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!
mickandlieselsantics.com 