Afternoon, mumpers! It’s currently 12c/54f with a predicted high of 14c/57f and mostly cloudy. Weather app says “It’s completely fucking average outside in every fucking way.”
No, it isn’t and a lot of women don’t do it. I usually wear trainers to drive and change footwear when I get to where I’m going. I also don’t drive in my favourite “going out” boots because the soles are too thick and I don’t feel like I can feel the pedals properly.
hippie I can’t see Sunflower’s quilt pic on here, is it posted on FB?
Yesterday was a lovely quiet day at the office, our Facilities lady brought up a load of crates for IT to use next week to pack stuff for our move, and another set of shallower crates for us to pack our personal desk stuff into. I left early, caught a delayed train into Big City station, got on the local chuffer which then sat at the platform for another 20 minutes after the scheduled departure time because of some unspecified delay. Got home, did chores, fed cats, and slothed until 'im indoors provided me with dinner.
Today’s very busy one, and it’s turning out to be one of those days you really couldn’t make up if you tried. I got up and fed the cats, had a couple of cups of tea and then went to the gym for my session with Amrit, then came home via the petrol station to fill the tank before prices rocket again. Now the fun bit…
We are going to Manchester to see my favouritest band in the whole entire world. Manchester’s Piccadilly station has been having problems with overhead cable damage since Thursday and several trains have been cancelled. There’s also engineering works between us and an intervening station so local services are cancelled (bus replacement service!) but the mainline trains are getting through. Our train is still ok so far.
Manchester has all sorts of things going on today - there’s a fascist “Britain First” march that will see crowds gathering around the Piccadilly station area from midday with the march due to move off at 1.15pm and then head somewhere else for a 2pm set of speakers. Naturally, there is an anti-fascist protest at the same time in Piccadilly Gardens which is just down the road from the station. Since we’re not staying in the city centre, we should miss all of that as we just need to get a train out to our hotel.
Tomorrow is the Manchester Marathon and also Manchester City (football) have a very important home game in the afternoon at the Etihad Stadium. The marathon means road closures which will be set up tonight, and will see roads reopening in stages as the runners pass through. So far, this is just crowds and we can deal with that.
Then today I found out that the overhead cable repairs means the entire rail network through Piccadilly is closing down at 10pm, with no trains running through there until at least 11am on Sunday. Guess how we were getting from our gig back to the hotel? Yeah…train that runs through Piccadilly! Fortunately an Uber is only about £20 although I expect prices to be more than that tonight. I messaged our little fan group and one of the people there is driving to the gig and has offered us a lift back to our hotel. We couldn’t find anywhere in the city centre for less than about £400 for the night so we’re staying out near the airport. Normally it wouldn’t be a problem as it’s a £3 train fare and a journey from Piccadilly that takes about 5 minutes. Not this time! 'im indoors says we’re never doing a gig in Manchester ever again!
