Month: June 2026

Martha enjoys drama and William is learning Spanish, so following these after-school activities, we collected the children from school. Back at our place, Martha and Oma painted rocks while William mostly walked, ran and jumped on and off the treadmill.

The last time we saw Bic Runga in concert was in a winery on Waiheke, an island just off Auckland, and that was seven years ago. So we couldn’t not see her on her first visit to the UK since then.

She appeared at The Deaf Institute in Manchester and on this occasion, we drove into town.

The support act was Silicon. Silicon is Bic’s husband Kody Nielson, Bic herself on drums and a backing vocalist, Cass. They were good, and on odd occasions, we could see them through the smoke.

Yes, the smoke machine wrangler was over-enthusiastic, and they had the machine turned off for a while.

Unfortunately, we were standing for the whole gig, but near the front. Bic performed songs from her latest album Red Sunset as well as some old favourites.

It was warm but I managed to make a single pint last for three hours. I hope I didn’t ruin anybody’s film of the show by singing along. Maybe I enhanced it?

After the show, we had enough time to queue up and speak to the star of the show. And she was happy to have her picture taken with all us riff-raff.

I was going to tell her how she and I were practically related, but in the end, there was a queue behind and we had to leave. How are we related? Bic’s sister Boh was good friends with Cherie. At Cherie’s wedding to Andrew, Boh kissed him on the cheek. Fast forward several years and Andrew became my sister Pauline’s life partner, in Christchurch, New Zealand. So, is that cousins?

On the way home, we collected Liesel’s Mom from Jean’s house. They’d been out for the evening on a pub crawl or something.

The three of us had a nice walk around Dunham Massey, where the 500-year old oak tree is still standing albeit with even more support. We saw a few deer in the distance, but they were staying well away from people.

I was very pleased with this photo from the day, but I have no idea what it is: I can only assume it was a spontaneous click of the shutter when the phone was in my pocket.

When we arrived at Dunham Massey, I warned my mother-in-law not to sit on any of the benches here, especially in this weather, otherwise she’d turn into a Bright Starts Snuggle & Teethe plush toy.

We walk by these birch trees on every visit, Liesel’s favourite trees. We have a nice picture of silver birches at home too, painted by our multi-talented friend Una.

We must have walked by this stone many, many time before, but this time, we noticed it, probably an estate or parish boundary marker. No idea whether the inscription provides useful information or is just a spot of vandalism.

The rose garden was at its best today too, plenty of colour and some scents. My hay fever stayed at bay, at least for a while. And it was good to see so many bees and a few butterflies.

Unfortunately the little bridge over the small stream is still closed. The stream is narrow enough to jump over really, but none of us risked it. Walking round the ‘long’ way gets in more steps, and we discover even more flowers.

It was fun to witness possibly this cygnet’s first diving lesson. On surfacing, it looked surprised is it shook its head.

The foxgloves are doing well this year, so many different shades of purple of a variety of patterns. Again, very attractive to the pollinators.

And, I think, this would be a wonderful design for a t-shirt.

Oh no, look what happened: she sat down.

Well, we did warn her. She is now a yellow giraffe attached to the bench with a ring.

Liesel and I had scones, well, it’s a National Trust property, after all, while Leslie, somehow restored to her human self, enjoyed an ice cream.

Martha’s cricket team played a match and we went over to Kingsway to support her. While batting, she scored a 6, knocking the ball over the boundary, in the direction of the bar. No damage though, they were playing with a light, plastic ball.

Here she is having just launched the ball into space.

After giving blood again, I joined the family at Jenny’s. Oma and Great Oma had managed to collect Martha and William from school without my assistance. Liesel and her Mom had made sushi rolls again for supper, which we all enjoyed.

According to Wikipedia, Rob Rinder is a British criminal. Oh, apparently I should read the whole sentence. Rob Rinder is a British criminal barrister and TV personality. He is also now a novelist and as his latest book, The Defence, is published, he came to see us in Bramhall, courtesy of Simply Books. The event took place in St Michael’s Church and after dining locally, we joined the queue.

Yes, we’d dined at Trunk and I think we know where the name comes from.

It was an entertaining evening, although sometimes, thanks to the acoustics, it was hard to hear what he and the interviewer, Kay Crewdson were saying. They discussed the book of course, crime, Rylan, courtroom drama, it was a wide-ranging chat.

Thanks to Kay for the photo: we were sitting too far back to take a decent picture.

Let’s have a break from our own antics. Here’s some joy from the southern hemisphere.

I attended another meeting of the WFM Volunteers, in Wythenshawe Forum. Well attended, and what a nice, warm room. Meanwhile, Liesel went over to watch Martha play in another cricket game.

Abney Hall has been on our mental list of places to vvisi for a while and today, we followed through. Barbara came and took Leslie out singing in a choir, and, even though it was a warm day, Liesel and I enjoyed a walk outside. We didn’t see inside the Hall itself, and again, this is a venue we’ll need to revisit in order to see more of the grounds.

We spent most of the time in Abney Hall Park along with 101 dogs and their owners. The coffee bar (the most important part of the visit) was very cute, with a hand-painted but useless map of the grounds on the wall.

We didn’t pay the toll when we walked over the ten penny bridge. Don’t tell anyone.

This is the World’s First Recycled Plastic Bottle Lid Mural Trail! We only saw the wasp, but on another occasion, we will look out for more of these works of art. Designed and created by Plastic Shed in collaboration with local Stockport schools. That is a lot of bottle tops.

Agatha Christie wrote two stories here at Abney Hall, and this bear is named Hercule. Coincidence?

There was a green man in the toilet, which could have been a bit scary if it were a wee bit darker.

One thing I was surprised about was the amount of bindweed growing at this place. It really is trying to take over. But that’s not my battle any more. Thank goodness.

The three of us enjoyed the drive to Buxton, apart from the ever present traffic jam as we turn on to the A6. We parked up in the station car park and walked to Baileys Bar and Restaurant. We were joined by Jenny and the family for a long and leisurely lunch. No dessert for me since I couldn’t finish my main course. I’ll know better next time.

It was a short walk to the Pavilion Arts Centre. We were here to watch The Wrong Trousers on a big screen, accompanied by a live brass band.

I first saw The Wrong Trousers at the National Film Theatre as part of that year’s London Film Festival. This was the support film for the main attraction, Kate Bush’s own film The Line, The Cross and the Curve. This featured songs from her then new album The Red Shoes. Kate was in attendance with a near look-alike who I wrongly assumed was her sister. Kate had black hair, her friend white. After The Wrong Trousers, Kate presented her own film and said she hoped it lived up to the animated one. Well, it was alright, featuring Miranda Richardson and Lindsay Kemp, but I’ve watched The Wrong Trousers more often since then. In an article in The Guardian in 2005, she referred to her film as ‘a load of bollocks’.

On this occasion in Buxton, we all enjoyed Wallace and Gromit’s adventures again, as well as the accompanying music played by The Fairey Band

As a prelude, the band played a few other tunes and Liesel and I agreed, we should go and see more brass bands in concert.

After the film, we walked back to the car park amd went our separate ways. Many people like and appreciate the cute little Derbyshire town, Buxton, and of course, it does have one very big fan.

This large fan window formed part of a pair of stations at Buxton which were opened in 1863 by the London & North Western and Midland Railway companies. The fan window, with its associated screen wall, is listed Grade II and is all that remains of the original London & North Western station.

Time for a Grandad and Oma boast. Here is our Keiran.

He’s the one at the front in the middle, in case you were wondering.

And it’s only fair to share a photo of Keiran’s cousin, William.

After picking William and Martha up from school, we took them to a local library where we read books, looked at books and in one case, decided they didn’t want the books that had been reserved. We’ll overlook the inspirational quote by JKR on the wall, but I like this one from Doctor Who: “You want weapons? We’re in a Library. Books are the best weapon in the world. This room’s the greatest arsenal we could have. Arm Yourself!” From Tooth and Claw in Season 2, by Russell T. Davies.

Ah, but what about Martha? Well, here she is with Jenny at the theatre in Buxon a couple of days ago.

After dropping the grandchildren off at their home, Liesel, Leslie and I drove into Salford, yes, another visit to The Lowry. We had a meal at The Banana Tree which was OK but maybe a bit fast-food-ish. This time, I planned ahead, saved my self for dessert.

In The Lowry we settled down for The Ballad of Johnny and June, the story of country singers Johnny Cash and June Carter. We were to one side of the stage, so maybe not the best view, but the story was told well, from the point of view of their son John Carter Cash.

The fact that I tripped up the stairs before the interval, in the dark, is totally irrelevant.

But the music was good: I sang along occasionally despite the uxorial elbow in the ribs.

We’re all looking forward to the 2048 Olympics, and following the maiden voyage in our homemade time machine, we have an exclusive photo of the first gold medal winner from that year’s event.

Our second night out in a row this week was to our local theatre, just up the road from home. Northenden Players Theatre Club put on a performance of Dracula, the Bloody Truth, by John Nicholson. Four actors played forty different roles and they did a great job. Being on the front row could have been intimidating but it was no problem.

The costume changes were very quick, I reckon they rehearsed a lot. It was obviously derived from Bram Stoker’s novel, but it wasn’t at all scary.

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Haworth has been on our mental list of places to visit for quite a long time. And while Barbara took Leslie out to the seaside, Liesel and I drove over to Brontë country. It was a beautiful day for a walk around the village, following a really old route map.

Yes, an old postbox was the first real splash of colour we saw after parking next to the railway station.

This picture looks like a toy trainset, but that’s just because we were looking slightly down on these old things. There were a couple of engineers at work too: always good to see people working hard when I don’t have to!

It was a nice wander through the countryside, a few inclines but nothing too bad. Does the wind turbine ruin the view?

Well, having only one didn’t seem to be a big problem, to me. Except, it alone won’t generate much electricity! But later on, from a different perspective, we noticed there were in fact quite a few more.

Would you like to see a picture Liesel standing on a cute little stone bridge, watching a train go by? Here you go:

We passed by the house that features in the film The Railway Children, The Three Chimneys, known as Bents House in real life.

And then we passed through Perks’ Stile, not a real stile at all, just a gap in the wall. But this was a mistake. Thinking we were still on our intended route, we forced our way along an increasingly narrow path, being very intimate with all the overgrown vegetation, including nettles.

We passed by a few signs like this, so it seems the locals aren’t all that keen on wind turbines, after all. But I think on a really windy day, when you see those blades whizzing round at 45rpm, you could say, “Wow, look at them turbines, they’re wuthering well today”, thus bringing back that lovely old word into common usage.

So, having realised our mistake, we plotted our replacement, emergency walk back into Haworth itself. And yes, of course we enjoyed the views. And we’ll have to come back to Haworth sometime to follow the whole route correctly! I haven’t read Wuthering Heights since I was at school, maybe it’s time to read it again.

And another splash of colour, although sometimes when the blooms are in direct sunshine, the phone camera doesn’t always see the finer details.

We had time for a quick lunch at the pub before walking through Central Park and back to the station.

Ten years on and I’m still having work-related dreams. Total nonsense, in which the location doesn’t match the job and it’s the wrong manager for that company. Most days, I can’t remember my dreams, so it’s really annoying when I do remember and it’s this crap.

We drove to Didsbury, Liesel dropped me off at M&S, collected a lady with a cake, and they drove off to the WI coffee morning at the Metropolitan. I dropped a bag of CDs off at Oxfam, bought some bread and walked over to the Metropolitan where, after breakfast, Liesel drove us back home. Then, more excitingly, in the afternoon, we visited RHS Bridgewater again for a bit of a wander amongst the flowers.

We ate lunch outside, regretting that we hadn’t arrived at this restaurant just a few minutes earlier: then we too might have enjoyed shelter from the Sun under the home-grown parasols.

It was a very popular venue today: must be the weather. We sat down on a bench for a while to contemplate, watch people and just enjoy being outside. A hundred and one things to do at home but… they can all wait.

Banksy is maybe the Marmite of artists, you either love him or you don’t. In Manchester right now, there’s an exhibition of his works: The Mystery of Banksy: A Genius Mind. Unusually, we travelled into Manchester by train, from Gatley, since the venue, Mayfield Depot, is just a short walk away from Manchester Piccadilly. And we didn’t want to get too wet if it were to rain!

As the poster says:

BANKSY once said “I like to think I have the guts to stand up anonymously in a western democracy and call for things no one else believes in – like peace and justice and freedom.”

There is no need to talk about BANKSY’S creations any further since they speak for themselves louder than any description text ever could. Enjoy the experience, don’t look the other way and stop leaning against the wall – it’s wet.

Curator Virginia Jean.

Well, thank you, Virginia, we did indeed enjoy the experience, the skill, the humour and in a couple of instances, the absolute nonsense.

The “Barely Legal” exhibition was one of the most important moments in Banksy’s artistic career. He received both criticism and significant attention for this show. “A Three Day Vandalized Warehouse Extravaganza”, as it was called, was held in L.A. from 15th to 17th September 2006. “Barely Legal” took place not in a gallery, but in an industrial warehouse. The centrepiece of the exhibition was a 3.6 ton live elephant covered with red paint and a fleur-de-lis pattern matching the wallpaper of the exhibition. Distributed flyers read “There’s an elephant in the room… 20 billion people live below the poverty line”, an exaggerated metaphor for a problem that Banksy felt was not being addressed. The central theme of the exhibition was a critique of consumerism and the capitalist model which is also strongly represented in Banksy’s “Barely Legal” collection of images. Many of the pieces had been seen before on the streets of London and other cities, in books about Banksy’s work and on his website. Jude Law, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were among the most prominent Hollywood celebrities who attended.

This is of course the caption at the show, not my words, but it was all new information for me!

I seem to remember seeing this near the National Theatre in London many years ago, when he was just another street artist or graffiti artist, depending on your point of view.

Daisy Buchanan is a character in The Great Gatsby (another book that I should probably read again), but there is a writer who shares that name. I had the pleasure meeting her at Simply Books at the launch of her new book, All Grown Up. Much of the action in the story takes place in Bramhall, and Simply Books itself is mentioned in the narrative. So, I look forward to reading it, although I wonder whether I should read Little Women first, since that was its inspiration?

While in the shop, I couldn’t resist buying another book. So, the TBR pile continues to grow, while at the same time, we’re trying to reduce our book collection. Weird, eh‽

The regular Wednesday walk was attended by about 16 people, even though it had been raining torrentially, earlier on. I visited the dentist on the way and wished Sharon a long and happy retirement, we’ll miss her.

The old TomTom satnav device was still in the car: we’d totally forgotten about it. Within a few days, it found a new home via Freegle and I hope it doesn’t lead the new owners into trouble.

Last year, the Lowry 360 Show was fully booked so my visiting sister and her partner, Pauline and Andrew, missed out on the opportunity to live briefly inside LS Lowry’s iconic painting, Going to the Match. We were of course at the gallery/theatre complex named in his honour, in Salford.

I wasn’t allowed to take pictures, so here’s an official one.

It was a bit disconcerting watching the whole picture move around you, zooming into the crowd, panning around the stadium of a 1953 football match. The narrator sounded like Diana Morgan but was in fact Bolton-born Sophie Willan.

After waiting nearly a year to view this extravaganza, it was over within 6 minutes, leaving us plenty of time to view some other paintings. You can’t help but notice the spectacular wall painting by Camille Walala. As the description says, her eye-catching, colourful geometric designs have appeared around the world. Often inspired by cityscapes, she turns everyday places into bright, positive spaces for all to enjoy.

For Square Eyes, Camille responded to the unique views of MediaCity across the water and wanted to mirror the panorama by creating her own joyful metropolis.

And after Media City, we drove to the Trafford Centre, primarily to visit M&S, but why not have a late lunch slash early dinner here? There should be a single word that describes such a meal, equivalent to ‘brunch’ which comes between breakfast and lunch!

Manchester Jazz Festival is an annual event that, for one reason and another, we’ve totally managed to avoid since we moved up north. But this year, we made the effort and travelled into the city, by tram.

We caught the tail-end of the performance by art-pop collective Dilettante while eating lunch, or late second breakfast in my case, which was disappointing. The good news is that today was the first time I felt confident enough about the weather to wear sandals.

The next band was Caraway, from Bristol, not to be confused with bands with the same name from Toronto, Los Angeles and even Manchester a few years ago. They were very enjoyable, and it was good to see someone playing a flugelhorn.

Another cup of iced coffee kept me going, and we kept our perfect seats before the arrival of the singer who was the main reason we came this afternoon: Satnam Galsian. She gave the premier perfomance of her new piece, Love or Sacrifice which explores themes of gender roles and the expectations of women in South Asian culture. Her songs are deeply rooted in her personal experiences. And her performance was very moving.

There was a Q&A afterwards and I was glad someone else asked about why she was sitting down on the floor while singing. I know I would have had cramp or pins and needles after a short while. But it’s a cultural thing, from north India.

Later on, looking at photographs of the event that other people had posted online, we were delighted to see that Liesel and I appeared in some of them. Another small contribution to our 15 minutes of fame.

Keiran tried mashed potato for the first time and he quite enjoyed it despite not quite knowing the difference been moisturiser and food.

But don’t worry, it wasn’t too long before he was able to rinse it off in the pool, with Dada.

We could have done with a swimming pool near us, to be honest, as we revelled in the hottest days of the year so far: in fact, the hottest May days since records began! And I don’t mean Tina Turner records.

What’s Love Got To Do With It? is the name given to a Tina Turner tribute show. Yes, of course, we would love to have seen Tina herself in concert but that’s not be. In this show, we heard all the hits and a couple of songs that were new to me. Leslie soaked up the music too. Holly Bannis did a great performance, with Tina’s big hair, Tina’s costumes and Tina’s singing style. The audience sang and clapped along, even when not explicitly invited to do so.

One guy a couple of rows in front of us was extremely exuberant in his dance moves, he really wanted to get noticed by the dancers. And he succeeded. He was invited to go to the front in and join in with a song and dance. After which, his moves weren’t quite as flamboyant.

I was surprised and a little disappointed that during the interval here at The Lowry, they played adverts! Never experienced that at a theatre before. OK, it was a trail for another performance here, but I really hope that’s not the thin edge of the wedge.

Liesel and her Mom went out for a quick walk early in the morning, and before they returned, I caught the bus to join the Thursday walk in Wythenshawe. Liesel hadn’t locked the door, they wouldn’t be that long, but I did lock the door. Then I got a message from Liesel saying she didn’t have her keys. They’d bought some shopping and were locked out of the flat!

So once I stopped laughing, I returned home from Wythenshawe Forum as quickly as possible, just missing one bus and annoyed that the next one never appeared, despite what the display said.

We rarely go out two nights in a row but that’s what happened this week! Last night, a fake Tina and tonight, a visit to Stoller Hall to see a Scottish band, Skipinnish. Again, Leslie dug the sounds, man. Rob Green from Nottingham was supporting and he was pretty good too. I had a quick word with him and he recorded a little jingle for my radio show.

Skipinnish were formed in 1999, so they’ve been going a while, yet somehow their music hasn’t made its way to our ears until now. But they put on a very good show, especially with their singer, Rachel Walker. The jigs and reels were great and at one point, Liesel said that she was surprised at how loud the bagpipes were.

We like Stoller Hall as a venue, becuse the acoustics are good, and there is seating, but it is also just over the road from Manchester Victoria Station, so we were able to travel in by tram. And a good night’s sleep was had by all.