Hawksmoor Day 1

Abandoned kits to catch train to Manchester. The trains were well behaved, the passengers not so much.

One suit type and one stubbly artist type argued over reserved seats. Venomous insults such as ‘you have very bad manners and clearly have no idea how to shave’ and ‘are all your suits blue, because you look like a conformist to me’ flew thick and fast.

A punch by each failed to make contact with anything other than a bewildered bluebottle, and they finally settled for sitting opposite to engage in a glaring contest. Right up until they each got distracted by their iPhones bleeping.

Father was waiting on the correct platform at exactly the point my carriage stopped (which was very impressive) and escorted me to our chauffeur driven vehicle (otherwise known as a Number 3 free city bus) which dropped us off vaguely near Hawksmoor.

Passed Museum of Science and Industry which apparently has fabulous old cars inside and planned to go there later.

I was greeted with coffee and lunch, which included a scrummy cream cake, all lovingly prepared by mother.

The day was shaping up awesomely.

Then we went shopping, ultimate target M&S, which meant that, naturally, it started to rain. Heavily.

Museum of Science and Industry was closed for refurbishment.

Undeterred, we headed for the nearest Sainsbury Local, where mother cunningly hid the loaf of bread she’d identified as hers at the back of the bread shelf.

Then we took a number 3 bus from outside the Sainsbury to the Arndale Centre.

Or at least to a stop where we could change on to a number 2 which would take us to the Arndale centre.

Except that, having been on the number 3 for ten or fifteen minutes, we eventually realised that we were approaching an astonishingly familiar Sainsbury’s.

So we got off and walked instead.

Having located the Arndale Centre, we discovered that there was no M&S. So we looked around BHS, where mother took an escalator up. And immediately took the escalator down. Apparently because she likes escalators (I’m now thinking about getting her an Oyster card for Christmas – hours of fun…).

We then all took the escalator up, and with some help from the nice BHS lady, located M&S further down the road. Purchases purchased, we located the number 2 bus directly outside M&S and got on that, planning to stay on, as it’s a circular route that would drop us off not too far away from our Sainsbury Local.

After travelling for ten minutes in the wrong direction, the driver announced last stop and kicked us all off.

Fortunately it was a bus station, and after navigating stand numbers and zebra crossings, we located the next number 2 which took us where we wanted to go. Sainsbury’s Local still had the loaf of bread that mother had sneakily hidden, and we headed back to the boat.

Now have a cup of tea and a large pink wine. Will head off to the pub shortly for food (no buses involved).