Manchester

The dancing queen had to be in Manchester on Tuesday evening for a dancing thing, so hubby and I volunteered to take her so that she did not have to go on the train. We had planned to wander around for a while, then go for something to eat until she had finished. Manchester is less than 30 miles due west of Sheffield, with the most spectacular scenery of the Pennines, and nothing else in between. Both cities have been industrial city's, but they are so very different. Sheffield was founded on heavy industry - the Steel Works, and was bombed a fair bit in the war, whereas Manchester was made rich by the cotton trade. In recent times, Manchester lost its industry quite a while before Sheffield (like Leeds did ) and so has had a lot longer to find another identity. The buildings in Manchester - especially the old Victorian ones are really splendid, and I love the old warehouses alongside the canal. The old sewing factories are great too, but many of them are decaying away. It was raining heavily when we left Yorkshire, but you don't really know the meaning of "heavy rain" until you have been to Manchester! We had to change our plans and dive straight into Pizza Express for our tea. Fortunately, it was late night shopping, and so afterwards, we got to look around whilst keeping dry. The city is very geared up for the "Footballers Wives" element with fabulous shops like Harvey Nicks and the like, and another big difference I noticed was that people were actually spending - lots! Although we Yorkshire folk don't need a credit crunch to be tight!! I planned to take loads of photo's, but the camera was getting too wet, so these are the only ones I took.

We did have a great evening, even with all the rain.

Text updates from the young man over the last couple of days have included:

* I was bitten by a yellow ladybird, are they poisonous? !!!!

* I have seen the Tour de France and Elton Johns summer house

* Night mum

The last one made me cry.