family – Page 5 – Mick and Liesel's Antics

Mud, mud, glorious mud

We continue to walk around the streets and parks of Americashawe and Northenamerica and along the banks of the River America. Spring is in the air, the crocuses and daffs are adding colour to the bare earth. And we are grateful that America’s new president hasn’t renamed absolutely everything, just Denali and Chalchiuhtlicueyecatl so far, now to be referred to as Mount McKinley and the Gulf of America. If I could be bothered and if the whole thing weren’t so tragic and ridiculous, I’d produce a cartoon series about Donald Trump and the world’s richest man, called Felon and Elon.

Seth Lakeman and his band drove all the way to Buxton where we saw him perform at the Opera House. We recognised most of the songs, although not well enough to sing along, much to Liesel’s delight. She’d booked back row seats, and, as planned, she stood up to dance. It was good to see Leslie tapping her feet and clapping along to the tunes too.

Google Maps took us home along country lanes, rather than the main road, the A6, and that would have been lovely if it hadn’t been so dark and we could have admired the scenery.

This drive was but a rehearsal for the much longer journey the next day. We drove to Sussex, over five hours on the road. I say ‘we drove’, but as is usually the case, Liesel drove the whole way while I tried to stay awake in the passenger seat. It was dark by the time we arrived at our home for the weekend, the Woodlands Cottage within the National Trust property Nymans. In the dark, I had to wrestle with an old, sturdy but rusty padlock on a heavy gate while trying not to slip in the mud on the very wet path.

After a good night’s sleep in the cottage, we were woken by some glorious birdsong, something we don’t hear much of at home. Nothing against our local magpies, but we could do with some variety!

After breakfast, back on the road, this time to Polesden Lacey, another National Trust property. Here we met up with some of Liesel’s old friends and their men from when she worked in Dorking. It was lovely to see Sandra and Fred again after all these years, and I don’t mean just because Sandra gave us some of her delicious, homemade, fridge cake!

The recipe is a secret otherwise I’d be happy to reproduce it here. Suffice to say, chocolate is involved.

I also met Vicky for the first time with her husband Andrew: it was their cottage in the Lake District that we stayed at several years ago. And yes, it would be nice to go back.

After a coffee and a long chat, we all went for a walk in the grounds. It’s not every day you find a turtle in a tree.

I think it was part of a half-term treasure hunt, but it might just as easily been the result of a two-year old’s temper tantrum, I suppose. Our walk wasn’t as long as anticipated: we stopped at the children’s playground where Holly’s son had a great time.

Entertainment was also provided by Clyde, Sandra and Fred’s little Lhasa apso, and a stick.

I’ve never had an organised reunion with a group of former work colleagues like this, but I have kept in touch with a few individuals, mostly online of course, these days.

I think all of the statues were wrapped up for some reason, maybe to protect from the elements, but if that’s the case, why leave them outside? I bet other places don’t wrap up their outdoor art in this way.

After the goodbyes, we returned to our cottage just in time before the heavens opened. The rain was loud that night, and so much of it!

We went for a walk in the woods and the gardens, mostly following the ‘blue route’. There was a lot of mud around and when we got home to Northenden, we scraped most of it off our shoes and sent it back to Sussex.

There were plenty of other folks walking through the woods, and most of them had more suitable footwear such as wellington boots. And we saw a lot of filthy dogs too: I hope they send the mud from their coats back otherwise the tree roots will have nothing to hide under.

Some ducks came out of the lake up onto the path, not bothered by us, nor expecting to be fed by us.

This is probably my favourite tree, mainly because it contains all the vowels.

Last time we went away from home for the weekend, there were floods at home. This time, we missed a big fire in Wythenshawe, just behind the hospital.

(Sorry, I don’t know whose photo that is, but thanks!)

We found a cafe that was packed so we carried on our wander and found a smaller, less packed one. I enjoyed my scone with jam and clotted cream.

Although we were out in the countryside, we didn’t see a lot of wildlife. A few birds and a couple of worms that had strayed onto the path. Even by the cottage, we thought we might hear something moving about outside, especially at night, but no, nothing. But we did come across these beasties on our walk.

As mentioned above, I really didn’t expect to see another sculpture wrapped in plastic, but there were a few here, too.

Maybe it’s a southern English thing.

It was a lovely long walk today, even if a bit muddy in places. I looked at my pedometer to see how far we’d traipsed and, oh no, utter disaster, its battery was dead. All those tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of steps over the last day or so, all gone to waste, not counted, totted up, enumerated nor accounted for. What an absolute tragedy. Liesel thinks I’m obsessed but what am I supposed to do when there is no data to enter into the spreadsheet? The statistics will all be wrong. In protest, I sat down and refused to carry on. Well, I didn’t, but how daft that the thought even occurred to me? Oh well, c’est la vie. I replaced the battery at home the following day, and, correlating the numbers with my previous readings on the spreadsheet, I concluded that the battery must have died sometime while at Polesden Lacey.

We had one more night at the cottage before returning home. There was a TV on the premises and a DVD player which Liesel made good use of: over the weekend, she watched the whole of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, maybe not avidly all the time, but it was on in the background while I read a book and did some puzzles.

On the drive home, we did something we’ve not done for a while. We avoided the M6 Toll Road, saving nearly £10 and only taking five minutes longer to get home, via the original M6.

We picked the children up from school and took them to Bruntwood Park for a short play. A tree had fallen across the path, which we all climbed over, of course. And there was some colour here too.

It wasn’t the warmest Spring day, but I think they had fun in the sandpit, after their ice cream snack.

Liesel made it at home but we enjoyed the corn chowder and garlic bread at the children’s house because we had to make a quick getaway.

Somewhere else we haven’t been for a little while is London’s National Theatre. We didn’t go this week either, but we did see one of their productions on the big screen here at Stockport’s Plaza. We’ve seen The Importance of Being Earnest before, but this performance was very good, very funny, and I’m sure the cast weren’t taking it too seriously, lots of winking at the camera, especially from Ncuti Gatwa, who we know from Doctor Who.

The three of us joined the Thrive Walk in Wythenshawe. There was a long queue for something in the Forum so I thought I’d better join it, it might be for something interesting, Led Zep tickets or something. But no, these people were all interested in a job at Manchester Airport.

We should be able to see a parade of seven planets in the night sky, around now. But there’s just too much light pollution, even when it’s not total cloud cover here. Plus of course, I don’t have any equipment. Still, Venus is always easy to spot.

And as this post comes to an end, let me show you another terrific Northenden sunset.

Flatpack and puck

Everyone seems to be using AI tools to do everything these days, and I am no exception. We went to see a local production of the Ira Levin play, Deathtrap, which we all enjoyed. I remember seeing this play with Sarah in Peterborough in the early 1980s, but of course, I’d totally forgotten the story. Until it started this time, then it all came flooding back. But there were still a couple of incidents that made me jump. On the way home, my mind was wandering and I thought it would be good to rewrite the play as a series of rhyming couplets. Well, I don’t have patience for that, but I did ask ChatGPT to do something along those lines. Here’s the result.

Sidney Bruhl, once a playwright famed,
Now sits in a slump, his career badly maimed.
His box office flops, they keep him awake,
A writer once great, now struggling to make.

He picks up a play, with a grin so wide,
Tells Myra, “This script, I can’t let it slide.
A student’s work, by Clifford, you see,
It’s brilliant, a hit, it’s meant to be free!”

With playful reassurances, he adds with a smile,
“Just kidding, my dear, but it’s worth your while.
Perhaps I could kill him, and steal all the gold,
For a script this good, it’s worth its weight in bold.”

Myra’s alarmed, she starts to grow cold,
Her husband’s dark humor’s growing too bold.
Sidney picks up the phone, no time to delay,
Calling Clifford, to have him come and play.

“Come over, my friend, let’s talk through the night,
I’ve got suggestions that’ll make your play right.
Deathtrap’s a hit, and you’ve set it so well,
I’ve got ideas to make it excel.”

And thus begins the game, so clever and slick,
In the world of Deathtrap, where plots tend to stick.

That’s just the first scene. That’s plenty. Obviously American English, less than ideal scanning and not as entertaining as the play itself. In fact, if I were you, I wouldn’t bother reading it. Northenden Theatre Players Club did a very good job, but their run is now over.

Spring is a bit slow coming this year, snowdrops seem to be winning the race against crocuses and daffodils: there are little patches of them in really strange or unexpected places.

A couple of relatively warm days are invariably followed by a really cold spell, easterly winds straight from Siberia.

Liesel and I have watched Transatlantic Sessions on TV for a few years, not so much recently: not sure the shows are broadcast any more. But there was a live show here in Manchester and we couldn’t resist going to see the performance at Aviva Studios, home of Factory International.

It was very nearly a full house and we enjoyed over two hours of great folk and country music from Scotland, Ireland and USA. It’s a great band, they all play on each others’ songs. We particularly liked Julie Fowlis, Loudon Wainwright and Niall McCabe.

Liesel and her Mom went out for a coffee and by mistake found themselves at Ikea, buying a wardrobe for Mom’s room. This meant I had to blow the dust off my tools and build the wardrobe, in situ since we don’t have enough floor space. It was straightforward enough, the instructions were good, but I found I was using muscles that long ago were resigned to never having to do any DIY ever again. Injuries incurred? A bruise on my left biceps, no idea how, and one broken finger nail, can’t remember how.

This was a weekend well spent and I think Leslie enjoys having somewhere to organise her clothes.

Meanwhile, Jenny and family were in London for the weekend, visiting friends, Big Ben and Buckingham Palace. The highlight for me was seeing the children outside the family ballet shoe shop. They were also a little bit naughty and went to see the musical Matilda.

Helen and Brent went for a quick break in the campervan, but it broke down, so they ended up camping at home. Still, it’s all an adventure.

Liesel’s Aunt Buzz lives in Aluquerque, New Mexico (although by the time you read this, Trump will probably have renamed the state New America.) Buzz’s daughter and son-in-law Andrea and Steve moved to the UK a couple of years ago and they now live in Richmond. Well, Buzz is visiting Andi and Steve and the three of them came up north to visit us for a few days. Leslie was very happy to see her older sister.

Late afternoon saw all of us enjoying a meal at Albert’s in Didsbury along with Jenny and the family. This party of 10 was the biggest group we’ve booked a table for in many, many years. We remembered the last time Jenny met Andi. We were all on holiday in Hawaii with many other family members. Yes, 10 of us in the restaurant having a great time and yet none of us took any pictures.

We’d also booked an organised walk in Manchester so we met up at the Alan Turing Memorial statue in Manchester. There were about twenty people altogether on the tour, which was interesting, although I think we all thought the guide spoke for a bit too long before we started actually walking. Standing around in the cold, biting wind is not my ears’ idea of fun, even with a decent Winter hat.

One thing I’ve never seen before is the Monument to Vimto. Yes, that horrible sweet and nasty beverage that is an anagram of vomit. Someone though it would be a good idea to have a statue.

During the walking tour, we visited or passed by a number of places of interest, each with a interesting story.

We learned about the Peterloo Massacre and how it lead directly to the publication of The Manchester Guardian, now the Guardian newspaper that we read online far more often then we buy an actual physical copy. I do miss doing the various puzzles though.

We had a late lunch at The Oast House in Manchester where, although it was tempting to have a cocktail, it was so cold outside, it was more warm beer type weather.

Fletcher Moss Botanical Garden was the venue of our walk the following day. There’s mud everywhere, signs of recent flooding.

The wind wasn’t as bitingly cold as yesterday: I didn’t feel I was verging on earache in the same way. We walked down to the river but the path towards Northenden was blocked, it looks like some maintenance work is taking place.

There are a few plants in bud and very soon, we hope, the park will a carousel of colour. After a quick cup of tea at the café, we wandered into Didsbury, visiting La Chouquette for a loaf of their delicious sourdough bread and visiting none of the charity shops. We had lunch at The Art of Tea after which we went our separate ways for a while. I took Leslie and Buzz back to our apartment where I also picked up my pedometer. Yes, I’d walked miles and miles this morning without the steps being counted: what a waste!

Meanwhile, Liesel went into Manchester with Andi and Steve. I later joined them at Sinclair’s Oyster Bar for a drink. I can’t remember the last time I went on a pub crawl, but I enjoyed today’s.

Next stop, The Old Wellington next door. This pub dates from 1552. In June 1996 a bomb exploded in nearby Corporation Street & damaged many of the surrounding buildings including The Old Wellington. It was repaired & reopened in 1997 but due to the city’s redevelopment, it was decided the building would be dismantled & rebuilt 300 m northward to its present location in Shambles Square, which opened in 1999. So says the plaque inside the pub.

Our final stop today was The Temple of Convenience, you know, the underground pub in what used to be a public toilet. The one where Elbow celebrated their Mercury awards all those years ago. For a while, we were the only customers, so plenty of opportunity to read the posters and the graffiti.

I ordered pizza and we picked it up on the way home. We had a lively discussion about whether to pronounce ‘pizzeria’ as ‘pizzeria’ or ‘pizzeria’.

We said goodbye to Andi and Steve who were returning home to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Liesel, Leslie and I would spend one more day with Buzz. We visited Quarry Bank and wandered around the mill. We couldn’t follow our usual walk down through the gardens as there had been a landslide.

After the tour of Quarry Bank Mill, we enjoyed lunch in the restaurant. My cauliflower pastie was fabulous, much nicer than the scones, although I could have had one of those too!

A few days earlier, Liesel contributed a green crocheted heart to the postbox decoration with her WI buddies. I think this is the first time I’ve been able to put a name to a yarnbomber.

While Buzz stayed at home with Leslie, Liesel and I went to Altrincham for our Valentine’s day date night. We should have more date nights, just the two of us.

We dined at a Chinese place called Gonbay, and it was reassuring to see a big Chinese family enjoying their meal on the table next to ours. I wasn’t expecting to see one of these though:

After the meal, we had a 14-minute walk to Planet Ice. Ooh, a night of ice-skating? Nope. We were here to watch my first ever live ice hockey match. Manchester Storm v Dundee Stars. I didn’t shout it out loud of course, but I wanted Dundee to win, since that was the birthtown of my Mum.

Strangely, ice hockey is a game of three halves. Manchester Storm were 2-0 up after the first period. And, actually, if you trust the announcer, the local team is called Man. Ches. Ter. Storrrrrrrrm.

The group of supporters from Dundee was confined to a small area in the corner, but they were quite vocal at times.

The background music, mainly from the 1980s, was OK, but they only ever played short snippets, persumably so they don’t have to pay royalties. It’s certainly a fast and furious game, you need to be fit. But from the spectators’ point of view, not exciting enough, since we were entertained by a quiz and a raffle during the breaks.

In the end, Dundee Stars won 4-3. The puck travelling at hundreds of miles per hour made it very hard to follow at times. None of the players were injured, well, apart from one incident after which it took a couple of cleaners quite a while to scrape the blood off the ice. And somebody broke their stick.

Who would have guessed, when Torvill and Dean won the Ice Dance competition during the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, dancing to Ravel’s Bolero, that 41 years later, to the day, I would be watching other ice skaters doing something completely different?

Early in the morning, Liesel drove Buzz to the railway station: she’s rejoining Andi and Steve in Richmond for a few more days before returning to New Mexico.

I’ve been sneezing a lot this week and it took a few days for me to realise that it’s probably hay fever.

Going out out

There was a lot of discussion online about how long January was this year. It did seem to go on a bit, didn’t it? Yet here we are now in February and wondering where did January go? One whole aisle in our local Tesco has been taken over by Easter eggs. Soon we’ll be counting down to Christmas again.

Liesel and Leslie enjoy their frequent get-togethers with the WI, for a coffee, in a variety of venues in Didsbury. We all go out for a walk every day. Well, that’s the ideal but there are some days when we don’t quite manage. We’ll keep ourselves entertained at home with TV, radio, books, puzzles, crochet, cooking, eating, washing up, looking out of the windows to see what the neighbours are up to, whingeing about the weather and bemoaming the state of the world.

I felt a little bit sad when I had to relinquish my old driving licence and replace it with a new one. I am approaching a certain age. So I need a new licence. I’m still not sure why: there was no test, I just had to confirm that I can still see where I’m going most of the time.

On the other hand, I didn’t feel sad when I deactivated my 𝕏 account. More a sense of relief and, of course, there’s not much else I can do to get back at Elon Musk. There are a few folks and groups there that I’ll miss, but I’ll catch up with them on another social media site one day. A few days later, Liesel followed suit.

There has been a lot of helicopter noise recently. They’re shoring up the bank of the river Mersey where it collapsed following all the rain last month. The weir should be repaired soon too, hopefully in time for this year’s Northenden Boat Race.

There are some early signs of Spring. A few crocuses are peeking out but more prominent are the snowdrops. So far, at least. Maybe I’m cynical but my memory is that it often gets colder in February and the frosts kill off the early blooms, so they have to start again.

Storm Éowyn did its worst in our local woods. At least a couple of trees succumbed to the gale-force winds, toppled over and blocked the path. A nice, unexpected challenge on what is usually a straightforward, flat, uneventful stroll.

Liesel often says she’d love to wear a purple hi-visibility vest and at last, the opportunity presented itself. Her WI group went litter picking in Didsbury and they provided the perfect uniform.

On a lazy Sunday afternoon, we ventured into Manchester for a concert. But before that, we dined in the Indian Tiffin Room. We’ve always liked this place but we hadn’t been for ages.

We watched the Hallé Orchestra conducted by Roderick Cox performing a relatively new piece, The Insects Become Magnetic, composed by Christopher Cerrone. This was followed by Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 21 and Tchaikowsky’s 4th Symphony, both of which I hummed along to, a bit.

The best day of the week of course was when we brought our grandchildren home from school and got them to sweep our chimney. No, hang on, that’s not right. They made dreamcatchers and we were all impressed with their skill and imagination.

Martha’s is very nearly complete and William’s just needs a few more adornments.

Northenden sometimes treats us to a pretty sunset and we had a couple this week. Such a shame that the foreground is comprised of neighbouring houses rather than rolling hills or fields or something a bit more easy on the eye.

Time for another visit to Bridgewater Hall, this time for a lunchtime violin recital. Music for solo violin is never going to be amongst our favourite musical genres, but Kryštof Kohout is a very talented player. With my eyes closed, it was hard to believe that all that music and those sounds were being produced by one instrument. No humming along on this occasion, as I was unfamiliar with the tunes. And the bonus was, he played a traditional Czech folk song.

The saying is that we do things differently in Manchester. It’s wonderful that the city is being developed, with all those tall glass and steel structures, right? Well, not everyone agrees.

I, for one, would like to see some green spaces in the city centre.

I can’t remember the last time we went out to an event two days in a row, but we did this week. We really enjoyed the comedy night at our local Northenden Social Club.

Charlie Lewis, Harriet Dyer, Ryan Kenny and Rob Rouse

All were a little bit rude, a little bit naughty, but all very funny. I made my one pint of beer last until the first interval.

For the first time in a very long time, I made it out to all three of the Thrive wellbeing walks, negotiating muddy paths through the woods, dodging fallen trees, and rewarding myself with a coffee or a hot chocolate afterwards.

Pipes and pins

As I’ve said before, it’s always a bit of an anticlimax when you get back to normal after a break, however short. Which means we’re back to our normal day-to-day inactivity.

Amongst the ‘normal’ were our infrequent but frustrating fights with the internet: forgotten passwords, forgotten subscriptions, things that worked last week but don’t any more for no obvious reason. Our devices don’t know how lucky they are sometimes, not having had an axe embedded in their nether regions.

Having been disappointed by only seeing a stuffed fox in London, it was delightful to see a couple as we drove over to Sale Water Park. I don’t think the M60 slip road was the best place for them to play, to be honest.

From Sale Water Park, we took the tram into Manchester and had a ten minute walk to Bridgewater Hall. Not for a concert on this occasion, but to have a close look at the very impressive organ, with its 5,500 pipes. I counted them. David Wood was our very informative and interesting host. He maintans the organ, as well as hundreds of others in the north of England. I was hoping for a blast of Toccata and Fugue, but, instead, he regaled us with the history of the instrument, its construction and installation.

There were about 8 of us on this particular tour, and David took us up a narrow staircase to the second of three floors that the 22-tonne organ occupies. We had to duck under and carefully step round various obstacles, but it was fascinating to see the inner workings.

We didn’t see it, but apparently there’s a mouse in the organ. Way up high, carved into the wooden ceiling, with little leather ears, visible from the top floor where we mortals weren’t allowed.

We wandered back via the back of the Central Library, where what we thought were left-over Christmas decorations were actually something else, looking to the future rather than the past.

It will soon be Chinese New Year, the Year of the Snake.

The building work at Martha and William’s school continues, meaning that access to the car park is restricted. Usually, when it’s our turn to pick the children up from school, we walk back to their home and then drive them back to our place. Today, though, we drove to the school and took them to Parrs Wood.

My ten-pin bowling skills are, let’s say, limited. We played two games, Martha won the first and I won the second mainly because William and Martha were losing interest and getting tired!

After the bowling, they spent some time in the arcade, playing many of the games, winning hundreds of tokens which they redeemed at the end for some cheapo sweeties. Great fun, they enjoyed themselves, that’s the main thing, but I thought the prizes were rubbish.

For dinner, we took them to Zumuku Sushi in Cheadle, a place they visit often enough that Wilma was happy to see them and knew their names. Frequent visitors, or notorious for some reason?

Going back to the internet, Liesel and I have both X-communicated ourselves. Yes, we have deactivated our X, formerly Twitter, accounts. A small way to fight back against the new American oligarchy, I know, but other than referring to Elon’s vehicles as Swasticars, what else can we do?

A few pairs

For some people, the second day of the new year began with a long Uber ride across London to the airport. Farewell, Una, Phil and Kiran, it’s been a gas!

For Liesel, Leslie and me, it began with a leisurely hotel breakfast. And again we recalled the time when Liesel’s Dad, Klaus, was staying at a Premier Inn some years ago. At breakfast, he was asked how many sausages he wanted. “Oh, six please.” Or eight. Depends who’s telling the story.

We parked up at Mottingham Station and caught the train to Waterloo. While my wife and her mother were in Boots, I enjoyed listening to today’s busker.

Let’s hope her partner’s surgery goes well. We returned to Gudrun Sjoden as Liesel needed to return one of the items purchased a few days ago. While she and Mom browsed and tried on everything, I went for a walk, passing by some familiar shops, such as Forbidden Planet and Mildred’s. I did see an urban fox, something we’d missed so far in London. The sad thing is, it was dead, stuffed and in a shop window.

I walked as far as the National Portrait Gallery café where I sat underneath Audrey Hepburn’s bum while wolfing down a sandwich and a coffee.

While I was wandering around the gallery, admiring some portraits, Liesel and Leslie arrived for their lunch too.

Our late afternoon and evening were very lazy and the next day, it was time to go west.

Liesel’s cousin Andi and her husband Steve live in Richmond, and we’d planned to stay with them for a few nights. It wasn’t really on the way, but we visited Ightham Mote in Kent, another National Trust property. It was, as they say, a crisp but sunny day, the more remarkable because today was the first time this Winter we’d had to scrape ice off the car.

We had a nice, leisurely walk around the grounds. There is a moat and I still don’t know what a ‘Mote’ is in this context. According to Wikipedia, the architectural writer John Newman describes Ightham Mote as “the most complete small medieval manor house in the county”.

A member of staff advised us to look out for the mice and we did see a few on our wander.

My sympathies are with the gardeners. I had a 30+ year battle with bindweed in Chessington and I am convinced that after the nuclear apocalypse, it will be the last surviving species along with the cockroaches.

In the courtyard, we found a large 19th century dog kennel. There was no large 19th century dog, though, so I asked Liesel to give an idea of scale.

The house itself was interesting, lots of old stuff of course, and some humorous cartoons on the wall, such as the snooker player who might be a Champion, if there were a Championship.

The drive along the M25 wasn’t too bad and we arrived in Richmond just as the Sun was setting. Not long after, we saw the Moon and Saturn.

The other fascinating celestial object bright enough to see in twilight? Well, it turned out to be an aeroplane on its descent to Heathrow Airport. We found Andi and Steve’s house easily enough and it was good to see them again after all this time.

Steve was in charge of breakfast and he made a wonderful omelette for us. That set me up nicely for my trip across London, thank you very much. I can’t believe I’ve known Marie now for 35 years: we worked together at Kingston University. She lives in Orpington and if she hadn’t had prior engagements, I could have seen her while we were staying in nearby Eltham! D’oh!

On the way, I stopped off at the Southbank Centre for a coffee and to see what was going on.

Fred Tschida’s spinning, glowing work is recreated at a technically ambitious scale. In this work, two parallel rings of brilliant orange-red neon – the natural colour emitted by the gas when high-voltage electricity passes through it – rotate at a slower speed of 15 rpm to produce the illusion, when photographed with a long exposure, of a giant glowing orb. So says the blurb. But it wasn’t rotating at 15 rpm when I was there. And I couldn’t find anyone to wind it up. So, to be contrary, I just took a still shot.

I walked over the Jubilee bridge and caught the train to Orpington from Charing Cross. This was followed by a bus ride and a bit of a walk, during which I very nearly missed a very important alleyway.

It was lovely to see Marie again, and to meet her Mum for the first time. Marie very kindly fed me as if I were a goose being fattened up for Christmas! Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of my host.

Before returning to Richmond, I thought I’d pay a quick visit to Battersea Power Station. Not to visit the new shopping centre, there are shopping centres all over the place. No, I wanted to see the sign outside the underground station that says ‘Battersea Power Station Station’.

You can only imagine the waves of disappointment and dismay that engulfed me when I realised I’d been hoaxed.

Meanwhile, Liesel, Leslie, Andi and Steve had had a good, if slightly damp, day at RHS Wisley Gardens, just off the A3.

They also had a late lunch at The Anchor, Pyrford Lock. No homity pie on this occasion though. So I think it’s fair to say, none of us needed a full evening meal.

It snowed in Manchester and we’d missed it, oh well, never mind, but our grandchildren enjoyed the experience.

‘Twas damp the day we visited the Victoria and Albert Museum but we thought we’d stay dry as we walked along the tunnel from South Ken tube station to the museum. But the tunnel was closed, so we had to walk outside, in the drizzle.

We admired the tapestries from the Mughal empire, the detail is incredible.

Twill-weave cotton and linen mixture, embroidered with silk thread in chain stitch. Gujarat, for the western market. About 1725-50.

Export embroideries of this kind were based on contemporary chintz patterns, with designs being sent by the Dutch and English East India Companies to both the Coromandel Coast in South-East India for chintzes and Gujarat in the North-West for embroideries. No, of course I didn’t commit that to memory.

‘Laughing Matters’ is a display of comedy objects and artefacts from the last 200 years. A lot of the items wouldn’t be accepted as entertainment today and I probably shouldn’t have laughed at some of them: how did they get away with that, even in the 1960s, 1970s?

We had a look at the jewellery too. I couldn’t quite capture the coloured glints from the diamonds.

If this were a shop, of course I would have bought this tiara for my beloved, but it was a museum exhibit, so I couldn’t. Oh well, never mind.

This tiara, from 1903, of graduated flaming hearts and C-scrolls was inspired by a vision of France before the Revolution. Louis Cartier encouraged his designers to sketch 18th-century ironwork and architectural ornament in Paris and Versailles, and to study engraved jewellery designs.

Consuelo, Duchess of Manchester, was a prominent American heiress who married into the British nobility in 1876. The Duke of Portland recorded that she ‘took Society completely by storm by her beauty, wit and vivacity and it was soon at her very pretty feet’.

France; Cartier, Paris, with diamonds supplied by the Duchess of Manchester Gold and silver with diamonds; the C-scroll at each end is set with paste (glass). No, I didn’t memorise this info either.

I was very pleased to see Edward Scissorhand’s hand, though, mostly because if you’d asked me where it was, I doubt I would have guessed the V&A.

Back in Richmond, we walked down the road to The Prince’s Head pub for our evening meal. This is the pub featured in the popular TV series Ted Lasso. While the carnivores had roast meat or fish and chips, I enjoyed my roasted vegetable and feta pithivier. No, I’ve never seen that word before, either, but it’s just a posh French word for a puff pastry pie. The staff get their entertainment from listening to us customers struggling to pronounce le mot. The meal was delicious, though

We left Richmond early(-ish), hoping to beat the traffic home, this being the end of the Christmas and New Year holiday period, when we thought most people would be returning home. In the end, the drive wasn’t too bad.

It didn’t take too long to get back into our normal routine at home. Apart from, we did experience some cold and some snow. The temperature hovered around freezing for a couple of days, and it was a bit icy.

We did go into Manchester for an art show. What better way to mark what would have been David Bowie’s 77th birthday than by seeing fellow artist David Hockney at work? Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away) was the name of the show at Factory International.

David Hockney himself took us on a personal journey through sixty years of his art in this vibrant immersive exhibition. With huge state-of-the-art projections and a revolutionary sound system, Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away) let us experience the world through David Hockney’s eyes. We saw his work from LA to Yorkshire, and up to the present day in Normandy. The show was an incredible opportunity to get to know one of the great popular geniuses of the art world, still experimenting with new technology to create beauty and wonder. We watched Hockney experiment with perspective, use photography as a way of ‘drawing with a camera’, capture the passing of time in his polaroid collages and the joy of sSpring on his iPad – and he showed us why only paint can properly convey the hugeness of the Grand Canyon. The specially composed score by Nico Muhly was fantastic too, not intrusive at all.

Liesel and Leslie in a Hockney landscape

And finally, one more time: Happy New Year! I stole this fascinating piece of mathematical trivia from someone on the internet: merci beaucoups!

Alaskans in London

While we were asleep in Chessington, good friends of ours were flying into Heathrow Airport all the way from Anchorage. Una, Phil and Kiran were visiting London for a few days before setting off for Barcelona, where Kiran will be studying for the next six months.

Today’s adventure began with a drive along the wonderful M25 to meet and greet them at the airport. No way could we all fit in our car, even without travellers’ luggage. So Liesel drove with the bags and her Mom to Una’s accommodation in Eltham. Meanwhile, my mission, which I was happy to accept, was to escort the visitors on public transport.

The first experience wasn’t very welcoming: we had to stand most of the way on the Piccadilly line train from Heathrow to Piccadilly Circus. So many people, so many huge cases.

It was a drab day and despite appearances, this really is a colour photo of Eros. It was fun showing visitors the sights and sites of our capital city. We certainly did a lot of walking over the next few days.

Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth has a new display.

Mil Veces un Instante (A thousand times an Instant) by Teresa Margolles

It’s a cuboid constructed from the face casts of 726 trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming people from the UK and Mexico, where the artist, Teresa Margolles, comes from.

More details here, at least until a new display comes along!

Our first choice for lunch was the crypt of St Martin in the Fields. But it wasn’t yet open. We went into the church itself, but we left fairly quickly as there was a service taking place. We walked on towards Leicester Square where we enjoyed a light breakfast.

Whitehall was busy and there were no protesters at the gates of Downing Street. Maybe it was too cold. Maybe there’s nothing to protest about, any more.

It was definitely a day to be a tourist. We didn’t join the queue, though, to have our photo taken by a particular telephone box with Big Ben, Elizabeth Tower, in the background.

You can see it was still not yet noon. And it was still too early to check in at the flat, so we made our way to Oxford Circus.

Walking up Regent Street, I pointed out the balcony at BBC Broadcasting House where U2 had performed a few years ago: Phil and Una are big U2 fans. We intruded on a church service taking place in All Souls, just over the road. That’s two. Keep forgetting it’s Sunday. Oops.

There were a couple of shops that Kiran wanted to visit, the sort of shop that I would never normally darken the doors of.

Sorry to say, I found the display of sewing machines here in AllSaints more interesting than the fashions. Although I was nearly tempted to buy a nice, fluffy, warm jumper. Nearly.

We also visited Liberty, a place I don’t think I’ve been inside for half a century. The main reason was to visit the loo, although it was interesting to watch the other shoppers going about their business. And I did compliment the shop assistant who was dressed as a rag doll. Yeah, I know: creepy old man.

Phil and Una were impressed by the Christmas lights in Regent Street, and of course we’d come back to see them illuminated at some point.

While walking down Regent Street, I had to show them Heddon Street, the location of David Bowie’s photoshoot for the cover of his Ziggy Stardust album.

Funny thing is, I don’t think anyone believed me when I told them this was the London Eye. It’s really Lost Echoes by Charlotte Colbert, a new addition to this area, where there are a few Bowie-themed establishments.

More pounding the streets, over to Seven Dials. A long queue at the fish and chip shop deterred us, and Seven Dials Market was very busy too.

Check-in time was 3pm, so we found our way to Eltham by train. Liesel brought the luggage over, and the visitors settled into the flat. Promptly falling asleep. Tired, jet-lagged travellers, all.

Liesel, Leslie and I were staying at a Premier Inn nearby.

After a good night’s sleep, we all met up at the flat, greeted by a flock of noisy green parrakeets.

We planned to go to Greenwich this morning. Train to Lewisham then DLR. Easy. Except it was a fast train and it didn’t stop at Lewisham. Plan B then, go on the Jubilee line from Waterloo. We had a pleasant walk, seeing more of Greenwich than anticpated. And it was good to see the masts of the Cutty Sark over the rooftops, confirming we were heading in the right direction, even if Google Maps was joshing with us, changing its mind about which direction we should be walking in.

We wandered around Greenwich Market, to pass the time, and bought some snacks. After a coffee break, we boarded the boat for our cruise on the Thames. It was hard to know which side to sit, left or right, port or starboard, since both sides of the river have plenty of things to see.

Neither Liesel nor I could remember any of the famous ‘celebs’ who live in these apartments. And of course, they’re well out of our price range.

We were very lucky, though. I’ve only seen Tower Bridge raised twice before, but today was my third time. There was no sign of a tall ship, so I assume it was just a regular test. Perfect timing, though.

Phil and I were the only ones in our group to brave the upper deck, outside in the chilly wind. I did feel sorry for the girl behind the bar. I don’t think any of us passengers bought anything from her. Perhaps the sign saying ‘Cash Only’ didn’t help.

We sailed under more London bridges before docking at Westminster Pier. It was a very smooth voyage. We then walked back along the river, admiring the real London Eye, now wholly visible, not half hidden in very low cloud like it was yesterday.

We walked to the the fish & chip shop, Rock and Sole Plaice, and again, there was quite a long queue. This time, though, we decided to join and wait. Una and Liesel went off to browse another clothes shop, one of Liesel’s favourites, Gudrun Sjoden. I paid a quick visit to Seven Dials Market, thinking I’d get some lunch here since I wasn’t interested in fish & chips. Well, it was full. Queues at every food outlet, no spare tables. I did come across a hero of mine, though:

It looks like a Banksy but I don’t think it is. Eventually, the six of us found ourselves n the basement of Rock and Sole Plaice, and I was pleased to see they had pies on the menu too. Cheese, onion and potato for me. Plus, I introduced our visitors to mushy peas. Unimpressed is the word, I think.

As staunch royalists, of course we had to pay a visit to Buckingham Palace. We walked via Covent Garden Market, Trafalgar Square again, but not under Admiralty Arch which was covered in hoarding, along the Mall where we mingled with thousands of other visitors.

We’d noticed lots of barriers and fences everywhere, probably to be used for crowd control on New Years’ Eve. Leslie was getting tired so she and Liesel returned to our hotel by taxi, tube and train. Phil, Una, Kiran and I walked across Green Park to catch a bus back to Oxford Circus. At last, it was dark enough to fully appreciate the Christmas lights.

Kiran and Una wanted to go shopping so Phil and I went on a pub crawl. When I say ‘pub crawl’, I mean we visited four pubs before finding one that wasn’t too crowded, too noisy, and we even found a couple of seats at the Red Lion. So we had a pint of beer, Sam Smiths bitter in my case, which I don’t think I’ve imbibed for several years. We were entertained by a group of young lads playing darts, hindered by the fact that they couldn’t agree on the exact location of the oche, the throw line. Like the rest of the carpet, it was well-worn.

There was no 4G signal here, so I had to send an SMS to Liesel asking her to let Una know where we were. Una and Kiran found us, and while they enjoyed more beer, I set off back to the hotel. On the walk back from the railway station, I admired some local street art.

Well done Year 4 at St Olave’s Prep School

Meanwhile, Phil, Una and Kiran visited Hamley’s and met a very imposing figure.

Back home up north, Jenny and family visited Dunham Massey to see the lights and succeeded in not tripping over the hundreds of miles of cables.

In other news, let us congratulate nephew Robert and his fiancée Cristy on their announcement! Yes, great news from Vancouver. Time to buy a new hat.

Even though Borough Market is one of our favourites in London, we didn’t pay a visit on this occasion. Phil, Una and Kiran did though, along with thousands of other people.

Liesel, Leslie and I visited Waterloo Station to begin our walk along the South Bank. There’s a new installation in the station, designed to acknowledge and celebrate the outstanding contribution and dedication of the Windrush Generation to British history,

The monument symbolises the courage, commitment and resilience of the thousands of men, women and children who travelled to the UK from 1948 to 1971.

It has been created as a permanent place of reflection fostering greater understanding of the Windrush Generation’s talent, hard work and loyalty to Britain, inspiring future generations forever.

Again, we passed by many fences and barriers, plus hoarding that was hiding a lot of building and refurbishment work. These days, you need a ticket to go into London for the New Year’s Eve revelries, but Liesel and I strongly suspected we’d all be in bed well before midnight.

We’d had a hotel breakfast, so at Tate Modern, we just needed a quick snack really. Liesel and I had very different ideas about what to eat:

After crossing the Millenium Bridge towards St Paul’s Cathedral, we easily found the required bus stop.

We’d arranged to meet our Alaskan visitors outside the British Museum, which I thought was less busy than usual: there wasn’t a long queue outside, with people waiting for their bags to be searched.

We all spent time admiring the Parthenon Marbles and reading the story. Who knows? Maybe one day, they will be returned to Greece.

It’s a big Museum and would need many more visits to see everything. Has anyone, ever, done so?

I couldn’t find the mummified worm, but we did see other mummified animals upstairs. There’s only so long one can walk slowly around such places, so a cup of tea and a slice of cake is always welcome afterwards.

Una was so tired, she fell asleep and missed out on joining the rest of us for our most enjoyable evening meal in Bromley’s Aqua Bar and Grill. Afterwards, Liesel, Leslie, Phil, Kiran and I squoze into our small car, but at least we didn’t have to shoe-horn Una into the boot. After dropping them off at the flat, the three of us returned to our hotel to see in the new year. We heard fireworks at midnight, but I for one didn’t bother getting up to look out of the window.

2025 began with us heading for Canary Wharf where we’d planned to have breakfast at Dishoom. Where? Each Dishoom is a love letter to Bombay – its food and its culture, its many varied people, its rich history and its endless eccentricities.

I do like seeing works of art out in the streets, and when I first saw this one, I wondered whether it might be a depiction of a mother and child. But no.

We passed this item as we walked from Canary Wharf Station to the restaurant, where we met up with our visitors. Our waiter was very helpful and friendly and we all enjoyed our meal. Vegan sausage and fried eggs in a naan roll for me. And about three pints of sweet, spicy chai.

Outside, the wind was picking up, and it was beginning to rain a bit. Liesel and her Mom retired to the hotel while the rest of us went over to Kings Cross to visit Harry Potter’s Platform 9¾. The queue for photos was ridiculously long. The queue for the shop wasn’t too bad, so we waited and, again, I didn’t purchase a wand because I just couldn’t decide which one to go for.

We did sample the Fizzing Whizzbees, which according to the packaging, are a delicious snack and everybody’s favourite. Lies.

We caught the tube to Baker Street where we had a quick glance at the statue of Sherlock Holmes in the rain. Then onto St Johns Wood, followed by a ten minute walk to Abbey Road. Phil, in particular, wanted to see the pedestrian crossing featured on the cover of The Beatles’ Abbey Road album.

I think the shop is new, and we spent quite a while looking at the books and records and mementoes on sale here.

And again, I was not equipped to graffiti my name on the wall outside the Abbey Road Studios.

Back at Waterloo Station, we had a coffee before heading over to Covent Garden for afternoon tea. Nobody likes going to Covent Garden tube station, because of the lifts or, alternatively, having to climb nearly 200 stairs. But, because of the rain today, we decided it was worth the effort to stay dry for an extra five minutes.

Of course, we spent some time wandering around the market before meeting up with Liesel and Leslie at the chosen venue, Ladurée, a place we’ve walked by many times in the past.

It was a very relaxed afternoon tea. In fact, for a while, we thought the staff might be a bit too relaxed. Still, we got served in the end and I was fully sated, didn’t need anything for an evening meal.

I think we all agreed it had been fun showing Phil, Una and Kiran around London for a few days, but it was now sadly time to say goodbye. They were off to Barcelona for a few days, and we hope to see them again later in the year. Thank you all for being such good sports and for massively increasing my step count for a few days! Liesel, her Mom and I were staying in London for a little longer.

As it’s the start of 2025, everyone’s talking about their New Years’ Resolutions. I don’t usually make them, I try and adjust my behaviour whenever the thought occurs, throughout the year. But today, I did take
£90 and set fire to it in the hotel car park. It was so much easier to waste money and save time this way, rather than going to a gym, registering, and never going back again afterwards.

Anyway, Happy New Year, ladies and gentlemen and everyone in between.

Southbound

The final WI Committee meeting of the year took place, and according to Liesel, it didn’t turn into a drunken orgy. But whatever happened, it didn’t make the local newspaper.

On Christmas Eve, we treated the car to a wash and brush-up. I think most of the moss and the guano was washed off and the wheel hubs look much better without that layer of rust. I sometimes wonder whether the dirt is holding the vehicle together.

Later on, the family came round for our (new tradional) Christmas Eve potato and leek soup (Liesel’s version), salad and a selection of home-baked cookies: thank you Liesel. After clearing the table, we played the Dreidel Game for Hannukah. Martha and William enjoy the game, even more so when they know that regardless of the outcome, they’ll be going away with a tub of chocolate coins.

We enjoyed another wonderful Northenden sunset, not all the colours of the rainbow, but at least one of them.

Christmas Day, the most wonderful day of the year, according to at least one song. We shared in William and Martha’s excitement when we went round for brunch. Not when they first woke up, though, soon after 3.00am!

We went for a postprandial perambulation to a nearby playground, passing through the graveyard. Martha rode her bike, William scootered because one of his bicycle tyres was flat. It was a very pleasant afternoon and we burned off about 2% of the calories consumed earlier.

Did I say brunch? It was a huge meal, so much so, that we didn’t need to eat much at home for the rest of the day, just a quick snack. The Christmas Doctor Who was good. We also watched the final ever Gavin & Stacey. We saved Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl for the next day! Hundreds of pages of listings in the Radio Times, and that’s pretty much all it came down to, for us.

On the radio, Wythenshawe FM repearted one of my Christmas shows from a couople of years ago, and on Boom Radio, we heard a 2-special celebrating Kenny Everett’s time on Radio Luxembourg and Capital Radio, on what would have been his 80th birthday. An d I am enjoying the latest, the 82nd, series of I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue on Radio 4

Sad to say we didn’t move much at all for the next couple of days. If I were into New Year’s Resolutions, mine would be to definitely go for a walk every single day. But I’m not. I resolve to do that quite frequently, throughout they year, and it never lasts long

Meanwhile, in Christchurch, New Zealand, Pauline and Andrew have signed up for this very special party in the new year.

We’d been looking forward to our end-of-year visit to London for some time. Again, we decided not to book a train, the service is so unreliable. We drove south: the traffic wasn’t too bad.

Once we hit the M6, Liesel didn’t need a lot of help with navigating, and I did my best not to fall asleep. In the back seat, Leslie was counting birds’ nests in the trees and concentrated long enough to reach 100. If she’d been counting sheep instead, she might easily have fallen asleep.

At the services, the sign told us to Drive Thru Starbucks. So we did. We drove thru Starbucks without stopping.

The biggest laugh of course came from Google Maps which warned us that there was unusually heavy traffic on M25. No, mate, that’s not unusual at all.

And of course, when you’re on the M25 and you think your car’s falling apart, it’s just the very loud and presumably very cheap concrete surface you have to drive on in some places.

Our first choice of accommodation was the Premier Inn in Tolworth. But it was fully booked. So we slummed it at Premier Inn, Chessington, next door to the World of Adventures. It was comfortable enough.

We drove into Surbiton where we met up with Helen and Steve at the old place, Allegro’s, for a pizza. After this, Liesel, Leslie and Helen caught the train into London to watch Ballet Shoes at the National Theatre. This play was enjoyed by all, although I did feel a little jealous that I’d missed out when Liesel told me Pearl Mackie was in it: she played Bill Potts in Doctor Who for a very short while.

But I was pleased to be able to enjoy a relaxing massage on this Saturday night, thank you very much. If only I could have fallen asleep straightaway afterwards, rather than having to catch a bus and walk several hundred metres along Leatherhead Road.

I was in a room by myself while Liesel shared with her Mom: this was to be the sleeping arrangement for the next few days. After a nice, but short, sleep, we got up early, packed and checked out. No time today for a delicious Premier Inn breakfast. Things to do, places to go, people to see…

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…

Big Things

We returned to the Bear Tooth for an evening meal with Liesel’s brother Aaron and his family. On this occasion, I chose a pizza but it was too big for my dainty stomach and I couldn’t finish it. By various logistical manoeuvres, we eventually returned to Cath and Hans’s place for one final night. Alas, not a full night’s sleep for Liesel: she got up at 4am in order to drive back across the big city and take Buzz to the airport for her return trip home to Albuquerque. During the night, the temperature had dropped to -15°C so I was quite happy to stay under the covers for a few more hours.

Meanwhile, newlyweds Helen and Brent were slurping their way through the newly released film Wicked. Liesel, her Mom and I saw the stage version in London, with the original Broadway cast, a mere 19 years ago. Feeling old.

After the airport run, Liesel and her Mom collected me and we enjoyed a big breakfast at Southside Grill. Liesel’s choice was reindeer and cheese skillet with eggs. I meant to go and check up on our near neighbour, Star, later on, but I forgot. We did learn something new about American cuisine, though. Eggs ‘over easy’ means you get runny egg white. If you want solid whites with slightly runny yolk, you ask for ‘over medium’. My meal kept me going for the rest of the day: no need for lunch nor dinner.

After watching our first TV rubbish in a week, Liesel went to work in the office, taking Mom with her. And while I didn’t go and visit Star, I did go for a long walk to visit some more wildlife, even though I really, really, really craved a nap. It was -9° with no wind. Footwear is so much better nowadays: even though it was cold out, my feet didn’t turn into blocks of ice like they used to when I was a child. My exposed face was the most uncomfortably chilly.

I had crampons on my shoes too, and the noise they made as I walked on ice was very strange. Crunch, crunch, crunch as usual, but in places, a squeak or a slight echo gave the impression that the ice was hollow underneath. At the right pace, there was occasionally an almost continuous roar coming from my footsteps. Great sound effects. Where the pavement was ice-free, my crampons sounded like I was wearing several pairs of high-heels.

My destination was a dead, beached whale that had made the news a few days ago. I know, sad that it had died, but still an interesting thing to see as a visitor: we don’t get much washed up sealife in the Mersey.

I walked by Jupiter, the biggest planet, another stop on the citywide Planet Walk, and I smiled at the uncharacteristic snow-covered Jovian north pole.

I didn’t know how close I’d get to the object of interest, so I started taking photos as soon as I saw the crowd on the frozen mud flats.

Mud flats and, way over there, whale watchers

I was in two minds about whether to walk on the mud flats. I wouldn’t in Summer, too risky with quicksands and, I suppose, quickmuds.

But, ‘do something scary every day’, as a friend once said. I figured that if I were to fall through the ice, someone from the fairly large crowd would come to my rescue once they’d stopped laughing.

It was icy, and bumpy, and I felt better prepared for the adventure than many others whose shoes and boots appeared to have no grip at all.

As I approached the whale, its odour became more obvious. Being this cold, the body wasn’t decomposing very fast. I’m sure it will smell stronger before the next really high tide takes the corpse away.

The deceased juvenile fin whale is 47 feet in length. Fin whales are the second largest cetacean after the blue whale. Their name comes from the relatively small dorsal fin.

A lady with zero grip on her sheepskin boots asked me to help her across the ice. In the end, I helped Valerie walk all the way back to her car.

The biologists have taken some large samples away to determine the cause of death. There are no signs of a collision with a boat, so it’s probably natural.

Much of the baleen seems to have disappeared: I suspect people other than native Alaskans have, illegally, taken it as a souvenir.

You can tell by how dark my glasses are that the Sun was very bright, and very low down, so it was hard to avoid looking towards it.

After dropping Valerie off at her vehicle, I quickly debated with myself whether or not to walk across the ice-covered lagoon. I decided not to on the grounds that I’ve already done something scary today, but also, at the edge of the lagoon, there was water, actual liquid water, running out from underneath the ice, and I thought that maybe it’s not as solid as it looks, even if there are plenty of other people out there skating and even practicing their ice hockey skills.

I did like the machine out on the ice, a caterpillar tracked snow plough and I thought, I should get something like that to better negotiate the potholes of Northenden and Gatley.

Over in the old country, we’re sorry to have missed William’s 7th birthday, but we did have a quick video chat with him as we were just going to bed and he’d just got up for school.

Happy birthday William. And what did we do to celebrate the occasion? Well, we binge-watched a TV series Dark Winds, which takes place in the Navajo nation. I think we can all recommend it, although I’m not likely to read the 27 books on which the series is based. The only exercise today was a quick walk over the road to do some shopping.

Liesel’s doing a lot of work right now in the office: I wish I could help in some way, but my legal experience is limited to watching one session of a Superior Court case recently..

After another breakfast out, this time at Jackie’s Place, where, by the way, I only got two eggs ‘over medium’, remember, instead of the three I’d had at Southside, Liesel took me next door to Play It Again Sports. I don’t know who Bob is but I had a feeling that he deserved a damn good whacking, as the song says.

But, apparently we’re not allowed to thump him. What a great sports shop though. If only I were interested in skiing, skating, playing ice hockey, football, soccer, working out, weight-lifting or lacrosse. I could have bought specialised gloves for many different sports, even for different positions in some sports. And then there are so many different socks available. I might have had a go at the unicycle I spied in the corner but (a) it was chained to the fire extinguisher and (b) I still can’t ride a unicycle.

Another day, another dollar. While Liesel was in the office, Jyoti took me on a tour of Anchorage. Well, kinda. First stop was Chugach Mountain Roasters, the coffee shop where Suvan, Jyoti’s son, works. The coffee was so nice, I had a second cup, thanks very much, Suvan.

Next, we visited Natural Pantry for some natural food items. What a strange place. At home, we buy aloe vera gel in nice plastic bottles. Here, it’s all natural. And what big leaves they are.

I was very happy to see this sign though, an employer actually looking after their staff. So Jyoti and I returned all our cannabis and hemp based products to the relevant shelves.

We paid a quick visit to SK, Jyoti’s boyfriend’s daughter, on the occasion of her birthday, after which, I was dropped off at the office.

In the evening, Liesel, Leslie and I went round to Monica’s house for a lovely meal. A huge pork joint was the main attraction, while my falafels were a close second. Jyoti, Una and Phil joined us too and it was good to see Gregg again and especially Neha, back home from Washington DC where she is studying.

For whatver reason, we’d decided previously that we wouldn’t make a trip to Talkeetna on this occasion. For which I am very grateful. This is how cold it was there.

So, as you might have anticipated, I ended this post with another whinge about the climate here.