December 2024 – Mick and Liesel's Antics

It’s the season

One thing I never do in Anchorage is take a bus somewhere. I did once, on my first visit. I fell asleep and ended up at the airport. So, back home now, we’re again in the habit of taking buses here and there. But this news was a little disconcerting:

Thanks to whoever put this up on social media, it potentially saved me from a very long wait.

The gardeners came and removed all the fallen leaves from the communal car park. We no longer have to slide on or squelch through ankle deep leaf litter to reach our car. That was an exciting day, watching the workers.

We drove over to Cheadle Hulme to watch Martha and William swimming, and again, Martha’s diving was impressive, something I’ve never been able to do

Wythenshawe Radio offered a quick course which I attended, in a training room above the library in Wythenshawe Forum. It felt strange walking through a classroom to get there, but it was a fun couple of hours.

My wife, mother-in-law and I ventured into Manchester, walked through the Christmas Market but didn’t engage. No overpriced Glühwein for us. A quick spot of Christmas shopping but en passant, I couldn’t help but notice the odd typo. Maybe there’s a competition taking place that I’m not aware of.

Manchester has been well decorated and we were impressed by the tree. The photo of Liesel and Leslie in front of it wasn’t very good, so I photoshopped them out.

I visited the pharmacy for my booked Covid jab but they hadn’t yet received the delivery. Another sign that the whole of society is going to the dogs. They did call a few days later though, and I am now fully vaccinated and I feel invincible, cough, cough, splutter.

We didn’t visit the RHSGlow light show at Bridgewater. But Jenny and the family had a simply wonderful time there.

Somewhere else we’re not is Christchurch, New Zealand, a city proud to home my sister Pauline and her other half Andrew. It’s meant to be Summer there, so imagine my delight when Pauline sent photos after a recent, heavy snowstorm. Or maybe it’s hail?

Where else didn’t we go? We didn’t see Paul McCartney in concert at the Arena in Manchester. It may just be old age, but we didn’t really like the venue last time we went. Plus, the last time I saw him perform, at the O2, with Jenny, a few years ago, I thought it was the best Beatles concert I’d ever see and it probably couldn’t be topped. Now, of course, a few days after the event, I wish I’d gone. (Apart from Hey Jude, which would have been my cue to visit the toilets.)

Leslie’s birthday came and on the day, we collected the children from school, brought them home for a spot of craftwork, specifically decorating pine cones that they’d picked up in Formby on a recent visit, after which, we joined Jenny and Liam for a birthday meal.

You can tell William’s a proper little boy. Just look at the state of this:

One major event this week. I have reached the end of the classic Doctor Who series on BBC iPlayer, including the film made in 1996 starring Paul McGann as the 8th Doctor. The film was much better than the final couple of storylines in the TV series. A character made of licorice allsorts and cats riding horses, that’s all you need to know. Now, we’re all looking forward to this year’s special Doctor Who episode on Christmas Day.

In fact, Liesel bought the Christmas special edition of Radio Times. I thought it would be nice to see what’s on the radio over Christmas. This is Radio Times. Radio gets a mention after a mere 250 pages, national, local, BBC, commercial radio, and all the listings squoze into a mere 33 pages. Whinge of the day.

Oh, alright, here’s another one. When you want to unsubscribe from an email that you don’t remember signing up to in the first place, and you have to do several Captchas to prove you’re not a robot and the pictures aren’t clear enough so you go round and round in circles and you end up swearing you’ll never ever do business with that company. Grrr.

One thing I miss about Anchorage is that we no longer have to be on the lookout for bears. Imagine my surprise then when I encountered one here in Northenden.

This will be the final post before the big day. Liesel and I would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas and lots of good fortune for the new year.

This is our Christmas tree, beautifully and expertly decorated by Liesel. But, a Christmas tree made of wood? What a ridiculous idea!

And back again

And so, it came to pass, our final full day in Anchorage. And what an exciting day it was, too. The US Postal Service offer a service in which your mail is scanned, and they send you an image of what to expect. This way, when we’re in England, we can tell someone which of Leslie’s items to open and which bills to pay. Liesel took her Mom to the Post Office to show ID and set this up. They both had their hair cut before going into the office for one final session of work.

Meanwhile, this morgenmuffel emptied the bins, sorted out the newly dried laundry, did some writing and packed the bulk of my stuff. My reward was to watch the last couple of episodes of Our Universe on TV. It’s narrated by Morgan Freeman and while being interesting, some of the links made between life on Earth and the history of the universe were a bit tenuous, I thought!

In the evening, to celebrate Asa’s birthday, we joined him, Gideon, Aaron and Jodi for our final meal out. Happy birthday, Asa!

Thanks again to Jodi for the picture.

We rose at 3am. Yes, there is such a time. Aaron kindly drove us to the airport before going back to bed.

Anchorage to Seattle to Reykjavic to Manchester. Three flights, no major issues although again, the three of us were separated in the cabin.

At one airport, we sat beside a vending machine selling accessories for iPhones etc. I said to Liesel that if I ever needed a floggle toggle for my phone, I too would wait until I was in an airport and could buy it from a machine. Liesel didn’t know what a floggle toggle was, and all I could think of was, it’s a thingy, a wossname, a wotsit. But where does ‘floggle toggle’ come from? I was surprised to see it’s from the old radio series The Navy Lark, which I listened to on Sunday lunchtimes in the 1960s.

Sitting in Seattle’s South terminal was a strange experience, having been in the frozen north for so long. The Sun was streaming in, and I for one was looking for a seat in the shade.

From the plane itself, I was able to do some sightseeing. The sky was perfectly clear.

On this long flight, I did have three seats to myself and was able to catch a couple of hours of sleep.

Having the window seat, I was able to take pictures of the Aurora Borealis. The best photo includes Orion, which I am very pleased with.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, from a few rows behind, Liesel was also taking pictures of the Aurora.

Even though it was -7° when we landed at Keflavik International Airport, Iceland, I was glad to walk to the bus in my shirt sleeves, it had been ridiculously hot during the flight and the little ventilators couldn’t cope. We always enjoy the bus ride in Iceland from aeroplane to terminal.

One day, we’ll probably spend more time in Iceland, but the worst, burnt, bitterest coffee ever, here today, wasn’t a good selling point.

Flight number three took us straight into sunrise before arriving at Manchester.

And what a wonderful sight this was, B&Q Stockport, a shop that we’ve managed to avoid during our time living in Manchester.

Typical Manc weather welcomed us, a bit dull, a bit grey, but so much warmer than Anchorage had been. Glad to be home. Helen reported that she’s not faring much better down under. From the local paper: NSW weather: Wet and drab start to summer for NSW. There is no end in sight from the damaging storms and heavy rain that lashed Sydney over the weekend, with more forecast for the first week of summer.

And now we’re back to normal, slowly adapting to our new time zone, but never quite having enough sleep.

We joined a couple of walks this week, and I went into Manchester to donate another armful. Having listened to the phone conversation from the girl sitting next to me on the bus home, I’m glad I didn’t make the effort to visit the Christmas Market in Manchester. It sounds hectic, far too many people, some items far too expensive.

Best of all, haha, is that I am able to continue watching the old, classic Doctor Who series on BBC iPlayer. But I am aware that I have reached the point where I gave up on it the first time round, because it was becoming stupid. In modern parlance, it jumped the shark. But I shall persevere…

Strolling

Liesel and I went into the office where I observed a new sport taking place on the skating rink in the park over the road.

Skating while pushing a buggy will be a Winter Olympics sport at some point, I’m sure. Maybe not as spectacular as Extreme Ironing, but it’s nice to be an observer right at the start.

While Liesel was sweating over a hot PC, I went for a shorter walk than planned, because, yes, it was cold, but the wind made it really unpleasant outside. I could feel my desiccated skin flaking off. I took respite in the library with a coffee. The homeless man rolled his own, put it in his mouth but didn’t get as far as lighting up, thank goodness.

Happy birthday Gideon! We went round to his house to celebrate and it was good to catch up with some folks I haven’t seen for a long time.

Here he is, slicing the cake that he baked himself, I think. Thanks, Jodi, for the photo!

Opportunities for a walk around the track in the Dome are now limited: our remaining time here in Anchorage is short. We did a few laps plus I spent a whole five minutes on the bike, on the hardest saddle known to humanity.

After Jyoti picked up her newly repaired car, she took me shopping at Carrs (hooray, my favourite occupation) and I realised how modern this place is. By the entrance are two vending machines. One will cut keys for you, fair enough, and on the other one, you can buy ₿itcoin. Of course, I should have bought one of those things ten or fifteen years ago, they’ve increased in value so much.

Jyoti kindly gave me lunch at her place, tyvm. I introduced her to the latest series of Doctor Who, which she seems to be enjoying. The only problem was, neither of us could work out how to bring up the subtitles on Disney+.

After driving me most of the way, I bought a coffee from New Sagaya to take home. I walked over the road in slight drizzle which, within half an hour, had turned to snow. Oh, no, not more snow… But it didn’t last long.

Since we’re leaving the apartment soon, it’s time to unsubscribe from some services. My mission, which I accepted, was to cancel some of the TV services. You should be able to just click on a button that says ‘Cancel Subscription’, right?

One service that we signed up to to watch just one football game just once, we have to unsubscribe via a different site, which I don’t have the login detials for. So I’ve passed the buck to Aaron.

Apple+ TV provided the worst nightmare. You have to go to the website. The website was locked for security reasons. To unlock, I had to have Leslie’s phone number. Luckily, Leslie had left her phone at home while she went to work with Liesel. Ah, but Leslie’s phone didn’t recognise my face, of course. Luckily, I know the passcode. I unlocked whatever it was that was locked. Then I had to sign in again. Then I had to receive a code on her phone and type it in on the website on my phone. Then, I was granted access to the golden ‘Cancel Subscription’ button. Which worked. I screenshot the confirmation because, for some reason, I have zero faith in this whole ridiculous system.

By comparison, Netflix was a breeze. The website did complain that my browser was out of date (a lie) but I had access to another one. Cancel, you say? Of course, sorry to see you go. Easy, straightforward.

One more session at the Dome, but I didn’t bother with the bike this time. Jyoti again drove me home, she’s a star. I had coffee, she had chai. Meanwhile, Leslie went over to friend Shyla’s place to help prepare for Thanksgiving dinner. All the local turkeys were looking worried.

Black Friday and if it weren’t for the zillion TV adverts and posters and fliers, social media posts and Leslie’s junk mail brochures, I don’t think I would have noticed. We visited the Museum again, this time for Crafted in Alaska, to browse through a curated selection of handmade treasures, from jewelry and textile art to pottery and printed designs at the Museum’s annual holiday craft event.

There are some very talented craftsmen and women around the state and there’s a a lot of support for this Thanksgiving weekend event. Wandering round the Museum, I learned that we were a mere 1,998 miles from the North Pole.

And, while I’ve been taking pictures of unusual, special car number plates for a long time, I didn’t realise that if I’d ripped off and saved tha actual plates, I could have had a display in a Museum. Like this chap did:

The music, very gentle music, was provided by Denise Martin on hammered dulcimer and, on guitar, Jim Kerr. He’s done very well since leaving Simple Minds.

Having not used the car for a whole day, it surprised us when it didn’t start. Again, the battery is totally dead. So again, we asked Monica if we could borrow hers for just one more day. While waiting in the foyer for Monica and Gregg to pick us up, I thought, I haven’t taken a selfie for a while. So here it is.

We enjoyed dinner at My Shawarma where even I used my hands to eat the vegetable injera, and, several hours and washes later, I can still smell the spices on my fingers. If they ever need a tune for an advert, I know just to song to murder: My Sharona by The Knack.

Phil was with us too, while Una was in California, and he led the way to 907 Alehouse and Grill for some musical entertainment.

The band, I Like Robots, plays popular songs from the ’80s and I was surprised to see people actually dancing. I was even more surprised when Monica, Jyoti and especially Liesel ran onto the dancefloor! I stayed behind to, er, look after the coats, yeah, that’s it.

I confess, I did sing along a bit and tap at least one of my feet while they played songs from Pet Shop Boys, Prince, Paul Simon and many more.

Even though we got to bed later than usual, this librocubicularist managed to read a few pages before visiting the land of nod. One thing I’ve noticed is that we never hear the sound of birdsong from this apartment. I know, if they’ve got any sense, they’ll all have migrated south, but it’s still an eerie silence sometimes.