weather – Page 7 – Mick and Liesel's Antics

Lisbon back to Northenden

We slept well on our first night in the capital. The air conditioner was great. The shower was one of the best we’ve ever used. So much so, we packed it up and took it home with us.

I think it’s fair to say, we ate too much breakfast. I certainly did, and had to have a nice long rest afterwards. The view from our window was of the street behind the hotel, and nothing wrong with that.

No, this isn’t where we stayed, but we did think about buying a luxury apartment here. This building ceratinly stands out, very vibrant.

After breakfast, we walked to pick up a bus, a Hop On Hop Off bus tour of Lisbon. We didn’t hop off and hop on again, we just stayed seated, for the whole trip around the city.

This park was named after King Edward VII who visited in 1903. The Portuguese monarchy was abolished in 1910. Pure coincidence, of course.

The English commentary on the bus was interesting but I’m still not sure it was a human voice, I strongly suspect it was computer generated, it was trying too hard to enunciate everything much more clearly than a real person would do.

The bridge over the river Tagus that we’d traversed by train was designed by the same folks who designed San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. I tried to get a decent picture from the moving bus: maybe this is where I should have hopped off for a moment.

After the two-hour bus tour, which would have been quicker if there hadn’t been so much other traffic, we went for a walk in the park looking for somewhere to eat lunch. We found a very nice place, where I was asked to take my hat off. So I did. I didn’t want to suffer the same fate as this poor creature.

I can’t tell you how relieved I was when Liesel declined my offer to buy a bottle of old port. She was right though, it was too early in the day to start knocking back the hard stuff.

Yes, we were indeed back in Eddie the 7th Park, with its views over the river. From here, it was a relatively short walk back to our hotel.

Oh wow, a lizard. It was quick, darting from one bush to another across the path, but I was quick too and just about captured it!

And what pretty flowers.

It was beautifully hot and sunny here in Lisbon, but one thing was missing. A swimming pool. We’d dipped our toes in two separate pools so far, and my mind drifted back to this refreshing swim in Caldas da Rainha just a few days ago.

I had to set the alarm for 3.00am. Got up, quick shower, packed, taxi to the airport, through security in no time. Our tickets said Easy Bdg Yes. Easy boarding. All that meant was, we could get to the place where we stood waiting for the bus a bit sooner, the bus that would take us miles across the airport to our plane. After which, it was a free-for-all to get off the bus and board the plane. Good old EasyJet.

The end of a holiday is always an anticlimax, but seeing a sunrise was the most exciting part of the flight.

We escaped from Manchester Airport quickly, a taxi took us home where we sighed. It took ten minutes to unpack and here we are, back to normal.

There is a splash of Autumnal colour in and around Northenden, as I saw on my first walk up to the coffee bar. Well, there was no milk in the house, that’s my excuse. Groceries were delivered later in the day.

Despite the rain, we went out for a walk every day. I realised, if I didn’t go out whenever it was raining this lightly, I’d possibly never see the outside world again!

Given the weather, it wasn’t surprising to see mushrooms growing on our patch of grass slash moss. What was surprising was seeing mushrooms growing in one of our car park spaces.

In the olden days, when you had a Covid jab, you had to sit and wait for fifteen minutes before they let you out. Just in case you felt bad or faint or something. Not now. We both had our latest booster, and the pharmacist didn’t even wait to see that there was no bleeding, never mind sit down and wait for a while. We were dismissed before the needle was discarded.

So we were, unexpectedly, early enough to catch up with and join the regular walkers over in Wythenshawe.

One of the real highlights of the week was seeing Miriam Margolyes on stage in Salford. Many people have recommended her new book, Oh Miriam, especially the audio version.

At The Lowry, she was in conversation with comedian Fern Brady, talking about the book, her life and as normal, she didn’t bother to censor her thoughts.

We were invited to babysit one night while Jenny and Liam went out to escape their children. I mean, to try and escape from an Escape Room while we looked after the children.

Pizza Express in Didsbury was the venue for our evening meal. They were magnificent, they ordered their meals very politely, and, best of all, they ate everything. And they were great company.

At home, we read them stories before bed, and William’s reading is coming along beautifully.

This week’s radio show is full of good advice. “Don’t do that!” Songs that tell you what not to do. But one thing you should do is listen to it here on Mixcloud.

Lisbon to Albufeira

While walking around in Caldas, Liesel had purchased some cough sweets for me. It was nice to be able to stop coughing for a short while. But now, in Lisbon, I had little time to think about minor medical inconveniences.

The good news is, our second bus would depart just a few bays away from where the first one had parked up. Our tickets were scanned by the driver, Liesel boarded and I had time to visit the public convenience conveniently located just another few bays away, but there was no time to visit the shop to buy anything.

When I got back to the bus, I thought it was strange that the lady driver had been replaced by a large man. But these things happen. A commotion from behind, some plonker bashing on the window, calling my name. Oops, it was Liesel. Yes, I am the plonker for very nearly boarding the wrong bus and ending up in Timbuktu or something.

The display on the bus showed that, as we proceeded in a southerly direction, the temperature outside was slowly rising.

Our final destination was Albufeira on the south coast of the Algarve region. An area visited by my baby sister Pauline half a century ago! Our friends from Anchorage, Cath and Hans, are staying here for a couple of weeks and they very kindly invited us to join them. Which is why we’re here at this time.

Hans picked us up from the bus station very quickly and took us back to his and Cath’s house a bit outside the main city centre. Hans drove a car, he didn’t literally pick us up. Not in this heat. It’s a lovely house but what drew our attention first was the pool. Having dipped our toes yesterday in David and Glen’s pool, we now had a taste for such luxury.

We sat outside and ate and chatted and watched the Moon rise, following Jupiter into the sky. We spoke about mosquitoes, but I don’t think we encountered any. And we both slept much better. Since you ask, my coughing fits were by now less frequent and less violent.

We sat around a lot but Hans drove us to see Praia dos Arrifes, a beach with cliffs and golden sands.

I found the walk along the rocky, undulating path quite difficult, because I was wearing sandals. But I managed not to trip or fall or slip or twist an ankle.

We love birdwatching and so the walk on the well-constructed boardwalk at the lagoon, Lagoa dos Salgados, was brilliant.

We have our herons at home of course, but we only usually see only one at a time. There were dozens here, some in the water, some standing by the water and many higher up, not quite hiding in the bushes.

There was one stork too, standing in the water and, best of all, a long way in the distance, flamingoes. They migrate here from Africa to enjoy a cooler Winter. Well, their timing is a little off this year, I think! It was the first time Liesel and I had seen flamingoes in the wild. But, as I say, way, way over there.

Here for the birds but we stayed for the goats and sheep, being shepherded underneath the boardwalk. Yes, of course I started singing that song from The Sound of Music.

The boardwalk came to and end, so to complete the loop, we walked over the sand dunes and back along the beach.

As always, it’s a good workout walking on sand, and through the sea when a wave deigned to wash over our feet. It was sparsely populated, and we can only imagine how busy the beach gets during the high tourist/visitor season.

On the way home, we stopped off at a supermarket. The man at checkout asked if we really wanted the pineapple, freshly imported from Azores. Well, yeah, why not? Because it costs twenty-eight euros. Blimey! Liesel gently cradled it back to the shelf.

Indoors, Hans kindly shared his bottle of beer with me, Chimay, brewed by Trappist monks in Belgium. Mmm.

Again, we sat outside chatting and watching the Moon rise, about an hour later than last night, which meant of course that we got to bed about an hour later. And we had a good kip. Followed by an early rise.

Yes, a relatively early rise. Why? So we could visit a couple of places before it became too hot. So grateful to Hans for doing all the driving, thank you!

We drove to Alte and amongst other things, we admired the many, many, many roundabouts, each adorned with a sculpture or other work of art.

These might be the only dolphins we see on this trip, but as Liesel said, it’s unlikely that anyone would drive across rather than around the roundabouts.

Alte as its name suggested, was high up in the hills, and in fact, quite hilly. Some of the street art is good fun.

It was good to see that yarn-bombing is a universal phenomenon. It looks like the local equivalent of the WI ladies have been very busy with their crochet hooks.

There is an amphitheatre, with an old stage made from stones, although I suspect some of the seating is more modern. We had a nice, easy walk, taking into account the temperature, the gradient and how our various bodies and muscles were reacting. The cobble stones were as slippery as those in Porto, and vehicles, mostly very small cars, navigated the narrow streets in a very skilful manner. We just jumped out of the way when necessary, cowering behind wheelie bins.

The colour of the earth matched the temperature beautifully, too. Here and there we saw cactus, but maybe not as many as I’d expected.

There is a castle in Silves which we visited. Another hilly place, of course!

Photos displayed in the church of St Mary, of local people, somehow hinted at an Islamic past. And, sure enough, we enjoyed picking out the Islamic geometric patterns at the castle and elsewhere.

The castle is a main visitor attraction and so was probably the busiest place we saw on this trip, apart from the bridge in Porto. We walked around the ramparts, with no safety net, something I’m sure wouldn’t be allowed in England, unless they installed railings. Being the king of the castle has its benefits, we could see for miles in every direction, buildings over there, well-organised crops over there and, best of all, if you found yourself between two of the merlons on top of the battlements, you could enjoy a nice, refreshing breeze, for a few moments.

We stayed at the castle for lunch, rather than, as originally planned, walking down the hill to a particular place, and all the way back up again! Yes, I think the need for comfort outweighed the need to walk and increase the step count. I don’t think any of us expected it to be this warm at this time of the year.

Over lunch, Liesel started telling us about Dora B Trail. The name rang a bell, maybe an old mutual school friend of theirs? But no.

Door of Betrayal

In most cases, medieval castles had several doors of different types, although small in number since these were vulnerable points of access and needed their own defence mechanisms. In fact, it was common to find multiple defensive devices associated with the doors, such as corbels with machicolation, flanking towers, pits, barbicans, etc.

As well as the main door, which connected the citadel to the old city, there was also the so-called ‘Door of Betrayal’, opening on the opposite side of the main door and with direct access to the outside, in a disguised form and with smaller dimensions. Through this access it was possible to carry out raids on the enemy, as well as to discreetly bring in military reinforcements or supplies. We cannot exclude the existence of other false doors, the purpose of which was to break up besieging forces who, after making their breach, were not led to the interior of the fortified compound, but rather to dead-end Compartments.

We decided we all need a Door of Betrayal at home too, a way to get rid of unwanted callers.

On the way home, we stopped for popsicles.

Very nice, very tasty and very refreshing. As always, we’re thinking, we must remember this place for our next visit. And next time, we’ll come a bit later in the year, when it’s cooler. And then, of course, we might be more inclined to visit the archeological museums and other venues inside. But that’s all in the future.

Porto to Lisbon

So it’s now late in the afternoon. We went for another walk, again in the direction of the river. The plan was to walk all the way back to Jardim do Morro from where we could watch the Sun set. We walked along some streets we’d not seen before. Best of all, there was even a branch of a much loved, much missed high street shop from home.

Well, I do recall the last time I visited a C&A, in London’s Oxford Steet. And on this occasion, I felt no urge to go in and buy another green coat. I was warm enough, thank you.

And as the Sun moved lower in the sky, it beautifully illuminated the local architecture.

After all this time, we are still finding churches dedicated to Saints we’d never heard of before. We found our way back to the Luis I Bridge, but this time, the upper level, along which runs the train track. We found it, yes, and so did hundreds, possibly thousands of other people, all here for the sunset. Which is strange because the Sun goes down behind buildings and trees here, it doesn’t disappear into the ocean. As each metro train passed, the bridge shook, but everyone moved away from the tracks, and only a couple of drivers had to toot their horn to warn people.

Looking up towards the gardens, we could see it was already packed, so we decided to stay on the bridge.

Watching the Sun and the people. It wasn’t a spectacular sunset, depending on your criteria, but I got a few good pictures.

No point boarding the metro here, so we walked towards home, and took public transport a bit later. For dinner, we ate at a place called Mamma Mia, a mere four-minute walk from home.

It didn’t take long to pack in the morning, but the walk up the hill to Marquês was tough!

Some of the paving stones and tiles felt quite slippery, even with my trainers on, so I can only imagine how perilous it is to walk around this hilly city when it’s been raining.

Two rides took us to the main railway station, Campanhã. Now, I don’t know if we missed a sign, or just decided to follow the wrong people, but it was a ridiculously long walk from the metro to the station. There were no signs, well, until we saw one directing us to the bus station. Then, as I was thinking maybe we should backtrack, I saw a very tiny little sign, with a titchy tiny rendition of the CP logo (Combiois de Portugal, the train operator), along with a minuscule arrow pointing up a long slope. Other people were plodding upwards, so we thought, why not?

This long haul took us to beneath the station platforms, hooray! That’s progress. While Liesel looked after the bags, I went for a wander, to try and ascertain where we should be. I found a toilet, I got some water, I saw TV screens with useful information, including the fact that our train would depart from platform 6. I also noticed that if we’d got off the metro and turned left instead of right, we would have found the station’s main entrance straightaway. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why we tend to arrive at places far too early. If there’s a 50-50 chance, sorry, but I’ll get it wrong.

Our train arrived, and we found our carriage and our seats. Numbers 32 and 38. Aren’t we sitting next to each other, asked Liesel? Yes, of course we are, said I. But the seat numbering system is bizarre. I couldn’t work it out at all. But yes, 32 is next to 38.

During our trip, we had to change trains at Alfarelos. If we’d wanted to avoid the 2½ hour layover here, we could have caught the 6am train. And if we’d know what a dry, deserted, desolate place Alfarelos station is, we might have given that option some serious consideration. The Portuguese countryside was interesting but then, so was the book I was reading. But Alfarelos?

In the small café just over the road, the elderly lady had no English. My limited Portuguese deserted me so I felt bad that my request for an americano sounded so brusque, but in the heat of the moment, I forgot the words for ‘please’, ‘por favor’. As the lady wiped and swept up all around us, we realised: she’s hinting, this place is closing.

Fortunately, there was an air-conditioned waiting room at the station, and a WC, but no other facilities. And it really was too hot to walk around. 98°F, 37°C was the highest temperature we recorded. Hot, and dry, and no breeze at all.

As my addled brain carried on addling, I realised that there is a lot in common between Portugal and Japan. For instance, thank you: ‘obrigado’ and ‘arigato’. And the station announcements, even here at this small place in the middle of nowhere, are preceded by quite long, very melodic jingles, just like in Japan. And another rule or convention in both places is: no tipping.

One other couple was waiting for the same train as us. Other trains came and went. A few people came and went. One poor soul approached the ticket office, which actually was staffed. She’d caught the wrong train and needed to go back somewhere. This isn’t the sort of place you’d want to be stranded.

Our train arrived and we departed for Caldas da Rainha. The view from the window was unchanging for miles and miles. Liesel crocheted for a while, I read and did puzzles. I went for a walk, but was limited to two carriages. What I did find was that the other end of the carriage we were sitting in was much, much cooler. Its AC must have been working.

The railway station at Caldas da Rainha is very pretty, especially once you get outside.

We had to wait a while for a taxi, so I walked around a bit and decided to answer the call of nature. The toilet’s over there, in one direction, but you have to get the key to the door over there, in the opposite direction, just go to the last door. I took the key back and vastly increased my step count for the day.

The blue tile panels at the station depict various events and people from the town’s history.

The taxi arrived and took us away from the town centre, up into the hills. Some of the roads are very steep, even cars have to take a run-up, or so our driver would have us believe. Twenty five minutes later, we arrived at our destination where my brother David and his wife Glen gave us a very warm welcome and a very cold beer.

This was only the second time I’d met them both, and a first time for Liesel. They live in a large house, not quite in the middle of nowhere, but certainly not on top of the neighbours.

We sat outside and chatted for a while, drank beer, cooled off. I’d mistakenly thought it might be cooler, higher up in the hills, but no.

Apart from the main house with its many rooms and hidden nooks and crannies, there are many outhouses. In one email, I now realise, David was joking about their goats. They don’t really have any. Just one cat and a budgie.

I’d forgotten that David has a very slight Liverpool accent, and also, having lived in the Netherlands for four decades, there’s a bit of Dutch in there too.

If you’re in the area and need a lemon, this is the place to come. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a productive lemon tree. Not even my sister’s in Christchurch, sorry Pauline!

There are apple trees too and a couple of grapevines. The nearest village is a nearly half-hour walk down the hill, and we thought we’d pay a visit the following day. But after a hard day’s travel and a hard day’s night, not sleeping well because of the heat and a bleeping mosquito, but mainly because I had acquired an annoying cough, we decided to stay put and have a ‘rest day’.

And that was exactly what we needed to do, a bit of pottering about and a guided tour of the garden.

Liesel and I even donned our costumes and ventured into the pool for a while, which was very refreshing indeed. I like the Sun a lot, but even I found myself thinking ‘it’s too hot’… and I believe this lower tolerance has become worse since I had Covid that time. Sitting in the shade, trying to commit the blue skies to memory, so that the dark grey skies at home lose their hold over my mood.

David was a Japanese warrior in a previous life and he now has a collection of Japanese swords. He showed me one, which I actually touched, by mistake, but I could see how sharp it was. And during another conversation, I again realised that Portugal and Japan are natural soul mates in the sense that both have very fish heavy diets.

David likes to cook and he prepared chili con pumpkin for us. It was quite spicy. In fact, it was very spicy. Actually, there came a point when there was no more steam left to come whistling out of my ears. It was very nice and very tasty, but boy, was it hot!

Flight features a lot in David and Glens’ lives too. Glen worked for KLM for over 40 years. And David enjoys building model aeroplanes. He showed us one by dragging the box out from under the bed. It’s a Freewing A-10 Thunderbolt II “Warthog” Twin 80mm EOF jet, in case you want to order one too.

Here is an impression of what it will look like when complete. For now, none of the wiring has been connected, there is no battery nor remote control, so it won’t be flying anywhere any time soon. When complete, it will be over five feet in length and have a five-foot wingspan. It takes up far less space, in its place, in its box, under the bed!

This was our second and, for this visit, final night wih David and Glen. I’m sure there are many more family stories that we can share.
Thank you both again for your welcome and your hospitality and for the fantastic weather! But for now, time to move on.

I tried to book a taxi online, but the app didn’t work. It couldn’t allocate a driver ahead of time. And, because it therefore didn’t know who the driver would be, it couldn’t calculate the fare. Uh? Error, you can’t do that. No, but you won’t let me do anything else either! So David kindly booked a taxi from a different company for us. It arrived earlier than anticipated to take us back to Caldas, this time to the bus station.

The hour wait for our bus passed quickly enough, we each explored that part of town near the bus station while the other guarded the bags in the café. In which, they’ve been very creative with a (n apparent) random collection of leftover wall tiles. From a distance, you can see an image.

Although three buses left for Lisbon within 10 minutes of each other, we actually managed to board the correct one. In between sight-seeing through the window of the bus, we read and crocheted, guess who did what?

Just outside the capital city, we passed under this:

Ooh, exciting, an old Roman aqueduct. The map says: Arcaria do vale de Alcântara do Aqueduto. Roman? Well, some of the actual contruction workers might have come from Italy I suppose, but this is one of Portugal’s most remarkable examples of engineering from, wait for it, the seventeenth century.

We passed by another Lisbon landmark, but we’ll explore this city more fully later on.

Our main concern right now was that our bus was running a little late, we had a connection to make, and we didn’t know how far we had to walk from this bus to the next. So it was a relief to finally arrive at Lisbon’s bus station, disembark and retrieve our bags from underneath.

Did we catch the next bus? Did we reach our final destination? DUN. DUN. DUN DUN D-D-D-D- de de de di de dun de…

Turtle, trees and tiles

I’m the first to admit that I’m no fashion expert. I would never comment on whatever somebody chooses to wear. But I might laugh to myself at their outfit. A few times in Northenden, we’ve seen what, at first glance, are naked young ladies prowling the streets. They’re not really au naturel of course, but the choice of clothing is flesh-coloured, tight trousers and top. I dare you not to do a double-take when you see such a thing in your peripheral vision. And, if they’re walking along the road in front of you, how hard can it be not to take a picture? Well, very hard. An old bloke papping a young girl from behind, while walking?

She was sitting at the bus stop as I passed her and I wondered, does she know? Would I go out in flesh-coloured outerwear? Only as a dare. Or for charity. But the rest of my wander that day was uneventful.

In the evening, LIesel and I watched a chat online between Mary Beard and David Olusoga. They were talking about Roman Emperors and in particular Mary’s latest book, Emperor of Rome.

Imagine my surprise a few days later when the postman delivered a parcel. It was a copy of this very book. This very weighty tome. It’s so long since I booked tickets for the online event, I’d forgotten I must have ordered the book as well. Something to look forward to when I want something to read and something with which to build up my arm muscles.

On another occasion, I went out for a haircut. I know, there’s not much left, since I only went five minutes ago. Or so it seems. And we felt a bit sad as we walked by the empty shop formerly known as Quirky Misfits.

As we ambled along by the river, a man said to us, ‘there are no birds’. I thought he meant, there are no herons today. Which wouldn’t be a surprise. But no, he was right, there were no birds at all, no ducks on the water, not even any pigeons flying around, and no birdsong from the trees. Weird.

It was our turn to collect the children from school again this week. The first question they usually ask is, where’s the snack? When we remember, we take them a small snack from home. But right now, we’re out of snacks. We’re trying to eat everything before setting off on our trip. So, after a very civilised discussion, we took them to Head Over Heels for a snack, cake, and a couple of hours of running around and climbing and sliding.

We took them to their home for dinner because Liesel and I had a show to go to in the evening. Another pair of tickets purchased a long, long time ago. We went home and changed, then drove into Manchester parking close to the venue, Stoller Hall. The support act was Jack Badcock, and he was very entertaining, good songs and funny stories.

But the main attraction was Eddi Reader. Yes, we saw her last year in a cave, and a few times before that, but she always puts on a good show, and her set is never predictable.

Eddi’s band includes her husband John as well as Boo Hewerdine. Yes, I sang along sotto voce, except when invited to join in, when I turned my volume up to 11. No, not really. She performed Charlie is my Darlin’ and I remembered my old biology teacher, Martin Hyman, while discussing the theory of evolution, breaking into song, singing Charlie is my Darwin.

You don’t think about teachers for ages, and then two memories come along at once. The actor David McCallum sadly died this week. He played Illya Kuryakin in one of my favourite TV programmes at the time, The Man from UNCLE. So, in French lessons at school, whenever Jim Merritt used the phrase ‘il y a’, the class would respond with ‘Kuryakin’.

That’s enough about school, here’s Eddi again.

We had a good night’s sleep ahead of our travels. It didn’t take long to pack in the morning and the taxi arrived on time for our trip to the airport, Terminal 3. Check-in? Easy. Securiy check? No problem. We were through within twenty minutes and had a couple of hours to pass before boarding the plane bound for Porto. This was a first visit to Portugal for both of us.

The flight? Two and a half hours occupied by a puzzle and a good book. Remind me not to buy Ryanair coffee on board though, it tastes of plastic. I had to chew gum to take away the after-taste.

We landed just before a very quick sunset and although in retrospect, we think we bought the wrong type of ticket from the machine, we took the Metro to our place of abode for the next few days, in Porto.

One of the first things we saw out on the street was this tree, nicely swaddled in pink stuff. We saw trees similarly wrapped in many other colours too, and it was a couple of days before we found out what this was all about.

This was the view from out second storey apartment. Maria, our host, showed us all the sites and restaurants and places of interest on the map, but I’m not sure we took much in. I for one focussed on a couple of locations. We’re only here for a couple of days, after all.

We didn’t have anything in for breakfast, so we went for a walk the next morning. We knew Porto was hilly, but I took that to mean, it would undulate, you’d walk up and down in turn, stretching different muscles in turn. But no. On this first walk, we walked down and down and down.

It’s an old city and it will be nice when it’s finished. This building for instance has a decent façade, but not much going on behind.

Many of the buildings look attrcative to us because they’re covered in tiles, all sorts of patterns and colours.

It’s a Catholic country and Porto doesn’t disappoint with the number of churches and chapels.

For example, this chapel is of course quite beautiful in its own right. But the main point of interest is the faded Pillsbury Doughboy on the wall down the road a bit.

Graffiti is the same everywhere, we realise, lots of ugly tags and rude words, but with the occasional work of art. And then there’s this homespun philosophy:

Liesel admired the crochet decorating this staircase. I wonder whether there’a a local equivalent of the WI responsible?

We’d only found a few euros at home, so we thought we should get some out of a machine. The nearest ATM was half a mile from our location when we trusted our fate to Google Maps. We both extracted some cash, to confirm that both our cards would indeed work. And after this point, we saw an ATM everywhere we looked. On one street, there were four shops in a row, each with a cash machine outside.

Similarly, we didn’t come across a tourist information office. Until we did, and then there were three different ones all located on one particular corner.

There’s a big market, all under cover, where we could have bought any amount of fish and meat, fruit and cheese. I’ve never seen so many cans of sardines. I’ve never seen so many different brands of tins of sardines. In the end, we just had coffee and what turned out to be a very squishy cake. Which made my hands sticky. So I went into the facility to wash them. As I was standing by the sink, giving them a good scrub, the cleaner shouted at me, I’m guessing, to go away. I thought it was because she was about to clean that set of wash basins. But no, it turns out I was in the ladies’. Oh well.

On the top floor of the market, there is this model of the whole structure, which is built on several levels. We entered from street level on the ground floor, and left from the third floor, also at that point, at street level.

As we were walking along minding our own business. I was approached by a young man with a clipboard. ‘Do you speak English?’ he asked. ‘Nein,’ I replied, putting a defensive hand up. He apologised and moved on. I’m not a fan of chuggers at home, never mind in strange cities.

We had a sit down in St Anthony’s Church, and we both lit a candle for our lost, loved ones.

As we wandered around, I was keeping count of the buskers. Until I lost count, there were so many of them. Two were playing guitars, one had a barrel organ and what appeared to be a trained pigeon dancing. We saw one singer and one saxophone player.

And on the whole, we were still walking down and down, towards the river Doura. And here we were entertained by three performers in a row. A guitar version of Coldplay’s Paradise, someone singing Elton John’s Your Song and the last guy was singing George Michael’s Careless Whisper. And there were plenty more buskers where they came from. A very musical city indeed.

We crossed the river on Ponte Luis I, and there was a guy walking along the top. We wondered whether he was going to jump in, but I suspect he just gets his kicks from watching tourists looking and pointing at him, wondering whether he’s going to jump in the river or not!

Lunch was meh, nothing special, but I had my first Portuguese beer. The views of the city, to the north of the river especially, were stunning. It is a very pretty city.

And just look at that sky! Proper sky blue. I never knew I wanted to see a turtle made out of old car tyres, until I actually saw one.

And then we took the teleferico, the gondola, to save walking up the hill.

It was a beautiful day and we were just about done walking, so we knew we couldn’t, on this occasion, hang around to see the Sun set. So we took the metro back home again.

Siesta time. I’m not sure whether I completely nodded off, but I was surprised to be woken by my phone. It was David, my brother, who by some strange coincidence lives in Portugal. And, yes, we’ll be visiting him very soon.

Time for another quick walk to a local supermarket to buy some food for dinner tonight. Cheese sandwiches and crisps, how does that sound? Suitably Portuguese? I was fascinated to see that the local authorities employed Yayoi Kusama to design the local car parking facilities.

A very nice man in the supermarket helped Liesel use the bread slicing machine. He might hang around all the time, waiting for clueless visitors. But how nice, that they trust customers to slice their own bread like that.

We walked and metroed back home again. What a wonderful first whole day in Porto, we feel well exercised. The only downer was seeing news that ‘our’ tree has been vandalised and cut down. Sycamore Gap will never be the same again. And to think we were lucky enough to visit it just four months ago.

We’re in a quiet area in Porto, we’ve just heard a couple of dogs, and the cleaners outside, but it is really quiet. So we were delighted to be serenaded by a soprano practicing her scales somewhere along the road. Liesel wouldn’t let me go out on the balcony to harmonise.

Our second and final full day started with a sort of croissant and a slice of bread accompanied by a cup of tea with no milk. We didn’t want to buy too much stuff that we’d have to lug around Portugal.

Again, when we left our accommodation, we turned right to walk downhill. Well, it’s a 50-50 chance!

We didn’t go into Clérigos Church and Tower. On another occasion, I might want to climb the tower, but not today. I was following one of my GPs’ advice: pace yourself. No need to feel uncomfortably short of breath in a strange place.

We heard the bells tell us when it was ten o’clock and part of me wondered what was the significance? Well, just a few minutes later, my phone reminded me that tickets were now on sale for Seth Lakeman in February. So I bought a couple of tickets. And the whole process was straightforward, just a bit disappointed that we never had the chance to select our own seats. And the usual whige about being charged extra for electronic tickets.

We found a fountain and Liesel thought it was a good place for a selfie. The Fonte dos Leões, the Fountain of Lions, recycles its water and is lit up at night.

Here is another Catholic Church, and the picture is composed of tiles, each hand painted and fired and, phew, glued on the wall in the right place. That would have taken some planning.

We encountered more buskers today of course. One young lady was playing slide guitar and I kept expecting her to segue into Dire Straits’ Private Investigations, but she just carried on doing her own stuff. We can’t throw money at all of these street entertainers of course, but she was the first of two today. The other one was this guy dancing with a life-size doll.

He had some good moves and she just followed him around, the expression on her face not changing at all.

Liesel had read something about freak, deformed trees in Porto. We found them in the park, Jardim da Cordoaria.

I think they’re London Plane trees, but it does depend who you believe. They’re certainly different to the plane trees in actual London. They may have been cut back and regrown, or they may be affected by fungus, there are many stories. Also in this park, you can see a set of sculptures featuring jolly gentlemen being daft. So of course, I had to join them.

This turns out to have been the final work by sculptor Juan Muñoz who died in 2001. Thanks for the laughs, Juan.

We carried on walking and when looking west, thought, wouldn’t it be nice to see the Sun set? Yes, but it’s a bit hazy in that direction. Well, all the better for a nice red sunset!

We came across this graffiti, whch turns out to be world famous. After a ridiculous amount of time on Google, it seems that it just means ‘Tagging is not dead’. Well, some of us wish tagging were dead, and the space left for other artwork.

We passed this statue a couple of times. It depicts a local bishop from about a hundred years ago. He’s very angular, isn’t he? But what really caught my eye was the fact that he’s wearing spectacles.

I had a strange synaesthetic experience today. Usually, my synaesthesia is confined to ‘seeing’ flashes of colour when I hear a sudden crash or bang. But today, when I first saw this pattern of paving stones…

… I immediately ‘heard’ the sound of fireworks going off, phweee… very strange. Also, I wasn’t feeling tired nor stressed at this point, which is when I am normally suscepible to such phenomena.

Time for a coffee and cake? Of course. We sat inside to avoid the coach party and the smoker that arrived and sat outside as we were queueing. It was nice to sit down for a while. And the coffee was so good, I had a second, which is also very unusual for me.

Liesel had some work to do, so we decided to return to base. A short walk and a short metro ride and another short walk later, here we are. When we disembarked at Marquês, we spent some time looking at the colourfully wrapped trees and other displays of colour. It’s all part of an art installation called Chromatic Emotions – Porto ’23.

I do like this one, and it’s only enhanced of course by some supermodel photo-bombing.

Back in doors, Liesel worked while I wrote, we had some lunch, listened to some bloke called Mick the Knife on the radio and then played some other music.

Yes, this week’s show was Friends and Friendship and you can catch it here, if you missed it by accident when it was broadcast on Wythenshawe Radio.

Quadrupeds and quadriceps

I was still in bed when Liesel left to have coffee with her WI buddies. The good news is, I was out of bed when she returned a few hours later. I could have stayed in my pit much longer, listening to podcasts.

We very rarely go into Manchester on a Saturday but it was time for a Treasure Hunt.

“For years and years Manchester has been under the spell of the wicked
witch Abby Cadabra, who put the city under a curse of perpetual rainfall.
Fortunately, the world-famous adventurer Hugo First located a map and
book of clues that could reveal the location of the magic spell book. But
Hugo ran a mile (and more!) when he learnt of the perils that lay in front of
him.”

We had to locate the treasure, which is a Spell Book, and presumably cast a spell to lift the curse, and imbue Manchester with everlasting sunshine. Well, by the time we reached the end of the hunt, we were just happy to have located the treasure although as you’ll see, we weren’t all satisfied. But that’s a lot later on.

Liesel and I took the bus into the city centre and were greeted outside the Central Library by protestors against the murderous régime in Iran. We waited inside for our fellow treasure seekers to arrive.

Jenny and family came by train and tram, which might have been as exciting as it gets for the children. But no, there was much more to come. We followed the clues, which took us to parts of Manchester that we’d never seen before. Martha and William were very good at spotting things such as gargoyles, and Martha expecially enjoyed solving the mostly word-based puzzles.

William was very energetic but sometimes, the urge to have a quick break was just too much.

This bridge, over the River Irwell marks the boundary between Manchester and Salford so of course, we had to get a picture of someone with a leg in each city.

So here’s Martha replicating an old picture of her mother straddling the border between England and Wales many, many years ago.

I’d forgotten that Manchester is a Nuclear Free City until we came across this sculpture featuring some very dirty doves.

It was a lovely day for a walk around the city, we really should spend more time just mooching around aimlessly. Like we used to do in London, of course.

Eventually, we solved the final clue, and so by elimination, we know where the treasure is. William asked where the chocolate was. I agreed: I think there should have been an actual, real prize at the end, but there wasn’t. Just the joy of knowing we cracked the code. And enjoyed a walk in the process.

We found a nice place for coffee and cake before making or way home, the children and their parents on a very crowded tram.

William invited us to watch him the following day at his football coaching session, so we did. It was fun watching him and the other Little Kickers learning their skills. Or should that be skillz with a zed?

When she thought nobody was watching, Martha went behind the curtain to practice her netball skillz.

After the session, we walked into Cheadle for a late breakfast slash brunch slash lunch. A very versatile place is Brezo, which I was surprised to see only has one zed. Between us, we ate a pizza, cheeseburger and chips, eggs on muffins, tapas and something chickeny.

This week, we started booking up for our next big trip. After taking far too long to work out some sort of itinerery, we went online to book a flight, looking for the cheapest, quickest, best airline, do we stop over half way or not, how much luggage allowance do we need, where do we want to sit on the plane, a million and one decisions. Done! Except that we’d booked a month earlier than we’d planned. And it costs an arm and a leg to change your booking. Once she stopped laughing at our ineptitude, Helen said she’d be happy to see us earlier than originally planned, phew, so we’ll be off to Australia in March, woohoo! To err is human, to really mess things up, get a computer!

It wasn’t the most exciting event of the week, but I missed the Wednesday walk to attend a meeting with the management company for our block of flats, oops, apartments. There was just me and Carole from the estate agent. I spent the rest of the day editing my radio show: it always takes much longer when I have a chat with someone else, a special guest.

It’s that time of year again, we both received our flu shots. And we’ve booked our next Covid jabs. I’ve met a couple of people recently who have had both vaccines at the same time, one in each arm.

Thursday’s walk was good, although Liesel missed it, prefering to be pummeled by the physio. After coffee and a snack, fellow walker Sue and I took a bus to Heald Green. Liesel met up with us and a huge group of people for a walk arranged by WalkADay. It total, there were 26 of us on this 3.9 mile walk between Heald Green and Styal.

The sky turned grey, dark grey, it looked ominous. And Heald Green itself must be at the end of a Manchester Airport runway, because the planes came in very low, very fast and very loud, you could almost see the freckles on the noses of the faces of the passengers in the window seats.

The route took us along a very narrow path, so we had to walk in single file. The path had nettles on both sides, so it was hard to avoid all of them. At the end of the day though, I was delighted by how few stings I had, just a couple of mild itches.

The route also took us through Nixon’s Farm, a place we’d driven by several times, but we’d never bothered to visit. There’s a farm shop and butchers and a pet food store. But one day, we’ll definitely visit the Moody Cows Tea Room.

There was nothing special about seeing a field full of sheep. But seeing a few donkeys in a field was quite exciting. Then a brown thing started to run towards the fence. Funny looking donkey? No, it was one of three or four alpacas, coming over to say hello or, more likely, steal some food.

Standing next to the donkeys, I realised that relatively speaking, alpacas have very small heads.Almost like a child’s picture of an animal, but not drawn to scale.

There were no hills so the walk wasn’t at all onerous. But there were some obstacles. Such as the puddle (pond?) that covered the whole path. We couldn’t go around it, we couldn’t jump over it. Oh no, we had to walk through it. Well, this was a good test for my new shoes which I thought might have a leak. But no, my feet stayed bone dry all day.

Elsewhere, the path was quite muddy, thick, gooey, oozey, squelchy mud. Yes, my new shoes were now caked in mud. What I needed was a nice big puddle in which to give them a quick rinse.

There were at least seven stiles to negotiate too. Well, with 26 of us queueing to climb over, nobody got left behind. I was by no means the oldest participant, and when I saw how mobility challenged some of them were, I realised that, despite my many whinges, I am quite fit. The one thing I will complain about is the intermittent stabbing pain I feel in just one spot in my right quadriceps. In fact, a few nights earlier, I woke up with the sensation of someone stabbing it with a thick knitting needle.

We walked around the fringes of Styal Golf Club, looking out for low-flying balls, and finally returned to our start point.

Liesel and I both joined the regular walk on Friday, and it was nice to see a couple of herons in Painswick Park. At least one of which was psychic. As soon as I even thought about getting my phone out, even though it was way over there on the other side of the lake, it walked behind a bush, purely to stop me from getting a picture. But I captured the other one, hah!

It took most of the afternoon to book some train and bus tickets for our upcoming visit to Portugal. If you’re reading this David and Glen, Catherine and Hans, we’re coming to see you!

And as I hinted earlier, this week I had a guest on my radio show. Do you remember Zha Olu who has appeared a couple of times at Boxx2Boxx? Well, she very kindly gave me some time and her thoughts this week. The theme of the show is Flying. You can hear it here on Mixcloud.

Soup, sand and sunshine

And breathe. It took a couple of days for Liesel and me to recover our composure after those few busy days. So we relaxed. Liesel went for a haircut. I waited in for the groceries. This is our usual, default level of excitement.

We picked up Martha and William from school on our new regular day, Tuesday. At home, Martha crafted this creature from beads and pipecleaners:

At Marha’s request, Liesel made a cauldron of corn soup, which we all enjoyed. Liam and Jenny joined us too, and the best news is: no leftovers! It’s funny how things change though. Martha no longer likes garlic bread. It wasn’t so long ago that she and William would have gone ten 3-minute rounds for the last slice.

Liesel went for a walk in Heaton Chapel but I was quite happy to stay behind and pursue my own interests. Which included watching a crummy film on TV called Superintelligence. There are some good one-liners but if you too fancy spending a couple of hours counting holes in plot-lines, go for it!

And so it’s that time of year again. Liesel’s birthday. We joined the gang for the regular walk in Wythenshawe in the morning, and even though it’s late in the year, we’re still seeing chicks in the pond.

In the afternoon, we drove to the seaside. We realised we hadn’t been all year, and this might be our last opportunity, with half decent weather. Formby is our usual destination, but today we went slightly further afield, all the way to St Anne’s.

We’d left the sunshine behind in Manchester, it was overcast here but still warm. And, remarkably, no wind.

The tide was miles out, we felt sure that, if we’d wanted to, we could walk all the way to the Isle of Man. So no chance of a paddle in the sea, but we had a very pleasant walk along the promenade. We stopped for fish and chips, well, pie and chips in my case, to fully appreciate the seaside atmosphere. Seagulls hovered and squawked, but we and our chips were never in any real danger.

The pier is 90% amusements and the thing that always amuses me about the word ‘amusements’ is that it has the word ‘semen’ contained within. Sadly, we had no cash on us, not even any notes that we could have exchanged for coins in the very helpful change machine. So we couldn’t play any of the games. Also, maybe I’m just getting old, but some of the games look way too complicated. You could spend a fortune just learning what to do, never mind actually trying to win anything. Very noisy it was in that arcade.

We continued our promenade until we reached the sand dunes, then walked back along the beach. We noticed there were very few shells, certainly none worth bringing home for crafting purposes.

In contrast with Formby, it was good to see so many litter bins. Plus, a place to leave and borrow buckets and spades. Well done, Fylde Council.

On the drive back home, we stopped for a comfort break and a coffee, noting that, strange as it may sound, it really did become sunnier as we approached Manchester. If it weren’t such a fanciful idea, you could almost start to believe the climate is changing.

The radio show this week was, shhh!, Secrets. You can listen here.

All the adjectives

The musical alarm dragged me away from my exciting dream. I can’t remember what it was about, but I do feel sad to have left it behind. The reason for this inconvenience? We’d planned a quick trip to London. And I mean quick. It was a hectic 36 hours in the sense that we did a lot, but we never felt rushed. Oh, except now, getting up soon after 5am. Time enough for breakfast before the taxi took us to Manchester Coach Station. Yes, we took a leisurely five and a bit hours to reach London’s Victoria Coach Station by National Express.

The journey was uneventful on the whole: I was occupied by podcasts, a book and a nap. Two highlights though. As the coach pulled into Norton Canes Services on the M6 toll, we saw some deer and I just about caught one.

The driver didn’t bother slowing down so we could get better pictures, but I guess his bladder was on the same wavelength as mine.

The other memorable moment was as we proceeded down Park Lane in London. We heard cannon fire from Hyde Park, we guessed, to mark the first anniversary of the Queen’s death. Actually, the 41-gun salute in Hyde Park was more to mark the accession of King Charles to the British crown.

It was a beautiful, sunny day and we were travelling light, just one bag each. After sitting on the coach for so long, we had to walk for a bit. We set our controls for Trafalgar Square.

The gardeners have been busy around Victoria Monument but interestingly, very few people were outside Buckingham Palace. I thought there might be thousands of mourners marking the occasion.

The Mall was empty and I, again, reminded Liesel that I had ridden my bike here: crikey, that was 9 years ago now, that Prudential 100-mile ride around the Surrey countryside and streets of London. Just days after the devastating Hurricane Bertha.

Trafalgar Square is so much better now the pigeons have left, although a couple were still looking around hoping for some free food. Many years ago, of course, my sister and I would love feeding the birds, but it’s a much more pleasant environment now.

Round the corner then to the recently re-opened National Portrait Gallery, where we met Andi and Steve. They’re in the process of moving house in Richmond, so good luck with that!

The café was full so we went over the road. St Martin’s crypt was about to close, so we ended up having drinks behind St Martin’s, in the courtyard.

We caught up and chatted for a while and after we said our farewells, Liesel and I visited an exhibition of photographs taken by Paul McCartney during the early days of the Beatles. They’re not all of the best quality, some are out of focus, but the story they tell is fascinating.

Using QR codes and an app, you can listen to Sir Paul as he talks about some of the pictures, the people and the events.

Of all the people depicted in these photos, I’ve only met one: David Jacobs. So that’s a claim to fame. I have seen Jane Asher on stage too, in Peterborough, about 40 years ago.

Some of Paul’s notebooks are here too, including hand-written lyrics of the songs that we now all know so well.

The contrast between the early black and white pictures and the later colour ones is remarkable. I had the perfect picture in mind, but the attendant didn’t want to be included in my photo. Still, we had a nice chat about the old days in Camden and beyond.

Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64, Eyes of the Storm is running here until 1st October, but I’m sure the collection will be shown elsewhere.

It was hard to avoid this portrait of the King before setting off on foot again. Down Whitehall, past the fortress that is now Downing Street, although there were no protestors today. Nor protestors.

As we passed Westminster Abbey, Liesel noticed how bright, how white it was. Don’t tell me it was given a good clean for the coronation?

We decided to check into our hotel and discard most of our stuff. Liesel had cleverly booked a place within easy walking distance of Victoria Coach Station, so we could make a quick getaway in the morning.

Our walk took us via Eaton Square, Sloane Square, King’s Road all the way to The Pheasantry, a Pizza Express. We were shown to our table and enjoyed our pizzas.

A long time ago, I’d booked tickets for Saturday afternoon in Manchester. Later on, Jessica Lee Morgan announced that after this year, she wouldn’t be doing any more gigs. I felt we had to see her one more time, so I bought tickets for this show. This is why our trip to London was so frenetic this time.

We met a couple of people we knew in the audience, hello again Sue, hello again, Alan!

The show was of course brilliant. ‘Those Were The Days’ it was called, in which Jessica and Christian, just the two of them this time, played songs written by or given life by female singers and songwriters.

Even though Liesel and I were sitting under the cold air ducts, the only time I really got goosebumps was when Jessica sang Ocean Song, my favourite track from her Ma’s album Earth Song, Ocean Song. Stunning.

When playing the piano, Jess apologised for turning her back to us, so I said ‘it’s nice to see yer back’.

After the interval, Jessica emerged having changed outfit, and performed Janis Joplin’s Mercedes Benz a cappella while walking amongst the audience.

After the show which we throughly enjoyed, we took a bus back to our abode and I was asleep before my head hit the pillow, as the cliché goes.

The bad news is, thet even though it was well within reach of our seats, I forgot to pick up the set list.

We got up not quite as early, walked to the coach station, and boarded with a breakfast from Prêt and enjoyed the journey back to Manchester.

We had an afternoon show to go to, and we debated whether or not we’d have time to go home first. In the end, no. We arrived in Manchester and caught a bus most of our way to the venue.

What a strange looking building! Contact is in Oxford Road, close to the University, and this was our first visit. We ordered a smoothie but, due to a shortage of ingredients, we had to resort to enjoying our beverage after the show. I wonder who got to go shopping?

Arlo Parks came to prominence just a few years ago as a young singer-songwriter. Today, whe was here to have a chat with Liv Little (I really hope her middle initial is ‘A’!) and to read from her newly published book of poetry, The Magic Border.

As is often the case, I didn’t get much of the poetry, it needs more study maybe, but I enjoyed her use of language.

Afterwards, we enjoyed our freshly made smoothies while watching the very long queue of people waiting for their books to be signed.

I met Arlo, she signed the book, and even recorded a little announcement for my radio show which was very kind. She’s a lovely, friendly little soul and I’m sure she’ll be a big star soon. And not just because she’s gonna be a regular on my show…

So, that was a hectic fun-packed 36 hours, and in the evening, we slumped in front of the penultimate state of the Tour of Britain bike race.

What’s better than two show in two days? Well, three shows in three days, of course.

Laughterama is Manchester’s biggest comedy festival. It might be the only one, I suppose, but that’s what their website says. I bought the tickets ages ago, and it was just rotten luck that all these things came up this weekend.

We drove into Manchester and parked about a five minute walk from the venue, Castlefield Bowl. We’ve been close to this site on many occasions, but didn’t realise there was this amphitheatre. The weather forecasts conflicted, and it did rain a few times, just light drizzle really, nothing too bad. But that didn’t dampen our mood. Especially after filling up with nachos. Other street food was available.

The show was hosted by Suzi Ruffell and she, and the other four were absolutely brilliant, very funny.

Ardal O’Hanlon reminded us that he used to be Father Dougal and he went to great lengths to demonstrate that he, Ardal, was not as stupid as Dougal. He, Sukisa, Dana and Suzi walked up and down the stage a bit, but they did stand still sometimes, hence the reasonable photos. Russell Kane on the other hand, well, he ran up and down the stage, he performed all his own stunts, all while talking and telling jokes and interrupting himself and making valid points about today’s society. That’s my excuse for not achieving such a clear, focussed photo of him. This is the least worst, and possibly, the most interesting.

I don’t know how much energy he used, but they should wire him up to the national grid. Very funny. In fact, we’d recommend you see any of these folks live on stage if you get the chance.

The only thing we didn’t like was the seating. The stackable chairs were too small and way too close to each other. You didn’t have to be overweight to be squished between your neighbours, and in our case, one of those neighbours was a complete stranger.

Later on, whilst wasting time browsing Instagram, I came across this image.

So, that was another fun day, and in the evening, we slumped in front of the final stage of the Tour of Britain bike race. The winner was Wout van Aert, one of the favourites, and that last day, in the mountains of south Wales looked really hard.

That concludes our exciting, hectic, frenetic and frenzied but incredibly exciting and fun weekend. All the adjectives.

So listen out for Arlo’s small message on my show later this week (the theme is Secrets, so tell everyone), link to follow. And, if you missed them, here are links to the shows where Jessica Lee Morgan and Dan Tiernan joined me in the studio. In the studio! I was in the spare room, and we spoke remotely!

Bath, bridge and backpack

The children returned to school during what turned out to be one of the hottest weeks of Summer. Even though, meteorlogically speaking, it is now Autumn. William and Martha both look very smart in their uniforms, but mainly, Martha is very proud of her new backpack.

I did ask how long she was going away for, but apparently this is just for one 6-hour day at school. It puts my old school satchel, and later on, briefcase, into perspective.

Meanwhile, half a world away, Helen has been getting to know baby Gypsy.

Bambi and Brett are very lucky to have such a wonderful auntie (and babysitter) in their orbit, and I’m sure, if Helen has anything to do with it, young Gypsy will be well pampered!

We haven’t had to pay a cheque into a bank for a long time, but Liesel’s had one gathering dust for a few months now. The nearest branch of our bank is now in Sale, so we had no choice but to drive there.

We didn’t spend much time there as we were en route to Plumley. This was a place I don’t think I’d heard of before last week. So, when someone on a walk mentioned it, I looked up Plomley. Yes, I was thinking of the man who devised Desert Island Discs, Roy. Needless to say, I couldn’t find it. Plumley, however, was the venue for a group walk this week. We parked up in the railway station car park and waited for everyone else to arrive by train. And yes, the train was late, leaving us time to explore the station.

The walk was circular, about four miles in length, and very enjoyable, as long as you dodged the nettles. We passed by Holford Hall, but couldn’t actually see it through the trees… maybe that’s another day out sometime.

The half the blackberries were sweet and juicy and half sour. Yes, I ate two, one of each. At about the halfway point, we stopped for a snack. Some of our number sat on the old, rusty gas pipes that the sign told us not to climb on.

Where the path was really overgrown, with long grass and everything, I was very conscious of every tickle. I really didn’t want to be attacked by a tick. Well, I didn’t want to be bitten by anything at all, like I was last week. Especially as some of those bites are still quite itchy. Yes, I could wear proper leg coverings, but on the whole, I am much more comfortable wearing shorts. And, with legs as good as mine, why should I conceal them?

Some signs are meant to be ignored, right? It was a real struggle to get over this bridge, with several barriers, bollards, fences, all to be negotiated, moved or climbed over. I let some of the others go first, just to make sure the bridge could bear the weight of pedestrians.

We bade farewell to our fellow travellers at the station, and returned home, dropping our friend Sue off at the fire station where we’d found her earlier on.

It was a glorious, hot, sunny week, so it felt wrong to be stuck inside. We went outside for a stroll each day but then indoors, Liesel had some work to do, and I continued prepping radio shows and yes, sorting out the photos.

One morning, we went out and were horrified at how dirty the car was. And so were all the others in the neighbourhood. Overnight, it had rained, and several tonnes of Saharan sand were deposited on the streets of Northenden.

Because of the heat and humidity, the walk today was shorter than usual. And in one of the parks, we saw evidence of gun crime in Wythenshawe.

We collected the children from school and brought them home. The best entertainment we could offer on such a warm day was to play in the bath. And as if to prove they’re growing up, they asked to get in the bath separately.

And, playing in the bath was fun to watch. It’s amazing what stories you can invent with a set of stackable beakers and a few dinosaurs.

After dinner, we took them home, and hope they had a good night’s sleep before non-uniform Friday at school. There were to be bouncy castles too, postponed from the end of last term, because it was just too wet.

Back at home, we started packing for our upcoming weekend adventure.

The radio show this week featured songs with titles that are also the names of TV programmes or films, especially when the two are not connected. Tributes to TV shows such as Top of the Pops and Ready Steady Go are amongst the highlights. If you missed the initial broadcast on Wythenshawe Radio, you can catch up here on Mixcloud.

Weather or not

In the quaint and charming society of Britain, where genteel manners and civility reign supreme, conversations about the weather dance gracefully amidst the exchanges of social niceties. As the Sun rises and sets in its majestic cycles, so does the topic of weather occupy the parlours and drawing rooms of esteemed households and luxury apartments.

With great propriety, British people find solace in discussing the ever-changing skies, for it is a topic both universal and safe, bridging the gaps of acquaintance and forging connections anew. And British people like a good whinge too. Especially when precipitation persists perpetually day after day. The subtle nuances of cloud formations and the gentle caress of a Summer breeze invite observations and reflections, inspiring lively discourse and fostering a sense of community amongst diverse acquaintances, whether out walking in the rain or skulking inside gazing at the latest boxset.

As ladies and gentlemen, or Liesel, I and several strangers, gather for afternoon tea or an evening soiree, the weather is the ballet of our conversations. “What a terrible day we have today,” one might exclaim, to which another replies, “Indeed, the Sun hides behind the clouds like a frightened child.” Like the waltz of an elegant ballroom, these exchanges follow an unspoken rhythm, harmonizing the social symphony.

Yet, behind these seemingly mundane discussions lies a shared understanding — a tacit acknowledgment of the weather’s influence on daily lives. Rain or shine, it governs outings and pastimes, and its unpredictable temperament becomes the muse for plans and diversions.

And so it proved to be as Liesel and I did attend afternoon tea at our local church, St Wilfrid’s, all part of a borough wide campaign to help feed the local community. We chatted with the curate, Andrew for a while, as well as some of the other tea drinkers and scone scoffers.

On the walk home, we took a diversion to visit the new, vegan coffee shop by the Riverside playground. After all this time, the long closed public toilets have a new lease of life.

After all the rain (sorry, more weather), the water pressure in the fast flowing waters of the Mersey had pushed over some of the bushes on the part-time island.

Wythenshawe Hall was damaged by fire a few years before we moved to Northenden, and after being repaired and refurbished, it has been opening to the public once a month. And for the first time this month, we had no other plans, and we remembered to go.

We met our walking buddies Dot and Chris on the way to Wythenshawe Park. Our deliberations on the parlous state of our weather recently were only interrupted by the need to have a moan about how difficult it is to get to the park, when it comes to dealing with major crossroads where the traffic lights really are not in the pedestrians’s favour.

Chris, Liesel and Dot in Wythenshawe Park

The volunteers at Wythenshawe Hall were dressed in costume, and when asked, they related stories of the Tatton family who lived there.

We wandered over to the coffee shop where Chris ordered a slice of Victoria sponge. It was a huge slice. Liesel helped her finish it off.

Back at home, Liesel asked what the puddle on the floor was? No idea. Eventually, we found a leak from the pipe taking mains water to the cistern. Another nightmarish plumbing issue. We turned the water off, called a plumber and the leak was fixed the following day.

We picked Martha and William up from their home and we drove to Catalyst near Widnes, a science experience centre and museum that we’d taken them to years ago.

Before going inside though, we had a lot of fun in the playground.

The children enjoyed all the hands-on equipment inside, as well as iron filings and magnets, bubbles in a big tube of viscous fluid, small hankies travelling along vacuum tubes. William enjoyed using the elevator, refusing to call it a ‘lift’. And their short stop-action movies were very impressive.

In fact, we took the lift up to the top floor from where you see it raining in every direction.

Of course, the Mersey is much wider here than it is in Northenden, and from this distance, we couldn’t see any discarded tyres or fridges or couches.

We’d also booked a workshop where they learned about bees, the different species, the stings, and about making honey.

They both had a go at weather forecasting, but their predictions were no better than the real thing.

It was fascinating watching them both satisfying their curiosity, trying things out and, especially in William’s case, getting more and more tired through the day.

The rest of the week, we walked here and there, hardly mentioned the weather at all, he lied. What we didn’t expect to see in Wythenshawe was new trams that have been introduced as part of the new Bee Network, integrated public transport for Manchester.

The radio show this week was a wander through an Enchanted Forest: songs about Trees. If you missed the show on Wythenshawe Radio, you can catch up here.

Waters and daughters

Water, water everywhere. That was the weekend. Two days of almost constant rain. Our gutter continues to drain in the wrong direction, and there are now at least two other problem gutters on our building. I’m so glad we’re keeping up payments to the management company, I’m sure they’ll send someone to fix the gutters one of these months.

In more watery news, we went to watch the children’s swimming lessons, and we are blown away by how good they both are. I didn’t successfully swim my first stroke until I was 14, and that was in the sea at Hastings, where I benefited from extra buoyancy in the salty water. And I’ve never been able to dive to the bottom of a pool to retrieve a block. In that respect, Martha is like a little mermaid.

Did we go out for a walk this weekend? Of course not. Instead, we re-watched the whole of The Night Porter on TV. And that reminded me, it’s about time I read another John le Carré book. Although I am enjoying a Jeeves story right now. Liesel enjoys the way the bed moves when I’m chortling at PG Wodehouse’s finest work.

But not everyone is averse to being out in the rain. William enjoyed playing football in extreme conditions. Did we go and watch? What do you think?

It stopped. We went for a walk along the river, commenting on high the water was, and how fast-flowing. Hope it calms down a bit before the annual Northenden Boat Race at the end of August!

As soon as we left the flat, Liesel regretted not bringing a coat, it was a little chilly. By the time we got home, we were glad not to have the extra weight, it was warm, hot even, almost like a proper Summer’s day.

It was a nice long walk though, through Millgate Fields and on to Fletcher Moss with its botanical gardens.

After a coffee, we walked into Didsbury and bought a loaf of bread at the newly opened branch of Gail’s the bakery. We’ll still frequent La Chouquette of course, but it was closed today.

We successfully avoided being splashed as cars drove through puddles next to the pavement. I did suggest to Liesel that I carry a large building brick to act as a deterrent, but she vetoed the idea.

My visit to the dental hygienist was uneventful. Don’t know why I mentioned it, really.

It was the last day of Martha and William’s school year and the other grandparents picked them up from school. Liesel and I decided to go to the zoo. Our first plan was to visit a castle, but we thought, it looks like a nice day, ideal for a wander outside. And we did indeed have a good time. True, it did started raining lightly later on, but we visited parts of the zoo that had previously eluded us. And it wasn’t too busy: that was another reason for going today, it’ll be much more busy during the school break.

We wondered why many of the big cats were having a lie down, it was warm, but it wasn’t that hot! It was nice to see some animals for the first time, usually we’re concentrating so much on chasing the children around, we don’t get so far afield.

I went to Wythenshawe for the regular walk with the best of intentions. But by the time we’d all met up, it was raining again. Quite hard, so we decided instead to go straight to the coffee shop. Well, it passed the time, the precipitation continued, teasing us by easing off for a few minutes now and then, but returning with some force. I briefly thought about walking home, but no, I didn’t fancy getting that wet today. Another time maybe.

Liesel joined the walk the following day but I had other plans: I walked over to Didsbury for a massage. Marie Louise Gardens was nice and quiet, I wandered around for a bit, watched the people and the dogs and the squirrels.

And guess where I went for a coffee after my lovely, hard but relaxing massage?

The radio show this week was titled ‘Fathers and Daughters’, so songs by Fathers about their little girls, and by girls about their Daddies. Plus a few Father-Daughter duets. You can catch the show here.

Dear Reader, if the photos appear distorted, in the wrong aspect ratio, please let me know. Tell me how you’re reading the blog, PC, phone, whatever, which browser, and if it’s a recent issue. I’m trying to work out what’s changed in the last few weeks. Thanks very much!