Archives: manchester

Jack not so well today. We went out to Manchester… there was a pretext that I hand in the job application to the GMP that I’d competed at 01:15 yesterday. Thence back into the centre of Manchester – some food, & Louise & Jack went one way with me taking Eve, Jude & Esme down to Paperchase (via the vodaphone shop – spec for Eve’s birthday pressie. loopng back to meet up with Louise & Jack at Watertones.

Jack was sick this evening – bit of a temperature, but he’s quite a bit better at the moment (just right for staying up all night…) He has a new mp3 player that I picked up for him off the market for £8 – was worried that it might not work, but it seems fine – he’s onto some audiobooks.

Louise & the kids came to meet me from work on Monday, which was nice.

There was some humming & ha-ing during the day as to whether they would make it because Jude was resistant at one point & the rest of them had dashed out to play with others at some other point, so Louise was wondering whether their professing that they all wanted to go was less based on reality than the idea. But when Jude had a bath he was more amenable & the kids must have been reasonably easy to round up, so I met them getting off the train at Victoria; everyone in buoyant mood.

1st stop Cafe, then some shops – the kids picking up treats for themselves while Louise searches for clothes & so forth. I suppose TK Max is about as close as we can get to a department store nowadays; the kids can be distracted n one area while Louise is able to get a bit of shopping done; she found Eve a lovely new coat.

I didn’t get to look for new shoes (ah well) & I did have to make rather more trips to the toilets with one or other of them than I though was really necessary (but they were needed) but all in all it went very well indeed.

At work, Lee is back from Japan & has tales to tell & photos to show, so I’m slower than I should be, but it’s not just me – so that’s good.

One day weekend.
We were going to go to Manchester yesterday, as Jack needs some new school trousers. We didn’t make the train though, so we went in the other direction to less glam Halifax. We were on our way home through the Piece Hall there (old enclosed market square historically used for cloth trade) & there was a sort of ‘event day’. Band playing (Was that brass or trad jazz? -I forget now) & a few craft oriented stalls. Spotted a very nice bench in passing & went back to investigate. We decided to buy the darn thing. Nice High back & ample seat. He was happy to deliver for no extra charge as well (weird coincidence – he said he sold a table to someone as was packing up for the evening & someone came up asking to buy a table. Asked if he could deliver he joked that only if you live in Todmorden – as he had to deliver this bench to us… The fella did live in Tod & only just round the corner as well.
The bench sits very nicely in the back yard. Louse & I managed to sit down together on it for a whole 10 minutes before the need to be getting on with things pushed us off.