Month: September 2026

The UK hospitality industry is complaining because I don’t visit coffee shops nearly as often as I used to. But on a Wednesday, the local firm of lawyers, Express Solicitors, pay for the drinks after our weekly walk through Kenworthy Lane Woods and beyond. We start and finish at Boxx2Boxx and this week, I sat in a different place, from where I saw an intriguing new picture hanging on the wall. Well, new to me, it might have been there for years. But it did make me laugh!

About every year or two, whether it needs it or not, I take the car in for a wash and a valeting service. There seemed to be fewer young men around on this occasion so the queue was moving much more slowly. While sitting in the waiting room, I admired this colourful pot plant.

It seemed so out of place with all the car-washing paraphernalia and piles of new and used and well-worn tyres. Anyway, here he is:

Wythenshawe Park is the venue for our walks on a Friday. There are now signs up apologising for the mess left by the recent series of concerts. What I didn’t expect to see was somebody camping there, behind a hedge.

I made some noise but couldn’t attract anyone’s attention. It might belong to an otherwise homeless person, I suppose, but I wonder if this too was left behind after those concerts?

Anyway, it was a very pleasant wander around the park and after enjoying our coffee, I drove home giving Dot a lift on the way.

But walking around Northenden and Wythenshawe can be a bit repetitive, so I took myself off to RHS Bridgewater. And not only to use the £5 voucher that they gave us when we joined the organisation recently! I do miss seeing our grey heron down by the Mersey, so I was very pleased to see one at Bridgewater.

The sculpture was commissioned and paid for by Salford Council as part of the Salford Centenary celebrations. I hadn’t realised that Salford is just 100 years old.

There are more Lego sculptures inside the gardens, but there are no prizes for finding them all. Which I didn’t. But when I showed my membership card to the counter clerk, she asked if I’d brought a guest with me, ‘No, I’m on my own today.’ She went, ‘aaah’, and I thought, well you could walk round with me if you think I need a buddy!

This consists of 796 bicks and it took 68 hours to build. Well, they should have asked our grandson William to do the job, he’d’ve knocked it off in five minutes!

Hmm, I thought, you’re a little bit early, it’s not Michaelmas until September 29th.

I spent a lot of time walking around the Chinese Streamside Garden. Some of it was roped off and at the time, I didn’t realise, the Yangzhou Scholars’ Garden wouldn’t officially open for another week. It would be the spectacular centrepiece of the Chinese Streamside Garden here at Bridgewater, the UK’s largest Chinese garden. As the blurb says: Inspired by the historic gardens of Yangzhou in eastern China’s Jiangsu province, it is the first authentic classical Chinese garden of its kind constructed in the UK. Combining authentic Chinese architecture with centuries-old craft techniques and cultural traditions, the garden has been meticulously constructed by a team of skilled artisans from China, alongside horticulturists from RHS Bridgewater.

Down by the waterside, mama duck was trying to herd her now nearly fully-grown chicks back into the water, but they were more interested in sniffing and pecking at people’s shoes.

Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society has been broadening minds since 1781. I’ve seen their talks advertised a few times but so far, I’ve contrived to miss them all. This week, the guest was Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell. As a PhD student, she discovered pulsars, for which her male supervisor later won a Nobel Prize.

She gave a really interesting talk, Careering through Astronomy, connecting the atoms that make up you and me with massive cosmic events.

After answering some questions from the very nearly sold out audience, Dame Jocelyn was presented with only the 17th John Dalton Medal since 1898. It is Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society’s highest award, given to those who have made a distinguished contribution to science.

Going back to Jill Scott’s picture: if you really can’t work out what she said, I hope you can lipread because here is a short clip of the offence!

In the end, I didn’t get tickets for any of the concerts in Wythenshawe Park. I could hear Pulp from home, so I can only imagine how loud the show was in the park. A few days later, I went for a walk around the park and saw the damage that had been caused to the lawn.

The organisers were still dismantling the fences and us walkers wondered how long it would take for the lawn to recover from the tens of thousands of feet stomping on it for several days.

At Liesel’s suggestion, I invited a cleaner to come and help out at our luxury apartment. She did a good job cleaning up, but I did spend quite a while before she arrived, tidying up, picking stuff up off the floor. Booking a cleaner is a good way to focus the mind and help you notice the piles of detritus all over the place.

Go east, young man. I did. I visited Burrows Gardens near Ashbourne, Derbyshire, for a very pleasant afternoon in the Sun. I misread the info and thought it was an organised walk. Instead, people just wandered around, or bathed in the Sun. Drank tea and ate cake.

I imagine the gardens are more colourful earlier in the year, but there were still a few flowers in bloom.

I’m sure one of you gardeners or horticulturists will tell me what this really is: my botanical knowledge is a bit hit and miss! Edit a day later: thank you very much Diane in Talkeetna for the first to correct the captions!

I joined the group doing yoga. And let’s say, I’m no good at yoga. I can keep my balance standing on one leg, but only by wobbling about as if dodging a swarm of bees or something.

In amongst the plants, I espied a sundial. It’s a bit more hairy than most, and, I would suggest, since the pedestal is at a very jaunty angle, it’s not a very accurate timepiece.

But a peaceful place like this is fairly timeless.

Go east, young man. I did. I visited Saltaire in West Yorkshire. I saw Iona Fyfe in concert in Edinburgh recently. Then I found out that she was performing a few shows in England. This was the closest to me, so I booked it. Then, I found she was also performing in Bury, which is much closer. Oh well. I like Yorkshire.

Saltaire is a cute little place. And, like most places that aren’t Northenden, a little bit hilly.

I’ll probably return to this place sometime, but today, I didn’t walk down the road to Salts Mill. The old textile mill now houses an art gallery, shops and a restaurant.

I found the venue, The Live Room, a social club, easily enough but I was far too early. The ticket said 6 o’clock. Iona recognised me which, ridiculously, made my day!

I was tempted, but didn’t buy a Folk Yeah! t-shirt.

Also on the bill tonight was Birdvox, a group of four women also from Scotland. Their music was a bit different, with unusual instruments, good harmonies and while I didn’t know any of their songs, so I couldn’t ruin it for other people by singing along, I was tapping my foot, oh yeah.

I was tempted and I did purchase their much-anticipated debut album Shamming The Drama which wasn’t due to be released until the following week. Yes, I’ll be playing tracks from it on my WFM radio show very soon.

Because it was quite a long drive home, in the dark, I decided to stay overnight. After a good night’s sleep in a comfortable Premier Inn bed, I stuffed my face with a big breakfast.

I took time to look at the views on the way home but kept missing the parking spaces and lay-bys, so no photos. But the Peaks will still be there next time.

And what a busy week: into Manchester to donate blood, then a visit to the dental hygienist the following day. The Wednesday walk in Northenden was well-attended and the rain stayed away. I enjoyed the Thursday walk too, in Wythenshawe.

The shopping centre is being redeveloped, but while the (re-)building work is going on, all the shops remain open. I’m sure the place will be great when it’s finished, but meantime, all we locals can do is comment on the disruption.

Another trip into Manchester for another assisted stretch with Emily. And after this, I attended another meeting of the WFM volunteers in Wythenshawe Forum.

And to complete my hattrick, I joined the regular Friday walk in Wythenshawe Park.

The wind must have been in the wrong direction today. Either that or some of the childen’s nappies were badly leaking. Because the playground near the farm was incredibly niffy today.

Simone Reilly presents a show on Radio Manchester every afternoon from Wednesday to Friday. Today, her Top Manc contestant was me. I spoke briefly about Thrive Manchester’s Friday Walk, and then answered five questions. I scored 5 out of 5, tying with someone else from earlier in the week. Another few minutes towards my 15 minutes of fame! Of course, in the olden days, I would have won a CD or something just for taking part, but after the BBC got caught fixing/fiddling their competitions a while ago, they don’t seem to do that sort of thing.

And yet another trip into Manchester. This time, to see Holy Holy in concert. This has been advertised as their final tour. I hope not, but since the main players, Woody Woodmansey and Tony Visconti are both in their 80s, who knows?

O2 Ritz isn’t my favourite venue, and I was too far back in the queue to grab a spot at the front of the balcony. Instead, I stood near the front of the stage where I could see everyone in the band easily, except poor old Woody behind his drums, and Janette Mason behind her keyboard. I think most of the audience were in my age group, but it was nice to see some younger folks as well. The hubbub became quieter as the opening strains of Warszawa were played. Tony Visconti produced that record, an unbelieveable 50 years ago.

Very soon, we heard the first few beats of Five Years. And thus began two hours of David Bowie songs, performed by probably the best tribute band you could imagine. So here are the band members and the set list. (I have a few set lists at home already, so I let the 12-year old, enthusiastic young fan have the one I’d picked up.)

Five Years
Width Of A Circle
Lady Grinning Soul

Ziggy Stardust
Time
Quicksand

Changes
Ashes To Ashes
Eight Line Poem (this is the first time this song has been performed live, Bowie himself never sang it on stage)
Panic In Detroit (oh dear, Glenn Gregory forgot the words to the second verse. Luckily, the audience was here to help him out)

When You Rock ‘n’ Roll With Me
Drive-In Saturday

Space Oddity
The Man Who Sold The World

Every now and then during the show, the security guys brought around beakers of water, which I thought was extremely civilised. Especially for those of us who had a good spot and didn’t want to lose it by going to the bar!

Starman
Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide
Life On Mars
Moonage Daydream

Encore:
Where Are We Now
Rebel Rebel

I bumped into my birthday twin Sue afterwards. She was in Manchester for a girls’ weekend, taking in Holy Holy for at least the second time on this tour. Unusually, I didn’t hang around to speak to the band after the show.

My ears and I were buzzing well into the night and it took ages to get to sleep. I checked future dates for Holy Holy and reluctantly decided Birmingham and Hull were just too far away to see them again. My throat was a little hoarse from singing along, but that’s alright, I didn’t need to speak for a while!

A few days ago, some weird chemical reaction in my brain kicked off the neurons leaving me yearning for a National Trust pasty. I scratched the itch by visiting Quarry Bank Mill, where I had to tell the volunteer to scan only one membership card as I was on my own this time.

The curried cauliflower pasty was just as good as I remembered! And the bonus is, of course, I had a very pleasant walk around the grounds, not getting too close to the wildlife.

And of course it’s always uplifting to see colours, Autumnal or otherwise.

This dogwood’s leaves are changing colour but most of the trees haven’t really started yet. They definitely lost a lot of foliage during the recent heatwaves.

As I’ve said many times, I’m not a botanist. But I think this so-called swede looks more like marigolds. And very bright they are too. Edit a day later: thanks Diane who informs me that so-called pot marigolds are not related to real marigolds you can tell by the seeds!

The big event of the week, down under, was Keiran turning ten months of age. Yes, he’s in double figures already.

In Alaska, Liesel and her chums spent another night in Hope. I mean Hope the place: none of us are that hopeful for the future of the planet and the human race, but, ooh that got a bit dark suddenly didn’t it?!

Liesel and co did a 4-mile walk, not that technical but muddy, root, and rocky. So she didn’t see much around her, just looking down. There was a longish hill to walk up.

Liesel got up before everyone else as she wanted to get breakfast in the oven. Then she walked down to the coffee shop. Liesel is finding, like I do, that walking anywhere other than around Northenden is going to be hilly and challenging.

I enjoyed seeing the wildlife as I walked down to the river Mersey. A cat. Two squirrels and, rot13, n qrnq eng, lhpx. Best of all though was seeing a cormorant on the little island.

And a bee on a sunflower.

One of the themes on my Instagram account is to show bent and damaged street furniture in Northenden, along with the caption: Northenden welcomes careful drivers. It’s not quite a weekly occurrence but… So it was a lovely surprise to see a nearly horizontal signpost in Manchester city centre, recently.

As you can see, this is in Manchester’s Chinatown. The shop window displays Chinese characters that translate to Whale Fresh, which I think just means fresh seafood or agrocery market. At least, I hope they’re not selling fresh whale meat.

I was in the city for another assisted stretching session with Emily. I can highly recommend this service, although there are only three branches of the parlour at the moment, Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow. By the time I had been severely manipulated, the authorities had attempted to repair the damage, or at least, make it a little bit safer.

Recently, Martha and Will watched a live recording of the TV show Gladiators. Now it was time for them to have a go.

What a great way to wear the children out and prepare them for a good night’s sleep!

I returned to the big city for Manchester Pride. I missed the Parade and because I’d not planned very well, I missed all the specific events too. It didn’t help that buses into Manchester terminated several stops earlier than anticipated, so we had to walk into town. It had been raining of course, so everything was wet.

She’s done very well has Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell. Of course, she wasn’t a Dame nor a Professor when I knew her at Queen Elizabeth College over half a century ago. Our paths crosses at the Sunday night Discos but otherwise my Maths and her Physiology studies never overlapped. Later on, she became President and Vice Chancellor of the University of Manchester. So, technically, she was my daughter Jenny’s boss. Small world, innit!

In Manchester, visually impaired folks need their feet washed. At least, that’s the conclusion I came to when I saw this tactile paving at a street crossing, inches deep in rain water. It still amazes me that in a place where it rains a lot, the drainage infrastructure is just not up to the job.

‘Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo’ is a perfectly acceptable English sentence of course. But I didn’t expect to see a buffalo in Manchester.

It’s promoting Żubrówka vodka outside Motley bar and restaurant, a venue I’m very unlikely to visit.

Some fun entertainment was taking place in the family area. Two astronauts in silver suits and reflective bubble helmets kept the audience engaged even though it felt like it might start raining any minute.

I heard music from various venues, pubs, and coming through windows, but I only saw one chap out in the open playing the piano.

Chopin visited Manchester in the year before his death, at the early age of 39. On Monday, August 28th 1848 a gravely ill Fryderyk Chopin gave a Gala Concert before a rapturous audience of 1200 at the Gentlemen’s Concert Hall, which was situated at the corner of Peter Street and Lower Mosley Street. Despite serious ill-health he insisted that he would perform, a fact which has forever endeared him to Mancunians and music lovers everywhere. I remember it well.

And here’s the regular fix of young Keiran.

Thunderstorms had been forecast a lot recently, and for the first time, I heard rumbles in the distance. I tried to photograph any lightning but we just had the odd flash of sheet lightning in the clouds. What a shame about the weather though on this, the day of the annual Northenden Boat Race. An event that I totally forgot about on the day.

And suddenly it’s September. I’m assuming therefore, no more heat waves. September. Back to school, and even though I left over 50 years ago, the thought of it being the Autumn term and having to do cross-country runs every week still fills me with dread. Martha and William returned to school and they look very smart in their uniforms.

The regular walk in Wythenshawe this week attracted more people than ever, as far as I can remember: there were 13 of us, including a couple of folks I’ve never met before. I wore my jacket but it soon came off, just a bit too warm to justify it.

In the afternoon, I caught the bus into Sale where I had a lovely chat with Chantel over coffee. I’d not seen her since she left Thrive and that was three months ago. Yes, three months, I checked. It was great to see her looking well.

These colourful tree yarn-bombing installations were (I think) created by local artist Wendy in Stanley Square, Sale town centre. She’s a very talented lady, and they brighten the place up beautifully.

As if meeting Chantel wasn’t enough of spending time with good people, I returned to Manchester in the evening to watch former Prime Minister Gordon Brown giving a talk. He was promoting his new book, The Future Starts with Us. Since leaving politics, Gordon Brown has been about public service and contributing to long term thinking. He spoke about the importance of community organisations providing social cohesion all over the world, as an alternative to naked individualism, and social isolation. Such a positive message and a complete repudiation of Thatcher’s ‘There is no such thing a society’.

Frank Cottrell-Boyce (screenwriter, novelist, 2012 London Olympics Opening Ceremony) had a quick chat and asked some questions from the audience. A surprise guest was Ann Cleeves (Vera and Shetland) who was ‘invited’ up from the audience to join the main speakers on stage. She spoke about the importance of libraries being perfect centres of local communities.

I was hoping to get better pictures at the meet-and-greet afterwards, but instead, the audience was ushered out of the building pdq.

In Victoria Station, I was delighted to come across another Manchester bee.

According to the description: It was at the Manchester Mechanics Institute in 1868 that the first meeting of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) took place. Fifty years later, in 1918, the Pankhursts led a victory that was meant to mark the beginning of the end of a war for gender equality. Sylvia Pankhurst, a suffragette born in Manchester, was imprisoned on numerous occasions. Interestingly she came to see the campaign for women to have the vote as just one strand in a larger struggle for equality. The 70th anniversary of the NHS in 2018 is also celebrated.

Also in Victoria Station is a memorial for those who died in the terrorist bombing at Manchester Arena in 2017. I can’t imagine what it’s like for your child to go out for a good time at a concert and to not come home afterwards. The contrast between the hatred of the perpetrators of this atrocity and the ultimate optimism of Gordon Brown for the future was the difference between a clenched fist and a welcoming, open palm.