Days of Gratitude - Creativity, Charity, Cafes, Carousels, Coaches. And Darkness.

Five more days.  They were good days.  I spent them in Manchester staying with an awesome person, the creator of my soft toy Blob Thing.  She's a very busy person these days, excelling in her passion and slowly working her way towards her dream.  I believe that she will achieve that dream.  She has found her niche and it's a place where that great passion is combined with a talent and definite flair and I believe that she is going to affect the lives of lots of people in a very positive way as she continues to walk this path.  Autistic children will benefit massively and so will their parents/guardians and those around them.  They already do benefit massively but this is only the beginning.  One of my joys over the past sixteen months since meeting her has been to watch the way she has run down this path with such total enthusiasm and to watch the way that she has begun to create something pretty damn marvellous.  When I met her this thing did not exist anywhere but her head.  And now it does.  And there is much more in her head to become a physical reality at time progresses.  I am looking forward to watching it happen.

Five more days.  Since Amanda is so busy I now have to occupy myself quite a bit when I'm there.  I am finding ways to occupy myself and know that there is never a cause for me to be bored either when reading and writing at her house or when I go out - walking, visiting a town, writing in the library, or finding new places and people.

This visit was no exception and below you will find a few things I am excited about.  And a cafe that I'll be returning to.  It even has convenient plug sockets for a laptop.  Southport has also given me a writing prompt for a story that is churning in my head right now.  At some point it will come to rest and I'll know the broad outline of the tale.  But that's not something for now.  I'll just tell you it involves palmistry and an impossible fortune becoming possible.

Something else.  I am typing this at the Literary and Philosophical Society Library.  I joined today.  Yes, I am now officially a member.  I plan to spend lots of time here writing and reading.  Perhaps there will be people to meet too and it will become the source of more surprises in my life.  I hope so.

16^th December


Grateful to have found amazing places and things while having to spend hours in Manchester city centre without a plan.

Here:

A brilliant free creative space in Afflecks. With a possibility something similar might happen one day in Newcastle.

The awesome art cafe.

Some great street art.

So many pictures to choose from.

17^th December

Grateful for a great day with Amanda in Southport.

Chips, ice cream, charity shops, a carousel, and tea. Our kind of day.

And it was the first time I have ever seen the sea it Southport. On every other visit it was miles away.

18^th December

Grateful for darkness and light.  The not-church church I attended in Manchester was based on the theme of darkness.  I liked the people there.  I don't think it would be "my" place but I did like them and I liked the honesty and openness that was greater than that seen in most church churches.

And grateful for the women's toilets here in Nexus Art Cafe.

Yep, a gratitude post about a toilet.

19^th December

Grateful to spend most of the day with Amanda.

We caught the bus to Leigh for charity shops and to visit a very good cafe there.

A screen in the cafe displays slideshows of someone's photos. As I was paying I noticed the photos at that moment were of Newcastle.

20^th December

Grateful to have achieved the front seat on the coach back from Manchester.

Grateful for an easy journey.

And grateful for roast chicken. Because I am still a corpse eating monster.

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.