Dear Diary...
This is my diary. How things are. Or something. Please note that the diary is archived month by month, so feel free to click the links for the archives (which now will go back five years maximum):
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Sunday 4th October – Blending In
We all had gone to bed relatively earlier than the previous night, with Little Miss O heading of not long after Strictly Come Dancing had started, Little Miss E barely being awake til the end and me and The Love heading to sleep around 10.30pm - think we’d all had a busy day of it yesterday! As such The Love put on BBC iPlayer so that Little Miss E could watch the last few dances of Strictly, which included of course the one from Toy Story 5 that Little Miss E had been waiting for but had fallen asleep. It was a nice little dance to I Knew It, I Knew You by Taylor Swift from the film, which she had written for it. And of course it would make sense for Little Miss E, so she was super happy and so tune of the day. To be fair, you have to give Taylor Swift plenty of credit as she writes her songs, and also when performing live does a three hour set so you get your money’s worth. So kudos from me, even if her music isn’t to my taste, she puts the work in and is rewarded.
I did put on last year’s movie week from Strictly and needless to say that seeing George Clarke and Alexis Warr do a dance to a song from K-Pop Demon Hunters, Little Miss E was very pleased to see and hear that one – not least as she had a sweater on yesterday from said franchise. In any case, we thought breakfast out would be nice, so we got ready and headed over to Medlock Square on the Etihad Campus and went into Blend, which is next to the new hotel. I had a yoghurt with berries and granola, The Love and Little Miss E had a bacon roll and they shared theirs with Litle MIss O, with both the girls having an orange juice, me an oat latte, The Love a capuccino and a croisstant too. Not the cheapest, but the girls loved it and they were happy, which is all that matters.
Once we got back, we heard from their parents that they were on their way back. They had a restful weekend over at Herons Lake Retreat in North Wales (The Love and I have been there too) and it was nice to see them get some down time and relaxing, and needless to say when they did arrive both Litle Miss E and Little Miss O were so pleased to see Mummy and Daddy. As they left later and before they would wave goodbye, Little Miss E ran up to me and gave me a hug to say thank you, which was really nice. I think she enjoyed doing the Strictly scoring with me and it was nice that she gave The Love lots of hugs too, aaying how much she loves her Nana. Awww. It is always a pleasure having a nice time with them both and it just fills the hearts with joy.
We decided to head out later on and went over to Cheadle Hulme, visiting the home shop Homebird, which The Love adores. We did manage to get a little birthday card and present for someone, as well as The Love getting a nice print and frame that she was after too. The staff are lovely in there, and we were tempted to have Sunday lunch outside on the front of The Station House, but when I checked the online ordering, you could only have roast inside for some reason. So we had a drink there and then headed off elsewhere, and we had just the idea for later too.
We stopped off at The Ashlea near Cheadle, and what would be opposite an eventual access road to Cheadle station once it is rebuilt. Yes, there are plans for it to be re-opened and be a stop betwen Stockport and Altrincham on the line to Chester via Altrincham, which would also mean an easy reach to Manchester Piccadilly instead of the 42B / 42C buses you have to take at present. In any case, we got a table and The Love had the roast turkey, which was fab, and I had their Korean chicken, which had both chicken plain and crispy strips, both seasoned with the barbecue sauce, and also some rice, spring onion and kimchi. It was surprisingly really good and I really enjoyed that, and The Love was pleased I went for something different. After a final pit stop for a drink, I headed to Piccadilly to get the train home, and The Love and I had a lovely weekend all told.
Saturday 3rd October – Sixes and Sevens
It was an early wake up call this morning, as after The Love In My Heart had got Little Miss E and Little Miss O off to bed last night, they were up relatively early, and I woke up to find Little Miss O looking at me with the most adorable little cute face saying “Hi Warren!” and being all happy. Little Miss E had got up too, and they allowed me a little bit more sleep whilst The Love kept them entertained and they had some cereal. Once up, we all had some breakfast, and it was nice to see that they were taking turns to watch cartoons, which included some Peppa Pig as well as Lego Friends (of course) and also some mermaid film which was on Netflix too so they were both super pleased and happy all round.
The Love’s sister and niece came round later on, and so that meant some painting and drawing with the girls as well as preparing some lunch – helping Little Miss E grate some cheese as they were having mac and cheese together with some extra ham on the side, because both of them love ham. It was nice to catch up and have a coffee together as they were all happy and playful, and we thought of a plan. The city centre would be busy due to the Rugby League grand final at Old Trafford, so avoiding that would be sensible, and instead thought to head to a local park as well as then off somewhere for some tea would make sense, then getting back for Strictly Come Dancing, which Little Miss E is enjoying these days!
We headed off towards Didsbury but first of all did a little pit stop over at my Mum’s for a little while. Little Miss O was a bit whingy at first but soon settled in when she realised when she was with us and that my Mum generally is very nice. In fact she was making an old black dress into a Halloween outfit for herself as she had got these lace table covers which had spider patterns and so could embellish and sew it on to the dress, and as there was an off cut of it, she gave it to Little Miss E who was super happy wth that. All was well and it defintely was a nice surprise for her that we popped by, and onwards we went, stopping off at Sifters on Fog Lane so I could mooch at the records and that they could all see the Oasis mural on the side wall (of course the shop is mentioned in Shakermaker by Oasis in case you wondered.)
On we went to Didsbury Park, and after getting a space to park in, we walked along where there was a wooden nature trail. Little Miss O hadn’t been here before so she loved the fact there were dogs, a squirrel, a rabbit, a hedgehog, a snail and so on, and insisted on sitting on most of them with The Love and Little Miss E, which was nice. We got to the playground and that was busy, but we managed to get Little Miss O enjoying the slide (she loves a slide and Little Miss E on the swings as well as the bigger slide, and the mini trampoline too. They did also both go on the see saw which was great fun for them both, so definitely made sure they spent up some good energy on play and keeping active!
We then headed over to The Gateway for some tea, and Little Miss E insisted to me on having the standard sized fish and chips (they do not do a kids size anymore). She did say she would eat it all and despite The Love pnching a bit, so she could share that and some of hers with Litle Miss O, and she gobbled hers up too, we were both impressed that she did manage to eat it all. I think in hindsight we should have got a separate side of beans too as Little Miss O was wanting to scoff those! We did get a little ice cream tub for dessert, as they had been good, and they loved that and enjoyed it – with me having the millionaire shortbread ice cream which I could see Little Miss E thinking to herself “Hmmmm I might have that next time!”
We got back and once all washed and settled in, it was time for Strictly Come Dancing, and movie week quite early on, so that all fifteen couples could do a dance to a song from a film. Some were more obvious than others, such as Edelweiss from The Sound of Music, or Oh Pretty Woman by Roy Orbison from Pretty Woman. However, two surprises were Graeme Hall and Lauren Oakley doing the Godfather theme suitable justice with a waltz, and Shaun Wright-Phillips and Alexis Warr, on last, storming a salsa to You Should Be Dancing by The Bee Gees from Saturday Night Fever (and therefore tune of the day) It was a massive improvement on last week and hopefully he will be safe from the dance off. The Love had these giant playing cards so gave Little Miss E the hearts and me the spades, and we could do our own scoring. Little Miss E was impressed when I said the dance by Dame Sarah Storey and Julian Caillon was a 6, and they got four sixes across the board.
Friday 2nd October – Hersh at the Hallé
I had the day off work today, which is always a nice thing, and so that meant that I was able to head up to Manchester on an earlier train for the weekend. I would of course be spending time with The Love In My Heart, and she would have the little ones for the weekend too, but I also had a gig to head to tonight – the first one of five I’ve got this month, two of which are in Manchester, the rest are in London. Of course, because it happened to be Kristin Hersh tonight, and she is one of my all time favourite musicians, naturally that would already fill me with excitement, and it was nice just to relax on the train this morning with a coffee (more so because it was free with a Club Avanti loyalty perk) and so be all good for the day ahead.
I got the tram over to The Love’s place, and Brian the cat greeted me for a few fusses. I did feed him some of the Scrumbles treats, which are supposed to be calming, and he loved that as well as the dry food. He alternated between being sat on the bed so he could see out through the window, or be sat on the pouffle in the living room doing the same there too. He was being all cute and adorable and I was half tempted to see if he wanted to play ball or not. I did head out at lunch time and get The Love some coffee as it was on offer, as well as get a few bits in for me too. It was a relaxing afternoon all told and it was just nice before I would head out later.
Not long before I was getting ready to leave, The Love arrived – earlier than planned – which did mean I got to say a hello to both Little Miss E and Little Miss O, who both gave me a hug and were happy because they had been to McDonalds and got a happy meal each for their tea, so they were enjoying that. The Love did say she would have got me something, but I was going to eat out for tea anyway so it was all good. It was nice to see them both and I told them to be good girls for their Nana when I left, and that gave me a spring in the step as I left to get the tram to New Islington, as I could walk to Ancoats from there and on to tonight’s venue, the Hallé St Michael’s, the smaller of the two venues. Last time Kristin Hersh did one night at Hallé St Peter’s, so made sense to do two in a smaller, more intimate venue.
Before all that I went over to Rudy’s Pizza by Cutting Room Square to have some pizza for tea. It was all good and the staff were lovely, and I had a nice pale ale complete with a pizza which was their mushroom one, but with extra cotto ham and indeed a white base, to make it feel like I was more in Naples too. I also had the tiramisu for dessert which was really nice, and when I sent a picture fo The Love, Little Miss E was genuinely displeased that I was having it without her being there, so must have looked good. Notably, no service charge was added which is a pleasant surprise and welcome to see, but I did 10% tip anyway because they were lovely and thoroughly deserved it. Definitely one place I’d not been to for far too long and one I’ll be heading back to more often – not least the one in Shoreditch as it’s down the road from Hoxton.
In any case, I got to the Hallé St Michael’s around 7.10pm and there was a queue of people outside with the doors opening 7.30pm. As seating was unreserved, the plan was to get an aisle seat near the front for a good view, and that plan paid off – third row in and got the aisle. As the floor was flat, sensibly the chairs were arranged to help aid viewing, and a quick check showed 8 on one side, 7 on the other, with aisle in the middle, to 15 per row, and 9 rows, so 135 seats in all. Intimate and tiny it is. I did note on the door that there was no support, and it would be just Kristin Hersh alone, no band, no Cello Pete who she had last time. She was having the folks at El Rat Designs going round with her as they were handling the merch and they do some cracking t-shirts, so nice to see that.
The set was in two halves, and so it was nice because the first half used electric guitar, with some acoustic and then electric in the second half. Naturally, with the new album Sugar on Blackstone getting critical acclaim, it was nice to hear the songs from that, not least a blistering opening of Dark Eye Junco, and later on Snow White Lies which was really good, as well as some of her earlier works including an excellent version of Teeth from the Hips and Makers album as well as the debut single from that, Your Ghost, which was a very welcome surprise. There was also a nice smattering of Throwing Muses songs too including City of the Dead and also near the end, Cottonmouth, both of which are B-sides, so definitely both for the fans.
Of course, it would be remiss not to have some bona fide solo classics during both halves of the set, which did include the wonderful Mississippi Kite, but for me the highlight was Ticking from the new album which sounded so full of room from just one guitar, it filled the place with some delightful sounds, so tune of the day for me without question. Bywater is another solo classic I love, where she sings about a goldfish who gets flushed down the toilet with a moustache looking like Freddie Mercury. The time passed by way too quickly, complete with nice storytelling from Kristin between certain songs, and it certainly was a lovely gig – not least because there were proper fans present and no one talking whilst she was playing, as it should be. My sort of gig that. As the end of the final song, her version of Cuckoo, completed, I reflected as I walked back to the tram stop and was just so happy to be seeing Kristin Hersh live once again.