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.

Newcastle Upon Tyne - Pictures From Market Street To The Quayside, 4th November 2016

I told in my last post of how I had not succeeded in my challenge to photograph a gorilla in a tutu.  That's a sentence to confuse any chance readers who clicked on a link based on the title.

I had left an appointment at Broadacre House - a place where almost everything seems to happen - and needed to reach Tesco in Gateshead to buy a specific pizza.  I'd decided to walk a route which would take me past the maximum number of Snowdogs.  A Snowdog obsession was gradually developing.  They've become like Pokemon for me.  Gotta catch 'em all!  Or at least see them all and take pictures.

I hadn't quite given up on the gorilla idea that day and hoped to see one somewhere.  I decided that there might be one in an art gallery and since there was an exhibition on at the Abject Gallery I paid a visit.  There was no gorilla.  The paintings were good - and if the exhibition was still on I'd recommend seeing it.  I like Abject.  Both its galleries.  Most people in the city probably don't know that these galleries exist.  They are located in Bamburgh House, directly opposite Broadacre House on Market Street.  Even if you don't like art then you should go, because Abject is situated on the ninth floor and the views across the city are excellent.

I'd also recommend going round the corner to the galleries in the New Bridge Project and in Commercial Union House and in the building next to that too.  Newcastle has lots of little galleries that very often have interesting exhibitions that you'll love or hate.  Explore them - most of them are free entry so there's nothing to lose and much to gain.  I say that as a command to myself because I realise there are lots of galleries I've not visited yet - The Outsiders, System, Gallery North, and so on.  And if you get a chance to visit the Side Photographic Gallery then do.  That can be pretty awesome.

There wasn't a gorilla in abject.  There were paintings such as this, painted by a contemporary Chinese artist.  They were well painted but on this occasion weren't quite my kind of art.  That didn't matter.  I think it's good to see art and it's possible to find pleasure in it whether or not it matches your taste.

I left Abject and walked down the hill, in the general direction of Snowdogs.  As I descended I passed a couple of examples of art.  Some sticker art on a signpost.  And a piece of stencilling on the wall by the entrance to World Headquarters.

Down the hill some more.  I found this notice board containing all the useful news and information anyone would ever need in the city.  I wonder when these boards last contained information about anything.

And then into the tunnel near those boards.  It wasn't signposted.  At all.  I didn't have any idea what I would find at the other end but it seemed to be going in the right direction, seemingly under the city motorway that rips through our city.

I followed the tunnel.  It led to stairs and more stairs.  And then to a sign proclaiming that I was now in a multi-storey car park.  That wasn't the plan!  I thought about going back and finding a more normal route to the river.  But perhaps there would be another way out of the car park.  These steps couldn't be the only way.   So I stepped out of the stairwell into the light.  The view that greeted me was worth the stepping out.

I stood by the wall and looked down and for the first time in a long time I experienced a profound sense of vertigo accompanied by dizziness.  Far below me, immediately below me, was the city motorway.  And I had to step back.

I decided to climb to the top of the car park - or at least as close to the top as you can get.  And the view improved.  This is The Sage from a pleasing angle.  I spotted that the big graffiti wall behind the sage had changed since I last passed it a few months ago when that particular panel had been painted in tribute to David Bowie.

The tower is that of Holy Jesus Hospital.  I hadn't known there was a tower.  It was built in the mid-17th century, sometime during the Interregnum and thus predates the building of the actual hospital.

To continue with the views from the car park - of The Sage, Tyne Bridge, All Saints Church, and in front of them the main east coast railway line.

This is Manors railway station - not to be confused with Manors Metro station.  It's a quiet station.  Newcastle station serves 22,000 people a day.  Manors serves 6,500 people a year - that's 18 passengers a day.  I should go and visit the station one day. 

I couldn't stand in the car park all day.  Marvin the Paranoid Android was once asked what he was doing in a car park.  His response asked what else he would be doing in a car park except parking cars.  Marvin, with a brain the size of a planet, was wrong.  I had not parked a single car in that car park.  But maybe the car park at The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe didn't have quite the same views as a car park in central Newcastle.

I found a promising way out from the car park and passed under the railway to city road, close to the CastleGate which houses a big church that meets in what was the turbine hall for the generators that ran the electricity for Newcastle's tram system.  Heading down the steps I found myself here.

I also found myself near my first Snowdog of the day - but this is a Snowdog free post.  As you walk down towards the river a passageway on the right leads to this place.  It's another place that most people probably don't know exists.  Unless you're in the habit of looking up unknown parts of the city or you're in the habit of walking down passageways just to see what's at the other end it's unlikely you would know about this.  Fortunately I have both of those habits.

This anchor came from one of the ships from the Spanish Armada.

This green space is connected to Live Theatre.  Yes, theatre.  Newcastle doesn't just have a thriving group of art galleries - and enough artists to fill them with an ever changing set of exhibitions.  We have a thriving group of theatres too.  And we have writers.  Many writers.  It's really great to live in a place where the various creative arts are evident.  I'm only just beginning to discover them and I think the path of discovery is going to include some crazily exciting moments.

To close.  My one moment of sadness for the day so far - because not finding a gorilla in a tutu hadn't saddened me particularly.  At the back of the theatre was this skip.  And in the skip there were these two boxes.

My sadness?  That the boxes were too heavy for me to walk off with.  Perhaps I should have gone into the theatre and asked about them and then pleaded for someone to deliver them to me.  I'd have liked them.  Never mind.  Such sadness wasn't going to dampen the day.  There was more journeying to be done as I reached the river and headed for my destination:

Tesco in Gateshead.

Sometimes the journey really is more interesting than the destination.