For some reason, whenever I drop Liesel off at the airport, my sense of direction goes with her, and my drive home is two or three times further than it needs to be. Why do I keep missing turnings? Anyway, that happened again this week. Liesel flew back to Anchorage to help her Mom with the packing. They had four days to pack up everything that was going with Mom to her new apartment on the other side of town.
The day before she left though was exciting. Not only did we have the children to look after, after school, but in the morning, we both had appointments with the same GP. He hadn’t realised we were connected, ‘but not that many people have connections with Alaska, I suppose’.
It was William’s turn to suggest an after-school activity, and he said he wanted to make sushi again. So that’s what we did. Martha also constructed a couple of Christmas trees but the, shhh, secret Christmas project has been put on hold until next year!
Meanwhile, what was William up to? He asked me not to say. But one thing he did was to play with my phone again, taking many photos of me and Liesel, using the Snapchat filters that come free with the camera app.
The sushi was good fun too, and because Liam didn’t come for the worst of all possible reasons, work commitments, the children made some to take home for him.
Liesel was extremely busy in the kitchen all that day, really, baking cookies, apple and pear crumble and cheese straws. I helped by keeping out of the way.
I joined a walking group in Gatley and the one lesson I took from that was, never rely on a 370/371 bus. I was ten minutes late arriving for the walk, but it’s such an infrequent service, the previous service would have had meant potentially loitering in Gatley for over half an hour. This bus was late, yes, but the other guy had been waiting 45 minutes. The previous service never even turned up, so I suppose I should be pleased I didn’t try to catch that one.
The walk took us through Gatley Carrs, to the fringes of Northenden, Hollyhedge Park and back. I recognised some of the places, but some were new to me. And it was a very muddy, leafy, mulchy and puddly walk. So glad I didn’t wear my Sunday best trousers.
After an hour or so, it started raining. By the time we’d finished the squelchy wander, it was quite torrential. I just missed a bus home, assuming it turned up of course, so to pass the time, I enjoyed a coffee at Armenique, which is top rated, according to Google Maps, and is the best coffee in town, according to the owner, according to the blackboard outside.
I arrived at the bus stop about 4.05 for the 4.14 bus. The subsequent bus was due at 4.53. By 5.15, neither had arrived. During that time, two other ‘passengers’ had called someone for a lift. About 5.00, I tried to book an Uber, but the app wasn’t working for a reason that made no sense. One young lad called his Mum to explain why was would be late home, and she obviously didn’t believe him, because he asked me to have a word with her. At this point, I’d been waiting for an hour. I wasn’t going to walk home in that torrential rain but by 5.15, it had eased off and I plodded home in the dark. Gourmet cheese on toast for dinner since I didn’t have a lot of time before going out again.
I was never a fan of The Vicar of Dibley when it was on TV, too many lazy jokes just based on mentioning the name of a well-known personality. But we’d bought tickets for a production by the Northenden Players Theatre Club and tonight was the night. Well, Liesel missed it of course, so my +1 for the night was Anne, one of the regular Thrive Manchester walkers.
The performers did a great job of portraying the characters, even I recognised them from the old TV show, and while some of the dialogue was funny, I still found myself cringing at the name-dropping, Prince Edward, haha, Kylie Minogue, hohoho, Madonna, yawn.
Top marks to whoever designed and built the set too, which included a revolving stage, not bad at all in such a small space.
The leaf blowers arrived, of course they did, while I was on the phone to Liesel. But this time, they did blow the leaves into nice piles which they then took away! They didn’t just blow the leaves into the bushes like they did last time.
My second show of the week was over in Cheadle Hulme: a school production of Aladdin, starring Martha and William. I sung along to myself, and I only wish the magic carpet had really been magic so that we could see it from the seats nearer the back of the hall!
Manchester was given a yellow warning for wind. And, boy was it windy. My quick walk was curtailed, and plans to travel a bit further afield bit the dust. I sat at home listening to the wind howling and the rain hurling itself at the windows. It almost disguised the fact that the soundtrack to one episode of Doctor Who on TV was incredibly distorted, as if the tape had been stretched. Very funny, and I’ll probably remember that now whenever I see a drama or documentary about the French Revolution!
The radio show this week was about Painting. You can listen to it here on Mixcloud.
Mick and Liesel's Antics 