40 + years on

	In the early 60s I went to see the Who at Sheffield University. Unfortunately, only Pete Townsend turned up, the rest were stuck on the motorway.
	When Pam found that the band were playing a 50 year anniversary tour and they would be playing at Manchester, I booked tickets. Last Saturday was therefore the concert to make up for what I had missed.

I’d heard that their Glasgow concert was excellent and so looked forward to seeing one of my favourite bands playing live. They did not disappoint. A two and one half hour set that took us from Can’t Explain to Magic Bus. There were many show stoppers included with some amazing solos by Townsend on guitar and Zack Starkey on drums was just as brilliant as Keith Moon ever was.

The icing on the cake was an unbelievable bass solo played on screen by the late John Entwistle and Keith Moon singing on possibly the only track he was allowed to.

The routes through Yorkshire

Tour de France 2014 - Stage one: Starts in Leeds and ends in Harrogate taking in the Yorkshire Dales. That is beautiful countryside, I just hope it is a sunny day so that the riders can appreciate it. Just reading the names of those towns brings back wonderful memories of times past. I was brought up in Morley near Leeds and spent a lot of time visiting those places on the map. Although Pam and I lived on the Wirral for 34 years, I always felt that Yorkshire was my spiritual home.

Tour de France 2014 -Stage two: Starts in Sheffield and ends in York. That route goes close to Penistone where I used to live before moving to the Wirral. The riders will eventually pass through some of the posh parts of the county – Keighley, Harrogate, Knaresborough and York.

I am torn between going there to watch it live or following the progress on television with a nostalgic tear in my eye.
Already, I have this Yorkshire tune going through my head!

Where hast thou been since I saw thee (where have you been since I last saw you?)
On Ilkley Moor baht 'at. (on Ilkley Moor without a hat)
(repeat several  times just to get the idea)
I've been a-courting Mary Jane, (courting is the old fashioned term for dating)
On Ilkley Moor baht 'at.
I've been a-courting Mary Jane
I've been a-courting Mary Jane
On Ilkley Moor baht 'at,
On Ilkley Moor baht 'at,
On Ilkley Moor baht 'at. (as you will have gathered, this tune is a bit repetitive!)
Thou'll 't surely catch thy death of cold on Ilkley Moor baht ‘at; etc. (You will, for sure, catch a cold and die)

Then we shall have to bury thee;
Then worms will come and et thee oop; (the worms will eat you up)
Then dooks will come and et oop worms; (the ducks will then eat the worms)
Then we  will come and et oop dooks; (we will eat up the ducks)
Then we  will have our loved ones back.

Ryanair bend the rules again

Current regulations allow passengers to take a carrier bag of goods purchased in the airport on board as well as their hand luggage. The only reasons for denying passengers this right are based on weight or security reasons.

It seems that some airlines, including Ryanair, have been telling passengers at Barajas that they can only bring one item of hand luggage on board. They are being denied the right to bring an additional carrier bag with goods purchased in the airport into the cabin. 

I can see their issue, some passengers travel with the maximum size of cabin luggage allowed and then purchase more goods in the airport and so have a large carrier bag as well. There is only so much room in the overhead bins and they do fill up quickly, that is why some airlines now encourage you to put your cabin baggage in the hold. Of course, if there are items in your cabin bag that you either need during the flight or do not trust to the hold then that is a no no.

When we fly to the UK for our daughter’s wedding, I’ll be taking all my camera gear in a cabin sized bag. There is no way that I want that precious cargo to be thrown around in the hold. There isn’t room in that bag for anything I buy at the airport so I might just have to be circumspect even though we are NOT flying with Ryanair.

Not the best of journeys

After a lovely day on Tuesday for my birthday, Wednesday did not go as smoothly as we would have liked.

We arrived at Alicante airport in good time which was just as well because we queued for nearly an hour to check in. The only reward for that long wait was that we were given extra legroom seats at no extra charge.

The flight was fine, longer than scheduled because we were flying into a headwind and touchdown in Manchester was smooth especially considering the windy conditions.

Normally we hit lucky on the luggage carousel but not this time. One case came through pretty quickly but the other was the last on the belt. Still, we had our luggage safe and sound.

We'd arranged to hire a car from a company called Enterprise who have offices at both Manchester T1 and T2. The office at T2, where we landed closes at 5pm and so you are directed to the office at T1. What I neglected to tell Pamela was how far on the overhead walkway it was between the two terminals.

After dragging our cases for nearly half an hour we arrived at the Enterprise office which is on the very top floor of the car park only to be told that if we'd phoned them from the T2 office, they would have picked us up. Pamela nearly hit the bloke when he told us that.

Then we were shown to the car which just happened to be as far away from the office as possible. After our marathon walk across Manchester Airport, that was all we needed, a further ten minutes trek with our cases facing into a howling gale. Just to aggravate matters worse, our cases would not fit into the boot so I had to manhandle a heavy case through the front door of an Opel Corsa to get it onto the back seat.

Talk about exhausted, we were well ready for bed by the time we reached out hotel. Still we are here safe and sound loving the wonderful English weather:-(

Enough already

The break in the appalling  weather was short lived. The wind has dropped but the rain keeps coming and going and it is darned cold. Worse though is forecast as the storm that battered Scotland is set to return at the start at next week. That is not good news because we are due to fly back home on Tuesday. At best we will have a bumpy take off from Manchester.

Good old British weather

As I said, it rained hard the day we arrived. Then the wind picked up to gale force but fortunately the rain stopped. Now the wind has calmed, the rain and sleet has returned.

The weather on the Wirral was bad enough, on the way over to Manchester it was worse. It is hard to get used to darkness falling at 3pm in the afternoon!

How 62 Euros became nearly 267

In order to keep the advertised prices low, budget airlines find ways to make up the deficit in other ways. Those of us who travel regularly to and from the UK know the score and which airlines are most guilty.

• Surcharge no 1 – Airport taxes are added on to the cost of the flight by most airlines. These can almost double the original advertised fare.
• Surcharge no 2 – Failure to print out a boarding pass when you book online can lend you a fine at check in.
• Surcharge no 3 – Pre booking your seat to make sure that you sit together add extra per person to the cost of your flight.
• Surcharge no 4 – You have to pay to use a credit card and in some cases a debit card even though these are the only means to pay.
• Surcharge no 5 -  Fuel surcharge –I do not understand how they can  know how much extra the  fuel will cost at the time of booking.
• Surcharge no 6 – If you want to take hold luggage then you are going to have to pay for it. The cost for this has risen dramatically over the last few years.

Let me give you an example of flights that we have booked recently

1. Fare: 62.00 Euros
2. Spanish Departure Tax: 13.20 Euros
3. Spanish Handling Charge: 7.20 Euros
4. Fuel Surcharge: 45.36 Euros
5. UK Departure Tax: 30.70 Euros
6. Passenger Service Charge: 28.54 Euros (I have no idea what that is for)
7. Then we need to add on the cost of hold luggage at 19.99 Euros per case each way.

The result is that we started with an advertised price of 62.00 Euros and ended up paying 266.96 Euros. To be fair that is cheap when you consider the distance we will be flying and the cost of alternative ways of travelling. It just doesn’t seem honest to lead you to believe that your flights are going to be cheap.

Of course you can avoid paying for hold luggage by only taking cabin baggage with you but you must read the small print carefully. The size of that cabin luggage is very specific and varies between different airlines. And if it won’t fit in the cage at the airport then you will be forced to pay to have the bag put in the hold.

Ryanair for example,  charge £40 for any over sized hand luggage that has to go in the hold at check in and £50 if you manage to get to the gate with it.

The Daily Mail now tells us that Servisair staff at Liverpool John Lennon airport (why did they ever change the name?) are rewarded with £5 for every ten items of Ryanair hand luggage that has to be put in the hold. That may be considered an incentive for them to be more vigilant and not let through any bags that are just a little oversized. The workers might get their 50p but it is Ryanair that benefits most with a whopping £39.50 per bag.

 

 

The changing face of Blackpool

Even when I was a young lad growing up in Yorkshire, Blackpool was always regarded as a resort for the working classes. It was a place where factory workers from Lancashire, Yorkshire and Cheshire used to go for their two weeks summer holidays. In those days, the middle classes preferred Cleveleys, Lytham or Southport for their vacations.

The attractions that drew my family to Blackpool were the world famous lights, the tower and of course the wonderful fish and chips. On the few occasions that we holidayed there, we’d stay in B&Bs; spend our days on the beach with our parents, sat in deck chairs on the prom and by night we’d visit the Tower Circus, enjoy a show or just stroll along the prom with a bag of those fish and chips.

Since those days of my youth, I have only been back to Blackpool on a few occasions. When I was Master of my Masonic Lodge, Pam and I went there for the Master’s ball. I also went there to receive my promotion into Provincial Grand Lodge. I remember that we took our children once when my parents stayed outside the town in their caravan. Other than that, our preference was for the more genteel resorts on the Dorset coast.

Yesterday, Pam and I went for the day to Blackpool with Jemma, Laura, Dave and Molly and it was an eye opener. By day, it was just the same but without the deck chairs. There was a good mix of families, young and old enjoying a day of sunshine. We went into the Tower Ballroom to watch the dancers twirl elegantly across the floor to the sounds of the Wurlitzer organ. We ate fish and chips at Harry Ramsden’s and then strolled out along the North Pier. Finally we walked back along the promenade to see the lights. It was a great day out that we all enjoyed.

As I say,  by daytime it was much the same but as darkness fell you could sense that the town was being transformed. The families had largely gone home leaving the promenade to the young who were out for the night. There was  a party of young ladies (I use that word reservedly) dressed as Victorian tarts whose first port of call was for food – very sensible because drinking copious shots of vodka on an empty stomach is not clever.

If we’d stayed longer I have no doubt we would have seen many similar groups of both men and women hell bent on consuming as much alcohol as they could before the night was out. By the early hours of the morning when these young people eventually spilt out onto the pavements - it would not have been a pretty sight.
The argument goes that it is these stag and hen parties that keep Blackpool going by bringing money into the town. That may be true but they are also adding fuel to the all too familiar image of modern Britain as a country where binge drinking and excess are regarded as the norm for young people.

Sadly, Blackpool has a long way to go if it wants to shake off the tawdry image that is has created for itself and return once more to being a resort where families feel safe to stay.

Great grandad meets Nemo

After we had been to the Blue Planet Aquarium near Ellesmere Port we called in to see Great Granddad Arthur at Mayfields.
Although Arthur is suffering from dementia, he did seem to recognise Molly and knew that she was his relative. As you can see, he was quite taken with the toy fish that daddy had bought Molly.

It was good to see Arthur looking well. For near 89, he is physically in fine shape, he eats well, still enjoys endless cups of tea and remembers who we are when we visit him. I don’t think you can ask for more than that.

As usual, we took him a box of chocolates which were half gone by the time we left.

The little witch

Molly in her outfit ready for a Halloween disco.

When we were young, Halloween was just an American thing that we might have heard about in films and on American TV. Like a lot of Yankee customs, it moved across the Atlantic to Britain’s shores and took hold.

These days many shops cash in on the idea with all manner of blood curdling things for parents to buy for their offspring. Everything from ghoulish masks to bottles of bat’s blood.

PS I wonder how long it will be before Britain starts celebrating Independence Day and Thanksgiving?

A one way ticket

I was fascinated by the size of this Japanese kamikaze plane in the Museum of Science and Industry.

This tiny aircraft was designed to be catapulted from an aircraft carrier.  Once it the air it flew to its target using a rocket engine. The unused fuel was the bomb.  Obviously there was no need for an undercarriage because it was not intended to land in the conventional manner.

Most interesting was the fact that pilots either volunteered or were chosen for these missions.  Dave and I did wonder, what the criteria might be for being chosen.

Manchester weather

With just a few breaks when the sun tried to break through, it has generally been wet and rainy since we arrived in Manchester. Still, it hasn’t spoilt our fun.

Saturday, Dave and I took Molly to the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. What a brilliant place that is, lots to see and plenty to amuse children of all ages including those of Molly’s age.

Sunday we drove over to Liverpool to meet up with our great friends Pete and Laura. What we did not realise was that yesterday was the say they’d chosen to hold the first marathon run in Liverpool in 18 years. That did make access to the waterfront difficult. However we eventually found somewhere to park and met up.

Pete has recently had a very scary health issues so it was good to see him looking fine. In fact, I would say he actually has lost some weight. 

Why we live in Spain

There are lots of reasons why we now prefer our lives in Spain. Principally, being retired, we have time to do the things that we want rather than having to fit everything in to a work schedule.

The other big plus is the weather. When it rains in Bigastro it pours down and we stay in the house because we know that within hours, a day at the most it will stop and the sun will come out to dry everywhere up. In Manchester, where we are at the moment, when it rain it continues for days.

Yesterday it rained more or less all day and then again throughout the night. This morning, there is a bit of respite and we did briefly see the sun break through but we know form the forecast that the rain will return.

Although it is lovely to come and visit people and we do enjoy shopping in England, at the end of our stay we are pleased to be back in Spain where we now belong.

Happy New Year

The start of a new decade was heralded in by possibly the best fireworks that Britain has produced. Over the last few years, the display at Sidney harbour has outshone those on the Thames but this year the tables were turned. I think you could say that London light up the sky last night.

Here in Sale, the fireworks were a little more low key but what did feature strongly were the Chinese lanterns. Literally hundreds of them floated up into the sky and were whisked along by the light wind.

Masterchef

Most chefs these days seem to have what they call a “signature dish”. Usually these are elaborate concoctions made from exotic ingredients that normal cooks would not have easy access to. There is no doubt that it takes great skill, a lot of experience and knowledge to produce a “signature dish”.

For me, though it is equally creative to make something special out of ordinary ingredients. Taking a classic simple recipe and making it your own requires the same culinary skills that bless the so called masterchefs.

Meat and potato pie is a true British staple that countless housewives make during the winter months. In my sixty odd years I must have tasted scores of meat and potato pies. I can honestly say though that none have tasted better than the one that Dave’s mother made yesterday. That includes the ones that my Grandmother used to make - she was a real expert at this dish being blessed with the cold hands necessary to make good pastry.

Joan has clearly  practised this recipe countless times, honing down her skills with the dish until it has reached perfection. The wrong variety of potatoes, lesser quality meat even indifferent pastry would spoil the end result. Luckily, Joan got it right and the pie was as tasty as it looks in my photograph.

Ten minutes is nothing

After days of the watching transport chaos that has bedevilled most of Britain for the last week or so, we anticipated the worst yesterday when we flew to Manchester. As it happened, the plane was late leaving Alicante but that was nothing to do with the weather; apparently baggage handlers in Manchester were working to rule – classic timing guys!

Even though the plane was late leaving, it made up time and eventually arrived at Manchester just ten minutes late. Then of course we had to wait and wait for our cases to arrive on the carousel thanks to those baggage handlers.

As for the temperature here – the thermometer outside has stayed below zero since we arrived and tomorrow it promises to hit 18 in the West Midlands where we are spending Christmas. Ah well, at least the beers should be cold!

No let up for the next month

Locals complaining about the cold here in Bigastro find it hard to contemplate how bad it might be in Britain this winter. So far the country has seen some of the coldest temperatures and heaviest snowfalls since 1981, but with no let up on the horizon, it could end up being the worst winter since 1910.For the next few days

Today
A chilly and often cloudy day, locally foggy at first, though brighter in the south and the northwest with some lengthy sunny periods in western Scotland. Occasional light rain for some eastern areas, most frequent along coasts of eastern England.

Showers continuing in many eastern parts, especially near coasts. Elsewhere dry with variable amounts of cloud, with icy patches on some roads and fog developing locally under cloud breaks.

Tuesday will see showers near eastern coasts, with outbreaks of light rain spreading further inland across central and southern parts. Turning clearer and colder in southeast England later. Dry with variable cloud elsewhere.

Wednesday will be mainly dry. Heavy rain sweeping southwards on Thursday, giving way to frequent snow showers and a risk of widespread ice later Thursday and on Friday. Turning very cold again.

Friday 17 Dec 2010 to Sunday 26 Dec 2010:

Very cold and unsettled on Friday and through the weekend, with strong northwesterly winds bringing frequent snow showers to many places. Some significant accumulations are likely in places leading to some disruption, and with strong winds in places, there is a risk of drifting leading to temporary blizzard conditions. It will be very cold with icy stretches and widespread overnight frosts, these perhaps becoming locally severe through the first weekend as winds fall lighter. During the following week, it will stay mostly cold or very cold with further wintry showers in places and the risk of freezing fog. There is however a chance that some southern and perhaps central parts may become less cold for a time, but with a risk of rain, sleet and snow, particularly in the southwest.

Monday 27 Dec 2010 to Monday 10 Jan 2011:

Continuing unsettled and often windy with further wintry showers and perhaps some longer outbreaks of snow in places. Temperatures look set to be generally below average for much of the UK, with a risk of frost and ice in places. However, some milder spells are likely with rain rather than snow, especially in the south.

From an English garden

Some of the plants in the Spanish gardens I have photographed can be found in English gardens for example roses, fuchsias and carnations. Others are too tender to be grown this far north.

However, there is plenty of choice for colour in most parts of Britain. These are a few of the plants I found in the garden of our very good friends, Hugh and Angela on the Wirral.

We went over to see them yesterday and enjoyed a fabulous BBQ. I have to tell you, when it comes to cooking on a charcoal Weber, Hugh is the master.

Retail therapy

Taking time out from sorting out Pam’s father’s house to enjoy a little retail therapy in Chester. Pam, Laura and Molly scoured the "girlie" shops whilst I took time out to grab more photos of one of my favourite cities.

Long to reign over us

The present Queen of Egland has been on the throne since 1952. However, her predecessors did not fare as well. These are just cheap pieces of coronation memorabilia from their reigns that we have found at Pam’s father’s house.

	Edward VIII  only reigned from 20 January 1936 until his abdication on 11 December the same year. He’d caused a constitutional crisis by proposing marriage to the American divorcée Wallis Simpson. After his abdication, he was took the title Duke of Windsor
	George V  reigned from 6 May 1910  until his death in 1936 a mere 26 years. George was the first British monarch of the House of Windsor, which he created from the British branch of the German House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.