Wild Life - Nature Will Find A Way?

The garden is looking better , but last weekend we had Bill , Nick , Lesley and Matt down for a great weekend ....and found we had a frog in outr new water feature!!! Given that we are in an enclosed block of houses surrounded by roads and more houses and the nearest parkland is half a mile a away and god knows where the nearest open water is!!!

Anyway some pictures of our visitor:




















The following day we were in Alnwick , again with lots of wildlife in the Castle , including a falconry and owlery display , which was most entertaining , some more pictures here:











The Knights Quest and Dragon's Quest are well worth a visit , especially if you are a child. Some of the displays are here , but there are some great surprises.

Can Manchester Really Be That Bad Part 2?

Well , again no. On finding the car park we caught a bus into Picadilly and from there went to the shopping centre, featuring the done up Arndale , Marks and Spencers , Selfridges , Harvey Nichols a big wheel , The Triangle , The Printworks (equivalent of Newcastle's Gate Complex , wonder what THEY destroyed) which does have a Cafe Rouge , but to it's detriment contains a Hard Rock Cafe (Very Expensive Burger Joint).

These are some views from the Wheel:

This is a view of an odd Wigwam , the other side of the Triangle. and the old square and big church thing. and theres a picture of the Wheel itself!!

Can Manchester Really Be That Bad Part 1?

On the Wednesday we were off to see
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss at the Manchester Apollo. In these modern times , and being used to the civilised venues in Newcastle such as The Sage , City Hall , Tyne Theatre and even The Metro Arena we expected a pleasant area with onsite or nearby parking.

Wrong!!!

The Apollo is a great old Auditorium that has definitely seen better days , and is in an inner city wasteland, with no car parks obvious . Luckily the local chemist directed us to Grafton Street NHS car park , which is multi story , manned 24 hours and 15 minutes walk from the Apollo, and at the time of writing not marked on multimap.

There's a few pubs on Grafton street , the Bowling Green was most pleasant and served some of the most exotic burgers I've seen on sale anywhere including Reindeer!!!

Practically Peaking

Just returned from a week in the Peaks so to speak, and a rather nice part of the country it is. On the Sunday it was pouring down and we listened as Leicester , Sheffield Wednesday, Coventry City and Southampton tried to avoid the drop from the Championship, and Stoke and West Brom easily went the other way.

The week's only blackspot was getting caught returning from the Robert Plant and Alison Krauss gig at the Manchester Apollo by speed cameras in some suburban backwater, however if a letter comes through I'll be challenging it as apparently you have to have well lit warnings. More information on how to challenge courtesy of the Sunday Mirror here

Buxton , Bakewell , Manchester and the scenery are all excellent and this is an area well worth visiting , plus some funny tourist moments such as in the Monsal Head pub when the guy asked if the Cod on the menu was "local" ...... Hmmmmm

An excellent part of the country to visit and here's a list of cottages in the area just in case you fancy it.

The one that we stayed in was Barn End Cottage in Blackwell in the Peak and you can check it out here