafeteria which is in a vaulted 14th C undercroft, nothing special there. The cooked food might have been better, I don’t know. Chris wanted to start with the Ghost Tower which was the next tower along and is one of the oldest still standing parts of the Castle. Unfortunately it was pretty naff. It was all recorded “spooky” music and the lighting was bad. There was a bedroom filled with antiques but you couldn’t see them and the audio over top of the music told the story of  Sir Fulke Greville who was murdered in the tower by a servant. Upstairs (downstairs? I forget) there was another dark room with a gauzy curtain. High above you was a glowing face of Sir Fulke, in reality a spotlight on a painting behind the gauzy curtain. I kept expecting Dorothy to appear and click the heels on her ruby slippers!

I wanted to go up on the castle walls so we headed across the esplanade to Guy’s Tower, the tallest of the towers along the wall. I started up and Chris brought up the rear, warning me about the sign at the entrance… advising folk that 500-odd steps could be tiring. Gulp. But it was a one-way system so you couldn’t turn around and go back out once you were in. The staircase up into the first tower was a narrow stone spiral and there were others coming up behind. It wasn’t 500 steps though, but by the time you finished the trail and landed back on the ground I suppose it would have been that in total. I took my time and a few brief rest stops and made it to the top of the tower.

It’s now a lovely sunny day with a bit of a nice breeze, blowing a bit stronger atop the castle walls. You can see over the town of Warwick and the Avon Valley. Following a few flights of stairs down you walk along the curtain walls to the Gatehouse and Barbican guarding the castle’s main entrance. Up a few flights of stairs to the top of that. There is actually a drawbridge over a dry ditch and a huge portcullis. We made our way up and down the next set of steps and walls leading into Caesar’s Tower where the guard house was located, and down to the grounds again just in time to go over to a roped off area on the green to see the Deadly Skills!

Archery. The man that did the demonstration was dressed as a yeoman soldier from the medieval era complete with longbow, sword and “bollocks” knife. He was probably a better comedian than he was marksman but he put on a good show all the same. He had three sticks with little heads on them and placed them on a platform as a target by only hit one of them by the end of it all. He was pretty funny though as he explained what it was like to go to war in the 1400’s and how you would train all your life from childhood on with the longbow. It looked like quite a skill to master. He asked for a volunteer from the audience and proceeded to demonstrate the various methods of hand to hand combat with his sword and knife on the hapless fellow who just stood there looking a bit white around the gills with the blades thrusting about his body.  Deadly, indeed! We were satisfied with the show and ambled back to the castle grounds to check out the dungeons next.

That *was* creepy. They only let a few down into the dungeon area at a time as there wasn’t a lot of room and the passage was low and narrow. The walls are stone, the floor is dirt. There is graffiti scratched into the walls that must be 500 years old though I don’t know what they would have used to do it with as I’m sure the prisoners wouldn’t have been given sharp implements. There was a suit of chains hanging from the ceiling which purported to send shivers down the spines of the prisoners threatened with it’s cutting edges. We saw a little hole in the ground where you might be dumped if you were in particular disfavour, the “oubliette” where you would be forgotten and left to die.

Back above ground, we proceeded to the rooms that had the torture instruments. They even had a full sized rack and a lot of medieval contraptions that, when explained were even more chilling than the dungeon. We’re talking things like leg clamps with spikes on the inside into which, once on your leg, would be poured boiling oil! There are an awful lot of devious ways to extract information by causing grievous bodily harm to another human being!

The armory exhibit is titled Death or Glory and traces the history of body armour through the centuries. We examined the many suits of armour, from various eras and countries, along with loads of armaments, swords, early guns, axes, right up to things used in the Napoleonic Wars. Ooh the creepiest thing on display here was a plaster death mask of Oliver Cromwell!

I think it’s time for a little “sweetness and light” after all that gruesome cutlery. We headed to the main palace part where the Chapel, Great Hall and State rooms were. The Great Hall as it stands today was built in the 17th C and restored in the 19th C after a fire. There is a marvelous hammer beam ceiling, portraits of Earls of Warwick and their families line the wall along with dozens of stag horns and a few impressive suits of armour including two full set of horse armour, one 16th C Italian armour and one 16th C German. There is a huge 500 year old cauldron and a miniature suit of armour made for a small boy. The state bedrooms and reception rooms are decorated very much over the top, having been embellished over the years by the inhabitants. No photos allowed in this section.

We continued on to the display called the Weekend Party which features the Taussaud’s figures set up as if it were a late Victorian weekend function. The guests are in the dining room, salon and various bedrooms. Photos are allowed here and the figures were very realistic. We followed the queues through the exhibit and examined the old photos along the walls. The rooms have been able to be set up exactly as they were 100 years ago because there are existing photographs taken at the time. Two of the more famous houseguests portrayed are the Prince of Wales, soon to be Edward VII and a very young Winston Churchill.

I’m going to fudge a little here. We somehow missed the Kingmaker exhibit which shows how a medieval household would prepare for war during the 15th C. There are apparently a few wax figures in this too. We were in and out of buildings and towers and missed the entrance to this which is near the dungeons. Once we emerged from the castle buildings, Chris wanted to climb up the mound at the end of the grounds, where the original motte fort would have been built 900 years ago. Dear God there are a lot of stairs in this country! Chris goaded me good naturedly into trekking up the (ahem …) “gentle incline” and indeed it wasn’t so bad walking up the sloping ramps. Again a lovely view over the valley and river from this vantage point. I took lots of photos today, as expected and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this Castle. There’s a lot to see and do even if it’s somewhat commercialized. In the summer there are jousting events on the tiltyards and they have events all year round including themed banquets. Check the website for events and updates. It’s well worth it!

We had a little look in the peacock garden by the conservatory and left the castle around 4:30 I think and had a look through the town of  Warwick. We found an old old building called Lord Leycester’s Hospital, a leaning half timbered structure with a chapel that was very old and in Elizabethan times owned by one of her favourites, Lord Leycester and turned into a hospital for old soldiers. There’s a little museum in here but we were a bit tired of walking so we just went to the lovely tea room for a hot drink and tea cake to tide us over.  The town of Warwick is very pretty and very old. There’s a market there but it was packing up by the time we arrived. There are lots of B&B’s within spitting distance of the castle so if you’re thinking of visiting, you should be able to find a room as a base.

Chris is cooking balti tonight, one of his specialties. He went somewhat easy on me with the intensity of the spices though I think I could have managed more. Always better to err on the side of constraint the first time! We were planning to go see a Beatles cover band in a pub … er… somewhere between Redditch and Birmingham  but when we got there the pub was closed for renovations. Rats! We ended up at a pub a few doors down from the B&B back in Redditch and drank and talked until chucking out time. We went back to the B&B to continue our discussion on … reggae music I think by that time. Chris staggered home to bed about 12:30 I guess. Tomorrow we are dropping in at Lichfield for a bit of ancestry tracing on my part and the lovely man is driving me to Manchester! Saves me risking walloping another body part with that suitcase.

Sunday, Sept. 30
Lichfield to Manchester

No ill effects from the pub lingered this morning, and there was a lovely full breakfast in the very nice Dining room. The hotel, the Mount Pleasant Hotel,  is older and a little faded and worn around the edges but it’s clean and the breakfast was what I call a proper English breakfast. The weather doesn’t look very promising today. I was hoping to get in contact with my pen pal Janet who lives a little ways away from Lichfield but by the time we had done what we came to do in Lichfield, the rain was coming down and Chris wanted to get on the motorway to Manchester before the Sunday traffic got too bad. There just isn’t the same sort of pleasure walking around an empty town in the rain with most of the shops closed anyway.

The reason I wanted to go to Lichfield is because, in 1612, my 9-great grandfather, Edward Whiteman, was burned at the stake in the market square for heresy. On the wall of what used to be St. Mary’s Church and is now a heritage center is a plaque describing this and I was charged with getting a photo for my cousin’s genealogy website. We drove under  the stony gray skies that occasionally wept a misty tear or two over the green hills, following the signs to Lichfield. Chris had a general idea of where it was and again, we didn’t get lost! I must be a lucky charm! We drove round the block looking for a place to park and found a pay and display lot between the market square and the cathedral close. Lichfield has a beautiful stately triple spired cathedral and it’s other claim to fame is that it is the birthplace of Dr. Samuel Johnson, author of the first comprehensive English dictionary.

We walked over to the market square, found the plaque and photographed it and then looked for a café that might be open. Chris hadn’t eaten breakfast and though it was after noon he had a craving for a bacon butty. We did find one that wasn’t serving breakfast by that time but when we asked where we could find a place that did, they allowed us to stay rather than turn down custom. Didn’t look like they were all that busy anyway. Bacon butties all around, washed down with hot milky tea, comforting on a cold rainy day. As I said before, the weather was dismal and it began to rain in earnest by the time we left so we went back to the car, drove once around the Cathedral close for photos and headed back to the motorway.

One stop for a loo break and a phone call to Alan, my host for the next week.  He was out and wouldn’t be back for a couple of  hours and our friend Annie’s phone number wasn’t working (turns out I had her old number, not her new one).  We continued on  our musical ride to Manchester, continuing our discussion from the night before on reggae music and the Ramones. We reached Manchester in due time.  Chris announced he had no idea where he was. This is not uncommon. He recognizes a place only because he knows he’s been lost there before! He does know this is the general direction he needs to go and just drives until he recognizes something which didn’t take too long and only one wrong turn.

We took a chance and caught Annie at home. What a joy to see Annie again and we had cups of tea and a great visit. We clustered around her computer in her spare room while she played a song she had written and I relaxed and listened to the two of them compare notes on sound clips, instruments and computer composing which both of these creative friends of mine are very good at.  Chris sifted through Annie’s Beatles video collection for some items to borrow. We finally headed over to Alan’s about 6 o’clock I think. Another fierce hug from another wonderful friend and a goodbye to Chris who wanted to get back on the road to Redditch. See you next weekend, mate.

Alan and I had a late meal and a couple of glasses of wine and got caught up. He’s only got Thursday and Friday off this week so I am spending tomorrow over in Liverpool with Phil and taking another day at least to have a good look around Manchester. Last year when we were all here we spent all our time out on day trip and saw very little of the city. Alan and I are planning a day trip to Buxton on Thursday.