Northenden – Page 20 – Mick and Liesel's Antics

Christmas Presence

And that was it. All that anticipation and suddenly, Christmas is over. Just a few days of sitting around, eating, drinking, visiting, socialising, perambulating, being entertained and generally over-indulging. We’re now feeling bloated, we need some exercise, we’re making resolutions for the new year most of which will be forgotten or broken fairly quickly. I try not to make resolutions at this time of year for that very reason. I resolve to do better at any time of the year, even if it’s only for a brief period. Such as the time I chose to give up chocolate for the whole of February. Next time I give up my favourite confection for a while, it won’t be during the month that includes Valentine’s day and a wedding anniversary or two. Which, in a way, is itself a resolution.

Christmas Day, we visited the grandchildren of course, bearing gifts and food. Liesel was very busy in the kitchen, baking cinnamon rolls and scones, building a Christmas tree from fruit, making American-style fudge.

And of course, Jenny made us ‘eggs’, a frittata-like dish from a recipe(*) passed down from Liesel’s grandmother.

The other grandparents, Nana and Papa, Una and Alan, were here too.

Elsa might look a bit uncomfortable here in her new bed. But don’t worry. Liesel had made her a nice soft mattress, a duvet and a pillow which Elsa and Martha were both very pleased with.

William with his new Chef’s hat, made with love by Oma

It’s fun watching the children ripping the wrapping and then ignoring the contents in favour of something older and more familiar. Martha was very keen to help William open his parcels, but he was happy to ignore her pleas and proceed at his own pace. Martha pulled most of the crackers, with different people at the other end, and was suitably excited about winning the toys and she laughed at all of the jokes!

Meanwhile, Helen and Adam spent Christmas with Pauline and Andrew in Christchurch, prior to their adventure touring the beautiful South Island of New Zealand.

We gathered again at Jenny’s on Boxing Day’s Boxing Day. Again, we were joined by Nana and Papa and this time, Liam’s sister Andrea, her husband Paul and their daughters Annabel and Emily joined us too. Certainly a full, and at times noisy, house! Great fun, though.

Playmobil is much more detailed than I remember it being when Jenny and Helen were little. It’s a good way to keep parents occupied for several hours, putting the hundreds, if not thousands, of components together to make a zoo or a farmyard, or both.

I know it breaks all laws of nature, but this Christmas cake was very nice.

This cake was the prize in a competition to guess how many used 4-pint plastic milk cartons were used to build an igloo. I saw the picture, guessed 212, but the real answer was 490, I think. Jenny’s guess was the closest at 485.

Speaking of igloos, the best programme I saw on TV over the Christmas period was The Last Igloo, slow TV at its best, good music and a fascinating insight into the life of one man in east Greenland. Catch it while you can!

After a few days of slouching, not moving much, it was time to engage in some gentle exercise, walking around the streets of Northenden, spying on the natives. One man’s ringtone was the theme from the old TV series, The Prisoner. I watched the joggers not really enjoying their run along the river. There was a business conference taking place in Costa, apparently: a queue out of the door, and all the well-dressed ladies and gentlemen wearing illegible name badges. It’s nice of people to give their old stuff to charity shops, but such a shame to see so much dumped outside, in the elements, when the shop’s not going to be open for a few more days. Ooh, I think I’ll go fly-tipping but it’s OK, look, I’m giving it to chariddy.

Quite possibly the most ornate gate in the village

Animal, vegetable or mineral? Grass, bamboo, stalks, very pretty colour whatever this lifeform is

National Cycle Ntework route 62 looks challenging

And a few minutes later, it’s goodnight from the Moon and Venus

My soundtrack while writing today has been Johnnie Walker’s Sounds of the ’70s, on BBC Radio 2. If you fancy a music quiz courtesy of his guest, David Hepworth, follow this link.

One of my favourite Christmas songs is Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas is You. I’m not usually a fan of her singing style: why sing one note when 120 will do, all hovering around the target note? Warbling, I call it. And so does a character in the book I’m reading right now, Thirst, by Kerry Hudson.

(*) Liesel’s grandmother’s eggs recipe:

Serves 10-12

10 eggs
½ cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 pint cottage cheese
1 lb jack cheese
½ cube butter, melted
2 cans ortega chilies, 4 oz each

Beat the eggs, stir in the rest of the ingredients.
Pour into well-buttered 9/12 inch glass dish.
Bake at 350°F for 35 minutes or until brown.

The following paragraphs are not suitable for persons of a nervous disposition.

I’m not one to complain as you know (!) but lately, everything’s been giving up in despair. It’s a conspiracy. Everything went wrong when we put our last house up for sale. The inanimate sitting tenants revolted. I have no idea what we’ve done to upset our present cohabitants.

We bought a new set-top Freeview box because the old one was no good at connecting to the internet and it was always displaying subtitles before the characters spoke their words, more than a little disconcerting, a perpetual spoiler alert.

The dishwasher was repaired after the door-lowering mechanism snapped allowing the door to crash to the ground. These things happen in threes, right? No. More than three.

The keyboard with which I travelled and blogged for 10 months forgot how to transmit a bluetooth signal. It no longer connects to my phone, so I’m temporarily writing this stuff on the old PC. Logitech offered to send a replacement, but only to my US address, since that’s where I bought the keyboard in the first place.

Now, a few days later, my Fitbit Zip appears to have caught the same malady. It no longer syncs on my PC. Nor with Liesel’s phone, which I used for a while when the Fitbit lost contact with the app on my own phone. Nightmare. All those thousands of steps being walked and no way to prove it afterwards.

The latest appliance to cause major disgruntlement in Mick and Liesel’s luxury apartment is the kettle. Press a button and the lid opens so you can fill from the tap. Nope, not any more. You need three hands: one to hold the kettle, one to manually lift the lid and another to turn the tap on.

Good night, everyone, sleep well, don’t have nightmares.

Solstice

We were waiting in for the dishwasher repairman and for a phone call, so inevitably, both occurred within a few minutes of each other. A few days ago, Liesel asked what was that big crash? I’d heard no crash. We later discovered it was the dishwasher door opening violently, rather than gently as it’s meant to. After making and receiving nine phone calls, speaking to at least five different operatives at three separate but related companies, I made an appointment. A text message confirmed the appointment for one day. Later, an email confirmed an appointment for a different day. British customer service at its best.

Anyway, the bloke turned up, we think his nickname was Grumpy, but he fixed the door and disappeared.

Meanwhile, I received my phone call about which, more later. In between times, it was an administrative, busy kind of day: bins (taking out), blog (writing), bread (baking and eating), bills (paying), books (reading) and breastplate (polishing).

dan and lou treehouse — The Treehouse with Dan and Peps

Before I got out of bed the following morning, I listened to the latest Treehouse Podcast, presented by Danny Baker and Lou Pepper. The story I’d related on the phone yesterday didn’t end up on the cutting room floor, after all, but I still don’t really enjoy hearing my own voice on this sort of thing. It’s a very entertaining podcast, and we would recommend subscribing!

It’s a busy time of year, of course, the lead-up to Christmas, but that didn’t prevent Jenny and Liam from going out to a wedding party. Liesel and I looked after William and Martha, watching some TV, reading some stories and finally, taking them to bed. We kept the volume low while watching Casino Royale and listening out for noise from upstairs. But they were good as gold and, next morning, Martha asked for Oma rather than Mummy, which is nice, but of course, we wern’t there!

Liesel’s so clever. She has been putting the new sewing machine to good use, making bags for Christmas presents, so we don’t need single-use wrapping paper, and she’s made some fun items for William and Martha for Christmas. Shh, don’t tell them.

In the afternoon, we walked to the West Didsbury Makers Market, and what a pleasant walk it was, too. We stayed away from busy roads as much as possible, and walked by the river instead. It was the day of the Winter Solstice, so the Sun was low and weak but it didn’t feel cold outside.

It was a bit disconcerting when, for a moment, we thought we’d teleported to Kent. Is the M20 a Kentish motorway or a motorway of Kent?

But no, not really, we found the market easily. This is the market where Liesel bought an armchair last time. On this occasion, we confined our purchases to cheese, a Christmas cactus, coffee and samosas.

We saw more people by the river on the way back, some with dogs, some with out-of-control dogs that jumped in the water. I muttered at the mutts, don’t you dare shake over me! But here’s a nice picture of us by the Mersey.

We passed by the old Tatton Arms pub, in Northenden, which is still boarded up closing down in 2008. It’s a great location, right by the river, and probably was a nice looking building, but what a shame it’s not open for business.

We thought be might see a pretty sunset over the river, but that was not to be. Instead, the last glimpse of the Sun was behind some not very photogenic houses. But, after the Solstice, we can look forward to the days now getting longer again.

The biggest splashes of colour were to be found, of course, in John Lewis. We only went for some ribbon, for one of Liesel’s projects, but somehow we had breakfast there too.

Lots of colour in this corner of John Lewis

Jenny had taken the children out for some last-minute shopping too and we offered to look after them for a couple of hours if she needed some time to hereself. She did. While waiting for them to return, I went for a quick walk around Jenny’s neighbourhood and was delighted to see how seasonal the place was. Holly and ivy both trying to hide, but I found them.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

We took Martha and William home where they played well, ate well and even bathed well. Most water stayed in the bath, always a bonus.

Martha watering William to help him grow

While they were here, our doorbell rang. We weren’t expecting anyone, but guess what? A second engineer had come to fix our dishwasher. We had to let him in to take a picture of the offending item, to prove that he’d been, but what a waste of his time. It was only three days since the other bloke fixed it and, so far, the repair’s still holding up. I wonder if I’ll be invited to take part in a customer satisfaction survey on this occasion?

Before taking them home, we showed the children the marquee over the road, with its snowmen and railway and snowglobes and reindeer. They both quickly fell asleep in the car on the way back home!

And here we are on Christmas Eve. Liesel’s been in the kitchen, baking, while I’ve been staying out of her way. I went to the shop to buy some last-minute ingredients, and unexpectedly, there were more staff members than shoppers. I opened the microphone on my device here, so, as you read this, you should be able to detect the gorgeous aroma of cinnamon.

My soundtrack has been some delightful choral Christmas music which is on BBC Sounds for another 6 days only, but it’s very relaxing and Christmassy.
Liesel and I wish all our readers a very Merry Christmas, lots of love and best wishes. And a million thanks for coming by and sharing our antics!

Looking for Colour

The good news is, the Winter Solstice is fast approaching. We’ll enjoy the shortest day of the year. The bad news is… no, there is no bad news, really. We had a few days of not doing much apart from walking around the streets of Northenden and slightly beyond. We were grasping at any available splash of colour to alleviate the grey, gloom, cold and drizzle.

It’s good to see that the local eating emporia take great care to keep their pests under control. I’ve anonymised the premises, but I don’t think we’ll be dining there any time soon.

Pest in Peace, parked on the pavement, compulsory around here

While looking after William, a ladder appeared in the garden. The window cleaners were here much to William’s delight, especially when they used lots of soapy water on the glass. We read some books, watched a lot of TV, including half of Peter Pan. There are three remote controls on offer and he knows which one gives access to DVDs, and which to recorded TV programmes. We did puzzles, built towers and knocked them down again. He wasn’t so keen on my singing, unbelievably, but he did eat a good lunch.

At Nursery, Martha made cookies, one for herself and one for William. After dinner, the cookies were consumed. Martha didn’t like hers, because it was too spicy. And yes, the ginger flavour was quite overpowering.

Driving home afterwards, we discussed the beauty of all the Christmas decorations outside people’s houses. Some go a bit overboard, but one thing we realised was missing: a drunk snowman. I doubt we’ll have a White Christmas this year, it’ll probably just be cold and grey, but I hope we do have a chance to build a snowman with William and Martha at some point.

We went for a quick late-night walk and guess what we found?

What shall we do with a drunken snowman?

A whole tent has been erected outside this house, within which is a sort of nativity scene, but with lots of modern additions, such as illuminated snowglobes and inflatable characters not necessarily present in Bethlehem that year.

I visited the local dentist but more painful was the haircut. I left with some, but won’t have to visit him again for a very long time.

It wouldn’t be a proper old-style barbershop without a yarn being spun.

The first time I lost my virginity, I was in my brother’s bed, then, after doing the deed, she, the girl, like, made a brew and made me watch Mrs Doubtfire.

His colleague laughed when he failed to recognise the Queen Christmas song, ‘Thank God it’s Christmas’, blasting from the radio, when he is, apparently, a big fan of Queen and knows all the Christmas songs!

Silver clippings on the floor a mere reflection of the frost on the pavement outside, a shorn head takes its time to reacclimatise to Winter.

Flytipping is a popular pastime around here too. Nothing spoils a walk by the river quite like a discarded case of old clothes. Yes, it’s colourful, but what an eyesore.

Wet and Windy Walks

Thursday is bin day so Wednesday is the day for putting out the rubbish and a limited amount of recycling: much less than we recycled in London.

Other uninteresting occupations include finding more items to sell on eBay. I did go for a nice walk in the ‘hood, via the Post Office.

No Grandchildren Day this week while they’re all sunning themselves at Center Parcs. It was a cold day, brrr, chilly. As a Brit, I am programmed to whinge about the weather, whatever it is. But the wind today was biting. Teeth as sharp as ice picks in and through my ears. I was sheltered from the worst of it in the woods, though. The rumble from the nearby M60 threatened to spoil the mood, but overall, what a pleasant stroll.

A fence with screws, Turner Prize winner

At least I know that, if I were to return to Kenworthy Woods on a scorching hot Summer’s day, there’s a fence where I can hang up my coat.

I had the place to myself, no people, no wildlife. Despite the recent rain, lots of it, the path wasn’t too soggy: the carpet of fallen leaves stopped mud from being splashed up my legs.

I walked round in a large (-ish) circle, back into the wind, trying not to laugh at the man fighing a losing battle with his leaf-blower. You need to reverse the polarity and suck ’em up instead, I didn’t say out loud.

To give the old lug-holes a break from the ice-picks, I wandered into The Northern Den. I really liked the look of their specials today, so that’s exactly what I had.

Yep: I had absolutely nothing! Apart from the obligatory coffee.

Liesel joined me on the next trek, the next saunter: all the way to the local library, where the local Police Officers and Support Officers were offering local advice on local home security. One of them has been patrolling here for eleven years and reassured us that it is a safe area. We found the local bowling green too, but, quite rightly, it’s been roped off presumably for Winter, so we were unable to play on this occasion.

Helen and Steve arrived from the deep south to spend a week and a bit with us. We met them in Manchester, late because our bus took its time getting there, plus, they arrived earlier than anticipated. Oops! We took a bus home and later on, drove into Disbury for a meal.

Helen and Steve had their own plans but Liesel and I spent our usual Saturday morning in Didsbury. We had a lovely walk in Fletcher Moss Park, something we’ve been meaning to do since we moved here. Well, it’s probably a nice park when it’s not flooded.

This wasn’t a good day to start a regular ParkRun here, so we didn’t bother. Very sad to see this sign, though, having been reassured just 24 hours earlier that we live in a good area.

Our guests came with us to watch Martha and William swimming this week: a perfect opportunity for Steve to nod off on the sofa in the cafeteria area! Both children liked having a slightly larger audience, I think.

Lyme Park had to close for a short while during the Summer, due to flooding. They also suffered from a small moorland fire earlier in the year. Nevertheless, despite the potential dangers, we paid a visit on this drizzly and chilly afternoon. We saw a couple of reindeer, but they weren’t moving about much.

We didn’t walk far, either, mainly due to the weather, but despite that, very many people were visiting today, it was very busy.

Liesel said earlier in the day that she would love to see a tree with its trousers pulled down around its knees, so we were delighted to find this one.

Steve and I walked up the hill to see the house, while Liesel and Helen stayed dry under a canopy.

Steve is a bit of a public transport enthusiast so his day was made when he saw the double-decker shuttle bus coming over the hill. Like a gazelle, he leapt across a patch of grass in order to take some photos. The bus’s headlights, reflecting from the wet road, welcomed him.

I know what you’re thinking: a whole blog post without a single picture of William and Martha? That’s an absolute outrage! It shouldn’t be allowed! Well, you didn’t have to read it, you can skip this whole paragraph and go straight to a fabulous picture of the whole family that I downloaded from Center Parcs’ CCTV security system.

Actually, thanks for the photo, Jenny! But what about a selfie? We’ll save you from that: you can have too much of a good thing, you know!

Kerry, Naomi, Guy and Simon

This week’s good news is that Liesel has come home, hooray! The bad news is that I had to get up early in order to collect her from the airport. It was no hardship, really, and what a relief to fit the three large cases, weighing 150 pounds, into the car.

And what a wonderful, wet Manchester welcome for the traveller. It rained.

We went over to see Jenny, Martha and William in the afternoon. Martha is now spelling her name, phonetically, and Liesel was impressed at how William’s vocabulary has expanded during the six weeks she’s been away.

Jenny and Liam, with Martha’s and William’s help, will be making chocolate chip cookies for a long time: Liesel brought them back a lot of chocolate chips! Not 150 lbs, but the kitchen cupboard is groaning under the weight.

Pile of choc chips (with Martha for scale)

Walking around the dirty streets of Northenden is usually uneventful but one day this week, I should have been wearing a helmet cam. A sparrow hawk flew by me, throwing a pigeon into the window of Costa. The hawk performed an Immelmann manoeuvre, flew by my head again with its surprised yellow eyes lighting the way. Meanwhile, a bloke sitting outside the café, bent down, retrieved what I now saw was a half-a-pigeon and deposited the half-a-corpse into the bin. Very nonchalant, as if this were an everyday occurrence.

Later on, a helicopter flew overhead, and two fire engines blues-and-twos-ed by. A bit OTT, I thought, just for a dead pigeon.

Despite many requests, I haven’t persuaded Liesel to come for a walk with me, yet: I think the jetlag and general tiredness hasn’t quite worn off. Plus, she’s happier doing some yoga indoors, in the dry.

Liesel’s laptop goes to sleep very quickly, after just a couple of minutes of idleness. We thought maybe it’s overheating, so, wearing my electronics hat, I dismantled the computer in order to clean the fan. In the end, the fan wasn’t as mucky as we’d expected, no reason for it to stick.

Only later, after going through all possibilities, did I find a second place where there’s an option to go to sleep after 5 minutes. After changing that, it now keeps going until you choose to turn it off. This is Windows 10 and we think this setting must have been introduced or changed during a recent upgrade: neither of us would have picked such a short idle period. But, the best news of all is that after putting the laptop back together, there were no bits left over.

Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-cream Float Before He Stole My Ma is the somewhat lengthy title of Kerry Hudson’s first book which I can throughly recommend. As Naomi Frisby says, it has the best first line of a novel, ever, notwithstanding Charles Dickens’s “It was the best of times…”

And this evening, we enjoyed watching Naomi interviewing and chatting with Kerry, about the latter’s latest book, Lowborn. This Manchester Literature Festival event was, again, at the Central Library, so we took a bus into town.

It was a fascinating discussion, and quite moving.

Grandchildren Day arrived and for the first time in a while, we both looked after William all day. The conversation can be quite intellectual at times.

L: Is there a monkey in the bed?

M: There’s a fox and a penguin.

We are referring to William’s sleeping companions, in case you didn’t realise.

Later on, I heard myself say ‘Oh no, Rapunzel fell on the floor.’ The doll rolled off the sofa when I was making myself comfortable.

We took William for a walk to Waitrose. It wasn’t cold out but the best of Summer really has deserted us, now. He was happy with his babyccino but the barista was very generous with the chocolate sprinkles. The green frog biscuit looked attractive but the main ingredient seemed to be granite, his little teeth barely managed to nibble off some small chunks. He much preferred Grandad’s and Oma’s biscuits, shortbread.

Later, in the park, he watched in awe as the squirrels ran up the trees, but he didn’t attempt to follow on this occasion.

After waking from his nap, he helped Oma make a cake. And after collecting Martha from nursery, she helped decorate the cake.

Oma enjoyed blowing out the three candles, very far short of her actual age, and the cake was delicious.

We’re getting back into our old routine, and this usually means a jaunt into Didsbury on a Saturday morning. So that’s what we did. And who knew people in Didsbury were so political?

Not only is there a banner outside potential residential accommodation, but we were accosted by a lady inviting us to join the anti-brexit march in London next weekend. We were pleased to tell her that we’d already planned to be there.

Following my success earlier in the week with Liesel’s laptop, I donned the techy hat again and dismantled my Kindle. It used to keep charge for at least a couple of weeks, but this period has slowly been getting shorter. This week, I was charging it every day. I installed a new battery and I’m delighted to say, so far, touch wood, it’s still working ok. Never have I seen so many small screws in one device: 14 of them, each no more than a millimetre in length. Again, no bits left over afterwards!

The River Mersey was flowing fast again and one of the local golf courses was slightly waterlogged.

There were a couple of signs warning of floods, and sure enough, part of the road was wet and muddy, but not flooded enough, today, to justify turning back.

Liesel and I went to see both children swimming. The highlight was, near the end of her lesson, when Liam threw Martha at Kirsty, the teacher, and she threw her back.

The part of the sparrow hawk is played by Liam, the part of the half-a-pigeon is played by Martha, the part of Costa’s window is played by the surface of the water

I walked part of the way home and despite my expectations, it stayed dry!

The afternoon was spent at home, listening to the radio: something old and something new. Amy Lamé played the whole of The Clash’s London Calling album, warts, naughty words and all.

In the evening, our next Manchester Literature Festival event was Guy Garvey with poet laureate Simon Armitage in conversation with Katie Popperwell. Delighted to say that Jenny came with us.

The lead singer from Elbow and the Poet Laureate are friends in real life, and the evening’s discussion was full of laughter, wisdom, modesty, camaraderie, warmth, truth, generosity and so much love, as someone tweeted.

Yes, I bought the new book.

Manchester Museum

I rode my bike for the first time in over a year and I didn’t fall off. Total distance covered: less than one mile, but it’s a start. Later in the week, longer rides were precluded by the monsoon season. A month’s worth of rain in less than a day. Thank goodness we’re on the top floor in our luxury block.

Martha and William are the highlights of the week of course. We might have a small moan when we drag ourselves out of bed early on a Sunday morning, but watching them both in the swimming pool, enjoying it and learning, is very gratifying.

We all, six of us, had brunch at The Laundrette in Chorlton. That’s a restaurant, not the place where you wash clothes, that wouldn’t be very nice, dropping crumbs on other people’s washing. Liesel and I again realised, we’d never drive as far just to eat out when we lived in Chessington.

Liam’s Dad, Alan, very kindly planed the bottom of the door leading from the hall into our living room. Just one of the unintended side-effects of having a new, thicker carpet installed last week. As part of the decluttering project in Chessington, I’d passed on my plane knowing that I wouldn’t be doing any more serious woodwork. But if I still had it, I’d be planing the door, several days later, very tentatively shaving a half a millimetre off at a time. Thank goodness for experts.

One sunny day, I took advantage and went for a long walk.

I saw and followed the sign towards St Hilda’s church. Somehow I missed it from which I can only deduce that Hilda is the patron saint of invisible churches. Or maybe I just wasn’t concentrating.

My route followed the river for a long way and I was beginning to think how relaxing it might be, out in a boat. Until, that is, I came across some very half-hearted rapids.

I kept a list of all the wildlife I encountered, ducks, rats, otters, beavers, deer, moorhens, coots, foxes, bears… and the grand total was a big fat zero. A few insectsbuzzed about, busy doing what they do and that’s it: slightly disappointing.

After so much rain recently, it looks as though this tree could no longer hang on by its root tips. It slid down the slope to a sad end in the river.

People who know me probably also know that the twelve-year old hiding within this old body often writes a certain three-letter word in the sand on beaches. Well, I am not alone, as this tag on a pillar supporting the M60, Manchester Outer Ring Road shows.

Grandchildren Day saw Oma playing with Playdough, Play-d’oh!, however it’s spelt, but she did let Martha join in a bit too.

After a nap (William and me), we took a bus into Manchester where we met Jenny for lunch. This was a bit of an experiment, really, to see how the children would cope with seeing their Mum halfway through a working day. Martha wanted to go back to work with Jenny, but other than that, we had a good time. Well, nobody was too traiumatised.

Liesel and I took the children to Manchester Museum, just down the road. Martha wanted to see the dinosaurs while William was more interested in the froggies. Taking pictures through glass in a darkened vivarium trying to avoid reflections of the few spotlights was a challenge. And we weren’t allowed to remove the frogs for photographic purposes either.

It’s fascinating to see what interests them both and I’m not sure Martha believed me when I told her she had bones inside her just like those on display, just much, much smaller.

Both grandchildren fell asleep on the way back to Jenny’s and after watching the first half of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, we went to play in the garden.

It was her Dad who threw Martha into the sky, not me, I’m not sure I could do that with someone else’s child.

And now, after a long, long break in the proceedings, it was time to finish off the VHS video digitisation project. I’d copied most of the videos onto the PC some years ago but had to make use of a professional service to copy some of the more fragile ones.

Booting up in Windows XP was a delight. Bish, bash, bosh, here’s the screen, you can do something straightaway. Not like Windows 7 or 10 where the disk thrashes about doing who knows what for a long, long time. Ooh, a bit of a rant crept in, there.

The quality of the footage is still very disappointing of course: I was reminded why I’d shelved the project for so long. Playing a newly created DVD on a proper DVD player revealed even more defects. But if I can get some stills from the videos, that will still be of value.

Another morning in Didsbury culminated in a very late breakfast at Greens. We took on enough energy to be able to install more shelves in the flat. We unpacked several boxes of CDs. A ridiculous number of CDs. I reckon if you have CDs that you can’t remember playing at all, or even buying, you’ve almost certainly got too many!

After a month’s rainfall yesterday, we had a gorgeous sunny day today. If it turns out to have been a month’s worth of sunshine as well, well, I think we’ll all be extremely miffed and very disappointed.

A Pair of Drawers

It’s only a few weeks since my last check-up at the optician’s, but maybe it’s time for a revisit. I saw the sign ‘Wythenshawe Park and Ride’. Is Wythenshawe really that popular? Is it a major retail centre? No, of course not. On closer inspection, the sign said ‘Wythenshawe Park and Hall’. That was handy because my destination on this afternoon’s walk was indeed Wythenshawe Park.

It’s a very popular park, lots of young families, people with dogs, folk sitting on most of the benches and the odd, very odd, individual such as moi wandering through.

Wythenshaw Hall was damaged in an arson attack in 2016 so it’s out of bounds while being restored.

This 16th-century manor house will be an interesting place to visit when we’re allowed back in: a nice, easy walk from home. And if there’s a decent café there, even better!

Something took a big bite out of this tree

It is worth reporting hateful, horrible, racist people on Twitter because once in a blue moon, they do something about it.

Twitter does the right thing, for a change

I felt quite smug about this success, ridiculously so. For a minute or two, anyway.

Grandchildren Day saw us returning to Chester Zoo. We call it it Grandchildren Day. They call it Grandad and Oma day. That’s what they call us, Grandad and Oma. I’m sure they’ll come up with worse names for us as they get older.

It was a beautiful day so, even though we arrived just after opening time, the car park was full. Despite noting that we were in the Crocodile Zone and taking a picture of the nearby tree as a landmark, I spent far too long later on trying to find the car.

Big but easily missed tree by the car park

Poor Martha needed to be carried the last few metres, aeroplane style, arms flapping (hers, not mine). Needless to say, Liesel and William had found the car straightaway after leaving the zoo, while Martha and I fought our way through the shop.

Martha and William are always happy to see the elephants, rhinos and lions, but this time, there was equal delight watching the native squirrel leaping from tree to tree.

Later on, at home, under the climbing frame, Martha collected nut shells that must have been dropped by a local squirrel. Probably not the same one.

We spent some time in the adventure playground with lots of other small humans.

If you’re wondering: yes, Martha is now wearing spectacles and she loves carrying the case around.

Meanwhile, William watched a slightly older boy rolling down a slope. He tried to copy but didn’t quite get the idea that you can’t roll sideways when gravity is trying to pull you downwards.

On the other hand, he had to swing on every reachable horizontal bar he could find. This is why he has very long arms.

As if the day with William and Martha wasn’t exciting and exhausting enough: back home in the evening, we had to move as much furniture out of our living/dining room as possible.

Our first new northern carpet arrived and was installed early the following morning. It’s much deeper and softer than the old, probably original one, and the best thing is, we no longer have to look at the previous occupants’ furniture’s indentations. We’ll make our own marks!

I bit the bullet, overrode my reluctance, dismissed my innate sense of incompetence, concealed my fear of the whole scary enterprise and began to install the new furniture. The so-called String System attaches to the wall. Yes, I had to drill holes in the wall and all I could think of is that the whole edifice would come tumbling down, one day. There are shelves, cupboards and a drawer unit, consisting of two drawers: yes, a pair of drawers. A phrase that always makes me snigger.

At last, 13½ months after moving in, we can unpack the last few dozen boxes of books, CDs, DVDs and all sorts of stuff. Stuff that we’ve lived without for a year but which suddenly, we can’t bear to be parted from! Too much stuff. Liesel was the chief (only) shelf filler, and I think she’s done a very good job. But yes, after a couple of years of decluttering in Chessington, we still have far too much stuff, so it’s not as minimalist as we’d hoped.

I enjoyed putting together the two cupboard units and the pair of drawers, chortle, despite the fact that one of the supplied screws could not be screwed in due to a defective head (the screw’s, not mine).

With the new storage in place, we are able to dispose of some older items. eBay is the obvious place although it’s just not as successful as it used to be. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. No, not Christmas, home. Not like, feel! It’s beginning to feel a bit like home!

Going Places

We moved to Northenden thirteen months ago but have only lived here for three. Our gap year adventures are still at the forefront of our mindss but we are now, slowly, building up some sort of routine.

Despite our best efforts in Chessington, we managed to move house with things that we now realise we don’t need. In the process of unpacking, we are finding items surplus to requirements. So, we are making use of Facebook’s local marketplace, eBay and eventually, charity shops, Freegle and any other likely looking outlets.

Any excuse to leave the confines of our flat is more then welcome. We were invited to look after William one morning so we took him for a walk. We visited Oak Meadow, a small park in Cheadle Hulme.

William kept to the path, which was unexpected, he usually darts off in all directions. But he was our little David Attenborough for a few minutes pointing out ‘dog’, ‘squirrel’, ‘birdie’ and ‘pigeon’.

He fell asleep in the buggy so Liesel and I had our coffee in peace.

We’ll never use the padded cooler/picnic bag again, so that was added to the list of things to pass on to a more appreciative home. Jenny was interested so I took it into Manchester where we met up for coffee. I had another reason for being in the big city though. Last week, Sean from the Blood Transfusion Service called asking if I would like to make an appointment. If you’ll still have my blood, I said, after I’ve been overseas, visiting many exotic locations in the tropics and beyond. A long conversation later, I made an appointment, and here I was, about to give blood again, for the first time in over a year.

Give blood – you never know when you might need it back

I met a Rebecca, a Becky and a Rob, scar tissue from previous blood-lettings was admired. Some of my plasma will be used to make drops for people with dry eyes. Who thinks up these things?

A cup of Yorkshire tea, a Mint Club biscuit and a packet of Mini Cheddars gave me enough energy to walk down the road to the Whitworth Gallery. I had a quick walk round, but Liesel and I need to spend more time here.

Thursday is grandchildren day and this week, we took Martha and William to the Ice Cream Farm, near Chester.

William should get time off for good behaviour

Martha and William had a lot of fun in the sand and water play area, limited to one hour because there were so many other children around.

Martha and the Archimedes Screw (not the detective novel of the same name)

Yes, it’s the Ice Cream Farm but in the end, we didn’t have any ice cream. I remember ICQ being some sort of messaging service in the olden days, but now when we’re talking about the IC queue, we are referring to the hundreds of people waiting in line to buy an ice cream. We left the park just in time, missing the rain by just a few minutes!

Martha wanted to play in the bath at our place, so we took them there. They insisted on having water in the bath, too, quite reasonable, we thought.

After a longer wait than anticipated, we collected our re-framed pictures from The Framery in Gatley. While Liesel drove them home slowly, I walked back. I followed the signs to and through Gatley Carrs, a nature reserve.

One squirrel and one magpie isn’t much of a tally, and the only other humans I saw were a Mum with two children having a picnic. It was a pleasant walk marred only by the rumble from the nearby motorway. The path was muddy and impassable in places.

I was pleased to see a notice board listing all the water birds that must have been hiding quietly in the bushes. Maybe I’ll see them another day.

Just as I was thinking how devoid of souls this park was, I found some. Well, memorials to loved, lost souls. A pet cemetery.

The walk home took me across the motorway that borders the park. I was surprised where the path joined Longley Lane, I knew exactly where I was, and would never have taken any notice of that path if I’d approached from the opposite direction. I passed lots of nettles, an apple tree, some blackberry bushes and a supermarket trolley.

Supermarket Trolley in the Wild – artist T.Esco.

I am so easily transported back to my childhood, and today was no exception.

This signal box is, as far as I can recall, exactly the same as the one I had with my train set when I was very young. Well, it’s a real one here, whereas mine was OO/HO scale.

Also, I can easily burst into laughter as I walk along the local roads.

The local speed limit is 20 mph but everyone thinks this is the minimum rather than a maximum speed. I couldn’t stifle the chuckles as a number 43 bus took off at one road hump and landed beyond the next. I’m guessing 90mph, but he may have slowed down a bit because of a slight bend in the road where it approached the next bus stop.

This sign in FFS brings a smile to the old fizzog too, but it’s a little close to the bone, maybe. We didn’t walk to or from Didsbury on this occasion, due to lateness, laziness, idleness and lethargy. Not to be confused with the law firm of that name.

At home, I did install the new toilet seat. It’s one that has an extra, smaller seat for smaller botties such as those of grandchildren. It means we don’t have to hold them up while they do what needs to be done.

A straightforward, ten-minute job, you’d think. And it really was. I spent far too long trying to get it perfectly straight. But that was impossible. You’d think the cistern and the toilet itself would be in some sort of alignment. Oh no. If the back of the seat is parallel to the cistern, it doesn’t sit square on the bowl. It turns out, the toilet has been installed at a slightly jaunty angle. And, now we’ve realised, we’ll notice the imperfection every time we go into that room. Still, it’s one more thing ticked off the list.

Sunday is swimming day, always a joy to see William and Martha enjoying the water, once the spectacles have demisted in the warm, humid pool room.

From swimming in Hyde, we drove to Chorlton-cum-Hardy for breakfast and a walk. It felt muggy, rain and thunderstorms possibly on the way, but we had a nice stroll through the graveyard and along the banks of Chorlton Brook, which isn’t a law firm either.

As we walked through the woods, I said to Liesel that we just don’t see enough Chinese lanterns caught in trees any more. More fallout from the failed brexit negotiations, presumably.

But look, it’s our lucky day!

And just as we were thinking how drab and dreary some of the shops look in Chorlton, we came across this pair, necessitating the wearing of sunglasses for a moment.

The Pun of the Day award goes to this estate agent

So in the space of a week, we’ve visited Cheadle Hulme, Manchester, the Chester area, Gatley, Didsbury and Chorlton cum Hardy. There are plenty more places to visit, other towns, villages and suburbs, but it’s good to see this list as it shows that we haven’t just been sitting at home all week, looking at four walls. The adventure continues!

Feeling hot, hot, hot

We returned to Quarry Bank Mill for a walk around the gardens on a gorgeous, proper Summer’s day.

There are more potatoes growing there then you could reasonably expect to fry on a Friday night in a Manchester chippy. But there are plenty of other vegetables too, all being tended by apprentice gardeners.

And, totally unexpectedly, here’s a comma after the word ‘and’ just to annoy the newly installed Secretary of State for the 18th Century, Jacob Rees-Mogg. As I was saying, we unexpectedly found some fab sculpture from Africa. We would love to acquire more artwork for our luxury apartment and support the African artists, but not today.

Not that I was ever any good, but today’s selfie was one of the worst.

My excuse is, it was so bright, I couldn’t see the screen properly. The flowers are pretty, though.

Some of the flowers were so happy, they almost glowed in the sunshine, reflecting the sky.

The gardens are well maintained, and the stroll was very enjoyable. From some vantage points, you could almost imagine these being Japanese gardens. But not quite: there were a few weeds and not everything was regimented to the nth degree.

One place I never expected to visit was the Division of Neuroscience and Experimental Psychology in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Manchester. But life is full of surprises. Wearing my guinea pig hat, I helped with some research into Parkinson’s which, sadly, is close to our hearts after spending time with Nigel recently. The researchers were very professional and friendly, refunded my bus fare and didn’t even want the 20p change: riches beyond my wildest dreams!

Oxford Road, Manchester, with no traffic other than buses and taxis was at its best in the sunshine, proudly displaying its gothic beauty.

Whitworth Hall is where Jenny’s Graduation ceremonies took place all those years ago. Speaking of whom, I met Jenny for lunch after my morning in a windowless office.

She claims to have been at work but I’m convinced she was dressed for a party. On such a hot day, it was good to have Indian food for lunch just along the road from her office.

I walked most of the way home but when I caught a bus for a long, boring stretch of busy road, I regretted not joining it sooner. Entertainment was provided by a drunk or drugged-up man shouting at a woman who, according to him, had been nasty since she got on the bus, nobody likes her, and everyone else just wanted her to get off. I’ve no idea what her perceived crime was, but his was the only voice I heard. Eventually, the driver intervened and asked him to alight.

Thursday was a long, exhausting but fun day. It was our first time looking after Martha and William for the whole day while Mummy and Daddy are at work. This will be our regular day with the children for a while.

And they were really good. It was the hottest July day ever and the hottest day since August 2003, when Liesel and I first met. It really was a scorcher.

We thought about staying at home all day and playing in the garden, but in the end, cool, cool fountains beckoned and we decided to go to Stamford Park. The trouble is, so did everyone else. The park was so crowded, I was on the verge of a panic attack. William and Martha just stood and looked at the hundreds of children playing in the water and I think they were as inimidated as Liesel and I were. Quite scary.

We queued for and bought ice creams but both lost interest before finishing, not a common occurrence.

We’d brought a picnic, which we ate under the shade of a tree that dropped small chestnutty things onto my head. Maybe small chestnuts, come to think of it, but I’m no arborialist. Arborist? Martha was amused, which is the main thing.

Back at home, we did play in the paddling pool in the garden.

Yes, the poor old palm trees need some inflation. In fact, the whole thing has a slow puncture and by the end of the afternoon, the paddling pool looked very sad and deflated. Martha and William weren’t, though, they were both a bit tired but it was, we felt, too late for them to have a nap.

Yes, I could have Photoshopped myself tidier hair, but I think the natural look is important.

A quick snack and a rest in front of Peppa Pig and Thomas the Tank Engine was enough for them to recover.

We ate dinner with Jenny and Liam before going home, where we collollapsed, as a friend of ours used to say.

We went to bed and I think both fell asleep very quickly. In the middle of the night, I heard a bee-bee-bee-beep, very loud, over and over, and I was just wishing that annoying vehicle would stop reversing.

Then: “Mick!” exclaimed Liesel. “What?” I grunted as I left my dream and sat upright in bed.

Liesel told me about the fire alarm going off. In our block. As if I could miss it. I could smell no smoke and just wanted to lie down and go back to sleep. But we did get up, we got dressed and left the building. The occupants of the other four flats never appeared. There was no sign of fire nor smoke, so I deduced that the heat of the day had somehow affected one of the smoke detectors. Of course, we had no idea how to turn the alarm off.

And it could be heard from quite a long way away, as a quick walk ascertained. Liesel called 101 then 999. We saw a woman over the road leaning out of her window. She came over to talk to us and we said the fire brigade were on the way. We just wanted somone to turn the alarm off. We didn’t need a fire appliance with blues and twos but Liesel was delighted to see the eight young, fit firefighters in uniform.

They knocked on the doors of the other four flats, which we thought was a bit sad for the occupants (not really), but still, nobody else emerged.

Eventually, one guy turned the alarm off. The alarms are all connected, within the building, but not to the fire station. His theory is that with the windows on the landings being left open because of the heat, insects had been attracted to the bright lights in the communal areas and stairwells, and that one must have infiltrated a smoke alarm and set it off.

We’d only told the management company a few days ago about the lights being on for 24 hours a day, so we called again the next day to tell them what had happened. The lights are supposed to be on a timer and connected to the motion sensor.

After our day with the children, we didn’t need any more excitement, but it found us. And, after such a hot day, how ironic that when we were standing outside at about two o’clock in the morning, it began to rain. It only lasted five minutes, but, although initially annoying, the shower proved to be quite refreshing!

After the interrupted night’s sleep, I couldn’t get any peace the next day. The door bell was working overtime. First, some furniture was delivered. Then a man came, three days early, to fix the dishwasher. Then the postman wanted me to sign for something. Then Liesel phoned to ask me to help her carry up the shopping she’d just been out for. It’s all go, chez nous.

Tranquility

Chester Zoo is featured in a TV series and it’s also the closest to where we live. We had a good day there with Jenny plus Martha and William and Auntie Helen. I told myself there was no need to take any pictures, we’ve seen all these animals before and they won’t have changed much.

The latest news is that just a few days ago, a chimpanzee gave birth and yes, the baby’s very cute, though we didn’t need to see the mum dragging her innards behind her like a really old, tatty, plastic bag. Sorry if you’re having your tea, but don’t worry, I didn’t waste any film on that.

We enjoyed being buzzed by the fruit bats in a dim, dark and very ammoniacal habitat. I’m not convinced their sonar had been correctly calibrated.

William described one of the large, newly installed, predators as ‘scary’ which is quite perspicacious: I thought it was scary too, and I know it wasn’t real. But all the dinosaurs and predators are big, they all move and most are quite vocal. Rroarr!

Martha being held by Helen with a Giant Bear behind (Winner, Obvious Caption Awards, 2019)

The playground was great fun, with, amongst other equipment, a long, high slide. Martha found herself hanging around for a while.

And as usual, children just can’t help copying each other.

We were able to get remarkably close to an orang utan, just separated by the thickness of the glass. I don’t know if he/she was happy or not, but we humans were all being observed closely.

The main objective of visits to zoos, of course, is to wear the the children out, and today, William was the first to succumb.

On this day, fifty years ago, I was enjoying a Geography lesson. The teacher wore a bright, primrose yellow dress and I’m embarrassed to say, I can’t recall her name. But I remember the lesson because she let us watch the launch of Apollo 11 on TV, slightly more interesting than the market towns of East Anglia. Saturn 5, you really were the greatest sight.

To celebrate this 50th anniversary, tonight was a full Moon and a partial eclipse. I went out for a walk late at night, but the light pollution near where we live is terrible. Not only that, I hadn’t realised just how many tall buildings there are all around. I did see the eclipse but I don’t think we’ll see a good sunrise or sunset from where we now live.

Another day out with the grandchildren found us at Stamford Park, Stalybridge. It still feels strange seeing these northern placenames on roadsigns.

It was a lovely, peaceful day, perfect for a gentle walk or, if you’re Martha, running around and climbing on all the playground equipment, or, if you’re William, running around and faceplanting in the sand.

Later in the week, we had a couple of meals with the family, once at our place, once at Solita and then, all of a sudden, it was goodbye to Helen. She flies back home to spend some time with Adam before he jets off somewhere for work. I’m still no good at selfies so I’m glad Helen always manages to press the right button. Or, aims in the right direction and presses the button at the right time.

Helen, Liesel, Martha, Mick, William, Jenny, Liam

Didsbury in Bloom has won many awards for its floral displays over the years. And it is indeed a pretty nice little village to wander round.

One of many beautiful planters in the back streets

Liesel and I walked home, even though it threatened to rain. We had a stroll around Marie Louise Gardens, just off the main road. I like reading the plaques on park benches, there’s always a story, but I’m amazed at how many have a word spelt wrong. ‘A beautiful child and beautiful women’. It detracts from the sincerity of the message, somehow.

One advantage of letting the buddleia grow wild over the pavements is that it deters people from parking their cars there, which is a fairly ubiquitous phenomenon in Manchester.

There’s not much wildlife around here, so imagine our delight when we encountered some horses in a field.

In the evening, we travelled by bus into Manchester, and walked to the Cathedral. It’s a busy old city, even early on a Saturday evening. We can never get away from cigarette smoke completely, but tonight was the first time we’ve had to hold our noses as we battled our way through clouds of the stuff.

The Cathedral has been a place of welcome and hospitality for over 1300 years. But for reasons well within our control, we arrived a little late, couldn’t find adjacent seats and the view of the performers was less than optimal.

Yes, we should have left home just a couple of minutes earlier, then we would have caught the bus that we saw departing and avoided a 13 minute wait for the next one. Lesson learned. The restricted view didn’t spoil my enjoyment though. These old ears were very happy with the acoustics, and I couldn’t even hear the sound of traffic or people from outside during the quiet passages. This was a classical concert, with music by Mozart, Bach, Albinoni and a surprise tango, Oblivion, by Piazzolla. Nobody else got up to dance around the aisles, so I sat back down.

The main piece at ‘Vivaldi – The Four Seasons by candlelight’ was The Four Seasons by Vivaldi. The conductor of the London Concertante chamber orchestra also read the sonnets that Vivaldi wrote to accompany the music. It was all very enjoyable. There was applause between the movements of every piece, almost the musical equivalent of grocers’ apostrophes, but there was no chatting amongst the audience members, something that’s de rigueur at modern music gigs.

It was still quite light at the end of the performance so the candles weren’t as delightful and homely as they might be in the depths of Winter.

In domestic news: number 1 on my ‘to do’ list is to bring together all the other ‘to do’ lists. There’s a lot to do. Good job I like lists. And doing things.

I stayed up to watch the Eagle land at Tranquility Base but I wasn’t allowed to stay up to watch the first Small Step taken by Neil Armstrong. Outside, looking up, I remember not being able to see the two men on the Moon but not wanting to disappoint my parents, I said I could. Fifty years ago, wow.