Manchester!
I spent the weekend in Manchester visiting Nelly, who took me to museums, canals, the cinema (we saw the Spiderwick Chronicles which was very good), cooked me a Bulgarian dish and generally was a 5-star host, despite the fact that I managed to break one of her umbrellas in the wind, repeatedly. It was fun.
On Saturday, we sheltered from the torrential rain in a museum, I think it was a natural history museum, based on the replica T-rex and selection of minerals/rock/pretty amazing crystal things inside. They did also have an ancient Egyptian section with actual unwrapped mummy, which was a bit creepy. Oh and Mayan pottery and jewellery and a good selection of longbows! There were a lot of other weapons/musical instruments there, but the longbows were the best.
Apologies if I'm incoherent, I'm exhausted and quite possibly have a temperature. That's public transport for you.
Anyway, after the museum we managed to find a cinema and saw the Spiderwick Chronicles, which is one film that really is as good as its trailer. Though it made me jump a fair bit. Which PG films are not supposed to do! Anyway, I'd recommend it.
Saturday night was dinner at Zizzi's, which was delicious. Very delicious, and very good value (if you drank the tap water). Their toilets were amazing. Each cubicle was a small room! complete with your own (weird yet stylishly tray-shaped) washbasin and hand dryer and corner mirror and really nice shiny marble-effect floor/walls.. and I'm raving about a toilet. I'll stop now.
Sunday, the clocks changed. Need I say more?
We visited the reconstructed Roman fort walls, and wandered round the canal system after following a sign for more Roman stuff pointing in the wrong direction! Still, the bridges were interesting. And the drawbridge for the private barge-parking-bay was just cool. Then it was the Museum of Science and Industry which was again interesting, the exhibit of planes from initial attempts to latest technology and the exhibit of working locomotive and other assorted contraptions were the best Industry parts. From the science section it's a tie between the Xperiment section (where we got to play with a great variety of toys illustrating scientific principles) and the famous Manchester scientists rooms (Dalton, Joule, Rutherford, Geiger and Marsden, to name a few - It was like revisiting my A-levels looking round there!).
Sunday evening Nelly cooked me a lovely Bulgarian dish, which was kind of like Shepard's pie, but not, and for which I peeled the potatoes (credit where it's due people! :P). We then settled down with her housemate to an evening of DVD watching, complete with chocolate, tea and wine.
Wait, I haven't mentioned the sofa bed yet have I? It was very comfortable. This is part of the reason why I gave her 5 stars. The other parts of the reason were the sheets put over said sofa bed and the selection of pillows to choose from. Also the food and the fact that she did research on things to do in Manchester before I arrived.
I believe that takes us to Monday, when I successfully navigated the city's bus system alone (go me) and found a shopping centre in which to pass the time. I stumbled on a Waterstones with an in-house cafe, internet access and a lounge where you're actually allowed to sit and read the books! Why are all bookshops not like that?!
The train and tube journey back was annoying in ways only a very very tired person with a headache can be annoyed. Although possibly other people found the fast-asleep-lightly-snoring-man annoying and were just better than me at not glaring resentfully.
In other news, today we sadly scuppered the rabbit's April Fools' plan by filling in the hole it was excavating next to the vegetable patch. I can only assume this was a practical joke to wind my Dad up because, really, digging a burrow next to his vegetable patch in broad daylight...
On Saturday, we sheltered from the torrential rain in a museum, I think it was a natural history museum, based on the replica T-rex and selection of minerals/rock/pretty amazing crystal things inside. They did also have an ancient Egyptian section with actual unwrapped mummy, which was a bit creepy. Oh and Mayan pottery and jewellery and a good selection of longbows! There were a lot of other weapons/musical instruments there, but the longbows were the best.
Apologies if I'm incoherent, I'm exhausted and quite possibly have a temperature. That's public transport for you.
Anyway, after the museum we managed to find a cinema and saw the Spiderwick Chronicles, which is one film that really is as good as its trailer. Though it made me jump a fair bit. Which PG films are not supposed to do! Anyway, I'd recommend it.
Saturday night was dinner at Zizzi's, which was delicious. Very delicious, and very good value (if you drank the tap water). Their toilets were amazing. Each cubicle was a small room! complete with your own (weird yet stylishly tray-shaped) washbasin and hand dryer and corner mirror and really nice shiny marble-effect floor/walls.. and I'm raving about a toilet. I'll stop now.
Sunday, the clocks changed. Need I say more?
We visited the reconstructed Roman fort walls, and wandered round the canal system after following a sign for more Roman stuff pointing in the wrong direction! Still, the bridges were interesting. And the drawbridge for the private barge-parking-bay was just cool. Then it was the Museum of Science and Industry which was again interesting, the exhibit of planes from initial attempts to latest technology and the exhibit of working locomotive and other assorted contraptions were the best Industry parts. From the science section it's a tie between the Xperiment section (where we got to play with a great variety of toys illustrating scientific principles) and the famous Manchester scientists rooms (Dalton, Joule, Rutherford, Geiger and Marsden, to name a few - It was like revisiting my A-levels looking round there!).
Sunday evening Nelly cooked me a lovely Bulgarian dish, which was kind of like Shepard's pie, but not, and for which I peeled the potatoes (credit where it's due people! :P). We then settled down with her housemate to an evening of DVD watching, complete with chocolate, tea and wine.
Wait, I haven't mentioned the sofa bed yet have I? It was very comfortable. This is part of the reason why I gave her 5 stars. The other parts of the reason were the sheets put over said sofa bed and the selection of pillows to choose from. Also the food and the fact that she did research on things to do in Manchester before I arrived.
I believe that takes us to Monday, when I successfully navigated the city's bus system alone (go me) and found a shopping centre in which to pass the time. I stumbled on a Waterstones with an in-house cafe, internet access and a lounge where you're actually allowed to sit and read the books! Why are all bookshops not like that?!
The train and tube journey back was annoying in ways only a very very tired person with a headache can be annoyed. Although possibly other people found the fast-asleep-lightly-snoring-man annoying and were just better than me at not glaring resentfully.
In other news, today we sadly scuppered the rabbit's April Fools' plan by filling in the hole it was excavating next to the vegetable patch. I can only assume this was a practical joke to wind my Dad up because, really, digging a burrow next to his vegetable patch in broad daylight...