A Short Walk On The Manchester - Salford Border, 25th May 2016

It was the twenty-fifth of May.  Six months ago.

I was staying in Manchester at the time and on that day I would be heading off with my friend there to see the excitements of Southport, a place that we both appreciate.  It's a bit like our kind of Blackpool.  A Blackpool without so much noise and haste.  A much quieter tourist town with a much better variety of ice cream.

Seriously.

Much better.

We have walked through Blackpool together, past many of the tourist stalls on or near the sea front.  They sell ice cream.  It's true.  And they show off about how many varieties they sell.  Obviously each stall is content to not try to outdo any other stall in choice.  Because they will proudly display signs about their eight varieties.  Eight.

In Southport there are places with thirty varieties of ice cream and the whole set up feels a lot more clean too.  And there are places that sell liquorice ice cream and the two of us are great lovers of the black stuff.

So on that day we were going there again.  It was a great day.  We took many photos of the things we saw.  We took many photos of each other.  And our faces are full of smiles.

Our day of adventuring in Southport couldn't start at the start of the day though because my wonderful friend had to work for a while in the morning.

We arranged to meet up at Salford Central railway station and catch a train there and I dutifully caught a bus to meet her.  But this is me.  I catch buses early.  Giving plenty of time.  In cast something goes wrong.  Which with Manchester buses and Newcastle Metros isn't an unheard of situation.

I didn't want to be late.

I wasn't.

In fact I was a little over half an hour early.

What to do?  I could sit inside the station and try to read a book.  Or I could take my over-promptness as an opportunity.  To explore just a little more of the centre of Manchester.  I wouldn't be able to explore much - and six months on there is a vast amount I haven't yet seen or experienced.

But I could see something.  And something might be better than nothing.

So I didn't cross the road from the bus stop and enter the station.  Instead I turned a different way towards the view from the bus as it heads up from the station into the centre of Manchester on its sometimes slow route to Piccadilly or Shudehill.

I only had minutes.  And these photos are from the fruit of those minutes.

The Left Bank.  Here you will find the People's History Museum which is worth visiting, some odd architectural combinations, and a cafe that looks promising for a drink sometime.

Heading out of frame to the left of photo you would find the law courts before reaching the junction with Deansgate, a very busy shopping street to the left and a slightly quieter street to the right - a direction that will also take you to some roman ruins, the current tallest building in the city, and to one of the canals and the start of a most excellent walk.

The statue - which I'd been wondering about since first passing it in October 2015 - is of Joseph Brotherton who was a social campaigner in the first half of the 19th century.  He was also a prominent vegetarian and started the first vegetarian soup kitchen.

A photo below is of a Brotherton quotation, found in a nearby office doorway.

I'm sure the political and moral theorists among you could discuss the quotation at length.

The view from the bus.  Or at least from the path passed by the bus.

I'm not going to talk about most of the following pictures.  They're self explanatory.  Views up the river.  Views down the river.  Views of bridges.  Views from bridges.  There may be plenty more of them.  Blob Thing is currently posting about a walk we took along part of the course of the River Irwell - this same river.  Not far downstream from here the river runs into the Manchester Ship Canal and that's that.  It forms an important division here:

On your left, the city of Manchester.

On your right, the city of Salford.

Returning to the road running past Salford Central, I was still too early to meet my excellent friend.

So I walked the other way, through Spinningfields.  Pedestrianised streets filled with bars and cafes and offices rising above.  All quite normal and sociable.  Plus there was this.  Crazy golf.

And back to the Irwell again, crossing by another bridge.

I was glad to have walked along and crossed there because I looked down.  To a section of path that had been closed, I think in consequence of the flooding at the start of the year.  When walking along the Irwell in places you can still see rubbish carried by the flood, metres higher than the waterline stuck in the trees and bushes above.

And on the section of path I saw a couple of artistic endeavours that brought me some cheer.

Finally it was time to meet my friend.  She was on time.  So it was fortunate that I wasn't late.

We bought our train tickets and walked into the station.  The view back down to the road is a good one.

There was a time that Salford Central had more platforms and more tracks.  Any railway enthusiasts may know the story of the lines.  Looking across the barriers at the station you can still see the course of the old lines.

So my spare half an hour had been filled profitably.  There is often a great deal to see if we would just look.  I was glad to have seen a little more of the two cities, Salford and Manchester.  Just a very little.  Six months later I have not walked along those paths again for there are so many more paths and roads to walk in the area.  I am really only at the very beginning of my exploration.

Days Of Gratitude - Happy Times in Salford - Reservoirs, Religion and Relaxation

October has begun.  At the end of last year the challenge was set by the Sunday Assembly Newcastle to post something for which you are grateful.  Every day.  Nine months later and I have missed a total of nine days.  The group description reads:

Sunday Assembly Newcastle is all about finding ways to #livebetter, so our 2016 challenge to you is to photograph something every day that makes you feel grateful and share it to this group. 

Every day.  Every day.  The group currently has 129 members some of whom joined recently.  Sharing every day?  Well, no.  Not every day.  Some days there will be three posts.  Including mine.  Some days a couple more.  Sometimes there will be just two posts.  And on a couple of days I have been the only person to follow the challenge.  Even the person who set the challenge only posts sometimes.

But this is me.  It says every day.  And I want to post every day.  It's good for me.  On the days that feel rubbish I can find something.  And on the days that feel good I can find some amazingly, wonderfully, spectularly, beautifully positive things to be grateful for.

Cases in point.  The six days below.  After a couple of weeks of real struggles it was very good to have days like these.

September 30^th

Grateful to be able to hear great talks at an autism event before leaving for Manchester. I hope people listened and will act.

Grateful that the coach driver let me sit in the quiet seats behind him when I was struggling and getting melty while waiting.

Grateful that a side effect of being so delayed was that we detoured across the Saddleworth road which is gorgeous.

And very grateful to be back here in Salford with Amanda.

October 1^st


Grateful for a great day out with Amanda.

We enjoyed Glossop and my lunch was massive. I will go back and find walking routes.

And then we rowed across and around a reservoir.

They just gave us a boat and pushed us away from the jetty without checking to see whether we had ever rowed before.

In the evening we were at the theatre and managed to get two tickets for five pounds - a student and a carer.

October 2^nd


Grateful for a good morning with Amanda before she went to work.

Grateful for some car boot sale and charity shop bargains.

Grateful to have decided to explore a sign I have passed on the bus here quite a few times: Schoenstatt Shrine.

Loved it. I will go back one day just to sit in the peace of the shrine and the community garden.

Sorry. (A lie!). There are far too many pictures.  [There were many more posted in the gratitude group.] And they're all of a Catholic place where they do God quite a lot. But I really was very pleased to have explored.

October 3^rd

Grateful for a lovely day out with Amanda. We played crazy golf, went on everything in the playground, and ate too much ice cream. Happy times.

I only took one photo all day. Here it is. You get quality graffiti in the toilets of amusement arcades in Southport. Or at least in one cubicle.

October 4^th

Grateful for time spent with Amanda.

Grateful for getting some ideas at an autism event in Manchester in the evening.

Grateful for a pretty walk in the day that ended with buying Amanda a unicorn.

October 5^th


Grateful for the days away.

Grateful to be home and to have life here to look forward to.

Grateful to have been greeted by family and my trusted warthog friend.

Also grateful that Blob Thing managed to post on his blog today.

Days of Gratitude - Autscape, Friendship, And Finding Freedom In A Cemetery

I am posting this on August 25th.  Today would have been my mother's 72nd birthday.  She died a few days after reaching her 70th birthday.  Facebook keeps giving me memories to share each day and most of them have been status updates about the events leading up to my mother's death.  Every day I am given the option to share some painful circumstance.  I haven't been sharing.

The morning after my mother died I had to return from Sussex to Newcastle, leaving my brother to deal with everything for a while.  On returning to Newcastle I attended the appointment at which I was officially diagnosed as being transgender.  It's tempting to wish that my mother had lived to see that day and the two years that have passed since then.  But no amount of wishing would make it a reality.  After that appointment I returned to Sussex.  I wrote the address for my mother's funeral and reading it was a privilege - and quite a challenge to not fall apart at certain points in it.  I posted the address in a post on this blog and it also appears here, the final ever post on my mother's blog which she lovingly wrote nearly every day for quite a few years and filled with family and friends and many photos.

That all happened two years ago.  This is now.  And these are five days of memories for this month, to add to the memories Facebook keeps on recommending I share with the world again.


18^th August


Grateful for Autscape. A lot could be said about that.

Grateful though to spend much of the afternoon not at Autscape!

Amanda and I walked into Settle, relaxed together, ate ice cream and then walked a little by the river.

We found a great rock to sit on in the middle of the river and I even had a free thirty seconds for stone stacking, reminding me that I want to take myself off for a quiet day doing it.

19^th August


There is much I will miss. Much to think about too.

But I am grateful that tonight I will sleep in my bed.

Farewell Autscape for another year. Tomorrow I have to attempt to think about food again.

Grateful too that this time round only a week will go by before I see Amanda again - for a Christian festival!

20^th August


Being looked after when arriving at the meditation group in a state. Sitting alone in silence helped and then good people and lunch.

Grateful for the people who set up that group and for the way the enterprise will be expanding very soon. There will be a meditation centre in the city centre and there are great plans for the future.
Also grateful to look out of the window.

21^st August

Grateful for missing the bus home after the Sunday Assembly social and going a different route back to the Metro that turned out to be interesting even though totally an incorrect route.

This led on to becoming sidetracked in a cemetery I have been meaning to visit almost since we moved here.

Also very grateful that a year ago today I met a very wonderful woman. I couldn't be more grateful than I am.

22^nd August


Grateful that one year ago tonight I danced, played and sang barefoot in a big thunderstorm.

She had encouraged me to do so. She didn't accept my refusal.

A year on and we have a most marvellous and undefined relationship centred on a stunning magic friendship.

Days of Gratitude - Art And Autscape And Sparklies In The Dark

Five more days of gratitude.

The first of them really did go wrong.  I had good plans - to go and sing shape note music in a chapel at Beamish Museum.  Due to a miscommunication they didn't come to fruition and I was left at home with a packed bag for the day.  I could have stayed at home.  But decided that they would be another plan.  So I went out and let the plan develop as it happened.  The replacement plan didn't go to plan either in many ways.  But I was still able to have a really good day and visited somewhere I've never been to before.  The art looks great on the walls of this room I'm sitting in.  The cheap art.  Very cheap.  The total cost of the five pictures was £4.50.  I'm actually quite proud of finding the bargains.

The five days ended at Autscape, the conference/gathering of autistic people that runs each year.  I must point out at this point that the friend mentioned who couldn't get to Autscape was not a Dalek.

13^th August

Today's plan went completely wrong. An excuse for inventing another plan.

I walked on Hadrian's Wall.

I sat by a river.

And I bought cheap pictures.

14^th August

Tynemouth Market

Grateful for a poetry book and a few pretty stones from Tynemouth followed by a short wander.

The gateway to Tynemouth Priory.  We didn't go inside.

I was too tired to actually walk by the sea as planned.  But that didn't matter.  Seeing the river was good and those two obviously enjoyed it.



15^th August

A half cheat.

Grateful for socks. Grateful that in the last year I have stopped wearing black socks every day and now wear all sorts of colours. And sometimes giraffes.

 Grateful (and this is the cheat half) that within the next 24 hours (tomorrow) I will be at Autscape for a few days of autistic space, something that is a very rare thing in an allistic majority world. Last year's Autscape changed things for me in unforeseen ways.

16^th August


We are at Autscape.

This year I know some people already, have child with me, and a friend from Newcastle.

Two pictures from the day.  The first was taken at the informal badge decorating.  The second was taken at Sparklies.  Photo credit to @quarridors

Check out this Vine video of what the lights look like through my heart glasses.  Through my difraction glasses they look even more crazy.

17^th August


Grateful to be at Autscape.

Maybe most grateful for the hours spent NOT at Autscape.

Amanda and I went to spend a couple of hours in Settle with a friend who couldn't make Autscape this time.

 And then we paddled in the river.