Ooop north, like
Greetings from Manchester! It’s a sunny day, and judging by a couple of instant messenger coversations I’ve had from people back down south, it would appear that we have the best of the weather here for a change. People are walking past wearing shorts, and I’m drinking a vanillia frapuccino whilst sat in Starbucks using their wireless hotspot overlooking Piccadilly Gardens where the trams rumble by.
iPod contributor, fellow tube-geek and good friend-all-round Paul Webb is putting me up (putting up with me?) for a few days as I hang out at his place in Clitheroe, Lancashire. It’s nice here … it really is the sort of place where people leave their doors open and you can walk in and chat to your neighbour and think nothing of it.
I came up via Warrington on Friday, to drop in and accept the hospitality of another iPerson, George Pilkington which meant that I finally got round to have that “Geoff meets George with iPod” photo at last – which here is in front of his pond is his garden.
George is rightly proud of his garden, and in my short visit there I think I learnt more (that I actually remembered) about nature than I’ve done in my life before. He grows hit own vegetables, has numerous bird feeders, a pond with loads of frogs and an intruiging worm-compost receptacle, of which I now really want to get one. I should probably get a house with a garden first though. But I’ve bookmarked his nurturing nature site for future reference.
So we sat, watching the sunset in his back garden whilst sinking many a can of Guinness and talking complete blokey nonsense. It was nice. I also got to see his impressive double-Mac setup, although he avoided the hardsell in the Apple product line to me and instead we just compared iTunes libraries and ~cough~ copied a few songs off of each other.
The next day – Saturday, I met up with Paul, who works at the Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester where he showed me round before setting off to spend a few relaxing days in cosy Clitheroe.
We did act like boys on trains though, and took a trip on Sunday to Carlisle on the famous Settle & Carlisle line. We drank tea, ate biscuits, and spread our boys mess over the table in front of us. Hey you with the one track mind! I mean things like my iPod, train ticket and tea. Mmm… tea. We were on first name terms with the bloke that kept bringing down the refreshment trolley by the end of the journey.
Anyway, the line goes through the quite simply stunning Yorkshire Dales in a route with several tunnels and viaducts. Over 300 men died when building the line back in the 19th century, and was saved from closure a few years ago after a local campaign, and is now a tourist favourite, especially for walkers and ramblers who like to get out halfway and walk back through the beautiful countryside.
We didn’t get off the train and doing any walking .. well, unless it was to the nearest pub to experience some fine local Lancashire ale – all of which I am happy to report is fine and dandy and goes down very well. And to Alan that just emailed me today asking “Is it all mushy peas & gravy then?”, well – almost, as I did have a fine feed of fish and chips with mushy peas the other day.
A good new new word that I’ve also learnt in the past few days is “Giffer” – which is your traditional old man that sits in a pub with a flat cap, smoking a pipe. Plenty of those types here in the pub which also did not appear to know the the meaning of the phrase ‘Closing time’ on Sunday night, and brown-y points all round to the other local pub “Brown Cow”, which has a board up in its window advertising to come and play dominoes. How fantastically northern is that?!
Paul also observed that I’d come up wearing ‘The Shoes’ with the brown laces in and not the orange ones … and I’ll fess up now and tell you that I’ve actually left the orange ones at home this week. I’ll swap ‘em round as soon as I get back home. Promise.
After living in London for the first 33 years of my life and working for the 
So for ten weeks in June, July and August 2009, I drove 20,000 miles around the the lower 48 contiguous states of the USA visiting towns and places that shared the same name as places on The London
Does this mean that you now have a handy laptop to Blog your way around the country?
Eey oop Lad. Did they understand your poncy Southern accent though?
Have you had any barm cakes yet? Or hotpot? Or seen any whippets?
The Highlands of Scotland was the only place in the UK where I’ve been where doors are open like that. It is quite refreshing, isn’t it? or rather ‘appen?
George is a good man for not preaching Mac at you. He probably knows one day you’ll come to Jesus on your own. Not sure I could have been as restrained.
Sounds like a great time though! (I wonder if you’ll be dropping all your “h’s” now?)
…remember to go into a chip shop and ask for scraps…. nice!
When you get your garden and wormy bin, if you kill off the first batch you can have a handfull of the worms in my compost bin. You’ll have to organise the transport of them yourself tho.
It’s true. I’ve bought a laptop. Wireless internet hotspot cafes now draw me in.
I *almost* thought about getting an iBook, then came to my senses and went down the windoze route. anyway, i am now uber-mobile in every sense of the word. aye.
Whippets.. no. Men with flat caps and pipes.. yes! It’s all good.
Tomorrow, it’s time to invade the Fox’s biscuits factory in Batley… watch this space!
Oh, and i’ve been down the pub this evening ~hic!~ drinking a local Bolton Brew that REALLY IS called “Flat Cap Beer” – How fantastic is that !!
Yes, and very funny it was too when Geoff came on MSN late last night. Myself and Annie Mole couldn’t understand a word he was typing.
Geoff – northern ale is stronger than poncy Fosters …
He’s like a kid in a sweet shop isn’t he?
I was almost hoping he was going to make a drunken blog post:
“DEar rall
Am in cliterow going to sssseeee biskits tgomorrqw will upadte wjhen iget bcka Moost ete mroe bovreal and cumprtets now
cu Gofef”
I didn’t realise that Starbucks had Wireless Internet in the shops. This could now mean coming into town, for no reason at all, with my laptop surfing the ‘net! Sounds like heaven!
I **have** to talk to you about securing my “rooter,” speaking of wireless. I am ready to pitch this rooter and its inane, indecipherable users manual into the blue Pacific. It cannot be +this+ difficult to set a password on a wireless network. I’m really in a “strop” about it. Sorry you went w/ windoze. Mebbe next time. (And you’d have wanted to spend the extra money for a PowerBook over an iBook anyway.)
Gross. The pic of the lovely fish and chips completely DESTROYED by the mushy peas. As a child my father would plead with me to eat my peas, offered up to a million dollars (he did not have) if I would only eat one pea. One pea is nothing compared to that soggy mess contaminating the rest of that lovely meal dammit. At least, I must say, we kids here in Canada were never subjected to MUSHY peas!