Manchester 12

Saturday 19th to Thursday 24th May

Good grief, how time flies! Especially when you have the fun of unpacking and re-packing. We will only be in this flat a short time, though it is hard to tell how short at present. We are due down in London over the Jubilee weekend, to attend some friends' 40th wedding anniversary party on the Saturday and also a street party on the following Monday. I though of going to see the Jubilee procession on the Thames on the Sunday, but by all accounts it will be hard to see anything, so I am a bit ambivalent about that. On June 6th, after the holidays are over, I have to go in to work to talk about the possibility of my doing some, so I am not sure if and when I'll be back in Manchester. If the work turns out not to be every day, I will be up and down a bit so I can give some help with the new house as well as helping the final move out of the flat. My son is hoping the flat can be let for a while after July as it is in negative equity, so we need to make sure it starts out clean and fit to let. While I am not working in London, I need to be sorting out, cleaning and tidying in up in Manchester. Heaven knows when I can do the same in my own house.

Our days have passed in unpacking and deciding what we need here, then re-packing what we don't need. The boxes need to be carefully labelled, so we know where to look to find things. I daresay there will be lots of things we find we don't need at all - after all, we lived out of one suitcase each from August last year until now - 9 months - so we really don't need all the stuff we keep in boxes. It is just hard to throw out things with sentimental value. The bedroom is more or less organised



but downstairs is still a disaster area, full of boxes.

Our time has also partly been spent visiting shops that sell sofa beds, as we need a new one. Paul wants a comfy sofa in his study, and it seems sensible to make it a sofa bed as we hope to have visiting grandchildren as well as their parents. But the room isn't huge, so we need a compact one, and we need to be able to sit on it before we buy it. This seems impossible in many places, where they seem to expect you to buy from a catalogue or on the Internet, but it must be a bit difficult if you find it uncomfortable when it arrives in your home. I hated the sofa in the flat we rented last March in Manchester, because it was so deep if I sat with my back against the back of it, my legs didn't reach the floor, and if I slumped on it, I got a sore back. And we have sat on sofas which were far too firm, and others which were too soft. So we need to try before we buy. We have made several long expeditions to shops all over the place, without finding anything we like - or in some cases, anything at all.

We have also passed time at the new house looking after my grandson as well as doing odd jobs. Yesterday, Paul put up a washing line in the garden (must make use of the beautiful weather), mended the garage side door (the lock had come right out of the door jamb) and tried to stop the washing machine dancing about in the basement. In the end, sitting on it proved to be the only possibility yesterday; it will have to be screwed down in some way or it will dance away from its waste pipe and water connections. And our grandson makes such a mess while eating that the kitchen floor need cleaning after every meal, not to mention the mess everybody makes while trekking in from the garden. Our grandson is fascinated by any little item he finds on the floor and immediately puts it in his mouth, so we have to keep sweeping the floor - I think I did it 3 or 4 times yesterday, and we were only there a few hours. He adores the fact he can just go out to the garden, and goes in and out all the time. There are big wooden steps down onto paving stones, so we have to be behind him constantly, to ensure he doesn't fall down backwards. It certainly keeps us busy!

We still take him to the park near the flat, as it is very big and there is a babies' playground. He is very happy running about on the grass though



and found the daisies quite fascinating today - he hasn't seen those before.



Tomorrow we hope to take him to Chester Zoo - we are taking advantage of the good weather, as apparently it won't last!


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Manchester 11

Tuesday 15th to Friday 18th May
Well, events have moved on apace here, though they slowed down when we became caught up in the bedroom curtain saga. It is astonishingly difficult to buy patterned blackout curtains for a child's bedroom, especially long ones suitable for the large windows of an Edwardian house. Of course you can have them made, but that pre-supposes that you have plenty of time. So our son's solution was to buy some lined curtains which would fit, and some cheerful material, and attach the extra material to the front of the curtains. They have no sewing machine, but they have a friend who does, so one night (Sunday or Monday) they went to her house and started work. The curtains were wider than the material, so an extra piece of material was bought, to be cut in half lengthwise to attach to the side of the curtain length so as to widen it. My son did the cutting of the material - not very successfully, I have to say. It would have been better if they had had a longer measuring tape, he claims. I think it would have been better if he had just cut it straight! Then he sewed the first seam, so he ended with a piece of cloth sufficiently large to cover one curtain. It would have helped if he had noticed that the two bits of material that he joined up together to make this piece of cloth were a different way up, but you can't have everything!

At that point, the friend's sewing machine broke, and they returned home despondent and curtain-less. A further problem was that the original lined curtains were not blackout curtains, and our daughter-in-law doubted that our grandson would go to sleep in a room that wasn't completely dark - he is used to it being very dark in his room in the flat. So the curtains needed to have the extra material added. At the same time, our son wanted to move in, as the kitchen was more or less ready, provided Paul could manage to connect the kitchen tap. The kitchen does look so much better - and it was a great luxury to sit at a proper table and eat breakfast. There are still things to finish as you can see but the end is now in sight.

On Tuesday morning I went over to the flat and we reviewed all possible curtain options. I got a needle, some pins and a lot of thread and prepared to do some pinning and hand sewing. It was difficult, as the curtain was very large and there were already two layers, but I got the material pinned and tacked into the correct position along the top of one curtain and pinned it along both sides. I also managed a hem, which wasn't easy, as somebody hadn't cut it very straight. This took most of a day, as it had to be spread out on the floor and so needed to be done when our grandson wasn't around, as I didn't want him eating the pins. In the meantime, my daughter-in-law had spoken to somebody she knew in the supermarket who said his sister was a seamstress and could help. This lady phoned on Tuesday night and arrangements were made to deliver her the curtains on Wednesday at lunchtime.

On Wednesday morning my grandson had to go to the doctor's; he had been unwell for several days, seeming to have tooth trouble as well as a high fever, diarrhoea and earache. The doctor said most of the problems were caused by a virus, and the earache and fever would go away and the diarrhoea would improve if he starved a bit. Poor little chap, having to move to a new house and an unfamiliar bedroom and do it on a starvation diet! He wasn't all that hungry on Wednesday anyway, fortunately. After the doctor, I looked after him while my daughter-in-law went off to deal with the curtains - a 40 minute drive, in the end.

Later that evening, she and my son went back to collect the curtains, to find that things had not quite gone according to plan. There was possibly a language problem, as it appeared the seamstress had not quite understood exactly what was required. The curtain I had pinned and tacked was fine; but she had not understood that, for the second curtain, a piece of extra material needed to be added to the side of the patterned width to make it wide enough to cover the curtain. So there was a nice piece of patterned material sewn neatly onto the curtain, but it didn't cover the entire curtain, there was an uncovered strip down each side!

While we considered the curtain problem, I suggested making a temporary blackout for the room with a panel of cardboard, so Paul did this on Thursday morning; there is plenty of cardboard from various delivery boxes, indeed it was used to cover the kitchen floor for quite a while, so he joined various bits with lots of sticky tape. It doesn't look beautiful, but it keeps the light out temporarily.

Eventually, after much to-ing and fro-ing on Thursday morning, we were organised enough to visit our storage and find a huge heap of boxes that might contain things we were likely to need - like plates, cutlery and kitchen equipment, or other clothes. The clothes I am currently wearing have been in my suitcase since we set off for Colorado in January, and I'm sick of looking at them. I'm hoping I'll have a delightful surprise when I open the box marked 'Nora's clothes', though it's so cold here I wonder if I would have been better to bring the box marked 'Nora's winter clothes'.
The boxes were all stacked in the flat on Thursday afternoon. I'm afraid they are still all there - we hope to unpack a bit at the weekend.

When my son came home from work on Thursday, we all moved house! There were still a huge number of their belongings left in the flat, but at least everybody had a bed with bedding and some clothes, and there were some kitchen supplies in both places. We did have a bit of a last minute rush about 10.30, just as they were dropping exhausted into their beds, when we realised they had no cups for breakfast, and went rushing round with them, but mostly we managed it.

Friday was spent unpacking in both places. A bit more unpacking was done in the house because we went there in the morning and helped. Our poor grandson was still fasting because his diarrhoea hadn't cleared up, but he was rather tired of the doctor's recommendation - toast. When my daughter-in-law could stand no more of Paul telling her where to put things in the kitchen, we went out to lunch, and our grandson ate a ham sandwich with great delight. It hadn't disagreed with his interior by the time I left - 11pm, since I babysat so they could go to dinner with friends - so I am hoping he is getting better in that area. He still has toothache and earache though, and now he is coughing a great deal as well, and clearly feels quite poorly much of the time.

He seems to like his new bedroom and is getting used to it gradually. He loves the new 'day room' where he can scatter his toys,



or sit on the big cushions - though he never sits anywhere for long.



He'll sit on the sofa for songs or stories for a short while, and he loves YouTube on the iPad as there are lots of children's songs. It's difficult interesting him in anything for long at present though, as he feels so awful.

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Manchester 10

Friday 11th to Monday 14th May
Some progress has been made with various things over the weekend, so it seems likely that moving can happen this week - perhaps even tomorrow!

Friday was largely spent at the dentists and the hospital. I had an appointment with our son, and so did Paul. It takes an hour to drive there, and I needed a appointment of an hour, since I had two teeth that needed attention. Paul drove back as soon as his teeth were done, as he had to look after our grandson while our daughter-in-law was at the hospital. So not a lot of house things were done on Friday.

However, a lot more was done at the weekend. The huge wardrobe was eventually finished, and is screwed to the wall so it doesn't tip over on the uneven floors. The doors finally made it onto most of the kitchen cabinets. More furniture and boxes of things were also transported, so the house has filled up with boxes awaiting unpacking. The flat is beginning to look quite empty, but unfortunately there still seem to be a lot of things to be moved.

Our son made an attempt at rationalising the garden at the weekend. He tried to sort out the 'lawn', which was more of a weed patch, by putting down some turf. He also removed some soil at the back of the garden so it was more or less level, rather than sloping upwards at the back.

I was looking after our grandson on Sunday, and walked him in his pushchair the mile from the flat to the house, and let him walk about in the little garden. He was completely fascinated by the grass and the soft ground - there's no garden at the flat and he hasn't been walking on his own feet when we go to the park, he's always in the pushchair unless he's on a swing or a see-saw at the playground; the playground is rubberised of course, but he's only just started walking on that.

I'm not sure how he will react to no longer having the washing machine in the kitchen, it's his favourite thing. He far prefers it to the TV, and rushes in to the kitchen whenever he hears it.

He has just said his first recognisable word - apart from the usual mama and dada babbling - he said 'hello'! There's a programme he likes on CBeeBies where they sing a lot of hellos so he's obviously learned it!

He's been gradually getting used to playing in the house on lots of visits and likes his new play area. He particularly likes looking out of the windows - the windows in the church are so high even adults can't look out of them. The large light and sunny room upstairs will be used by mother and child and any day visitors, so it is full of books and toys and floor cushions. Any overnight guests will sleep there, so there's a sofa bed too. The grown-up sitting room downstairs is largely to be off-limits for children - or at least, that's the plan. Adults intend to relax there in the evening in a civilsed manner with music and TV and not be constantly tripping over plastic trucks and sliding on wooden bricks.

On Monday, the kitchen worktop people came and installed the worktop. This means the re-appearance of the kitchen sink, which is wonderful. Now the tap just has to be re-connected, and we'll have running water in the kitchen again. The hob also has to be re-fitted, as it didn't go into quite the same place in the granite as it did in the mdf, and a bit of wood needs to be trimmed off the cabinet underneath. The fridge can now go into place (it's been more or less in the middle of the floor, so it didn't get in the way of men fitting worktops). There is more to be done with the wall cabinets, and the handles still need to be fitted to the cupboards and drawers, but at least the place is starting to look more like a kitchen and less like a building site.

The triumphant looking chap in the photo is the worktop fitter, who is delighted to have finished the thing without Paul explaining to him too many times what he has done wrong.

The washing machine has been plumbed in too! Paul decided it wasn't as difficult as he had thought, so it was done on Sunday. Hopefully, we have had our last visit to the laundrette. Today, I bough some detergent so I can at last wash the bathmats, which are sadly in need of a wash, having been walked on by numbers of men in dirty boots.

Because the sun was shining today, everything started to look more cheerful.



This is the best picture of the house, which is one half of an original large Edwardian building. The front door is round the side - you can just see it past the big tree. You can see the two front rooms with the interesting part of a tower stuck onto the corner. The upper one is the lovely light one which will be in use for most of the day.

The laburnum in the tiny front garden has started to bloom, and Paul cut the grass there, which revealed that it is just random tufts of grass, rather than a tiny lawn. He thinks more turves may be the answer, as otherwise rather a lot of seed would be needed.
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Manchester 9

Thursday 3rd to Thursday 10th May

Dear me, a whole week since I wrote anything. This is because there have not really been any big changes, only cosmetic ones.

The kitchen cabinets are still a work in progress. The drawers have caused many problems, and fancy lighting in the two wall cabinets has been some sort of nightmare. It took a whole day's work and still isn't finished. It was hoped that moving in could begin over the Bank Holiday, but nothing in the kitchen was ready, so they haven't moved in yet, they are still in the flat and we are still in the house, living out of suitcases. I have forgotten what it feels like to have clothes in wardrobes and drawers, and I fear that Paul has become so used to suitcase living that he may insist on doing it for the rest of his life!

The kitchen floor is currently cardboard. Paul used various large boxes from equipment that has been delivered and covered up the wooden floor in case it was damaged by things being dragged about during kitchen building, or tools being dropped. The cupboards are all in place with no doors or drawers, and for some days we had a working sink. Today the man came to measure for the granite worktop and the prepared template which Jon had carefully measured and drawn and placed on the windowsill had completely disappeared! (Paul tidied up on Monday...) So the man took the sink away to make sure the worktop fits properly around it. So there will be no kitchen sink until Monday, when the worktop gets fitted.

We have a working hob and oven. However, we currently don't have any saucepans or utensils (all in storage) and still only our picnic set of two plates and bowls and 4 knives, forks and spoons. So it doesn't matter that the dishwasher isn't plumbed in yet, there is never much to wash up. There isn't a plumbed in washing machine either, though Paul keeps threatening to do it at any minute. He's become rather fond of dropping off a huge bag of washing at the Laundrette in the morning and getting it back at 5 pm washed, dried and folded. He thinks it beats having wet washing hanging about, but I'd like to wash the bathmats which look horrible. They need a cool wash and no drier; I could do them myself at the laundrette but every day he promises the washing machine will soon be working, then does something else which takes all day. Today, he said he thought this particular job is one for the plumber; it is something he has done in the past, but I understand this one is more complicated.

Various small jobs have also been done, like radiator painting, and many of the carpets have been covered in sticky plastic to protect them while this goes on. It seems interminable, they are all scabby and need painting and have to be switched off then rubbed down first. Then they are painted, and take 24 hours to dry. Then they get a second coat.... It goes on and on, and the house is cold because they have to be turned off.

Various bits of woodwork still seem to need painting, so periodically there are rooms to be avoided. A lot of work still needs to be done in the basement, where a ceiling fell down. This needs repair because the utility room will be down there, not to mention untold numbers of important things that need to be kept.

Various visits have been made to Ikea for further furniture and equipment, and doubtless more will be made after they move to the house and we move to the flat and discover what is missing. Wardrobes are being built today - very slowly, as the wardrobes are huge and heavy and the floors aren't level.

I am quite looking forward to moving in to the flat, just because we will no longer be camping. The flat is very nice, being carved out of a huge old Edwardian church. We stayed in the building before, from March to August last year, so as to give help over the birth of our grandson. The original flat we rented had a disaster, as the boiler blew up, and there was no heating or hot water. Fortunately, there was another empty flat and we moved there for a month. This was the open plan downstairs area, which was where the altar originally was in the church.



I would have preferred to stay there, it was such a beautiful flat, but it was already let for the following month, so we had to go back to the original flat once the boiler was replaced and the electrics fixed. The original flat was bigger but not nearly so light, and I found I got very tired of the gloom. Not only did the church windows not let in a lot of light, what light there was, was blocked by the huge and beautiful trees outside. Our son's flat is much smaller, though it does get a bit more light.

The church is very picturesque inside, with the corridor between the flats being what was originally the main aisle.



We will be quite close to the font, which has been kept, you can see it on the right of the photo. The pulpit has also been kept, but it a bit crowded out by bicycles at present, and the cleaners use it to store the mop and bucket.



Most of what I have done since my return from London has been cleaning, shopping, cooking and looking after the little drunk man - our grandson is walking. He had begun to take a step or two by his first birthday, and managed a few more steps by the time he came back from France. He has been climbing the stairs, both up and backwards down, and by now he can also walk a good deal, though still very unsteadily.



He is delighted by his progress, but it is a bit hampered by the fact that he wants to run, not walk. He also suffers because of the weather, as it is so cold he has to wear trousers most of he time, which trip him up. You can see his trousers in the picture have been rolled up. Also, we have to put socks on if his feet get too cold, then he slides on the wooden floors.

He's been a bit grizzly after his inoculations, and we think he's getting more teeth as well as his teeth seem to ache and he wants to bite things. This hasn't stopped him running about like a mad thing down the middle of the church shrieking with joy



though he still falls over when his feet get in a muddle.


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London

Saturday 28th April - Wednesday 2nd May
Saturday was rather a wet day, but I wasn't too concerned as I knew I'd be spending a lot of it sitting in a train. I caught the train to London at 11.15, and arrived just before 1.30, so I was at my sister's by just after 2.30. Shortly after that, the rain was descending in stair rods, so we had no desire to go out and seek culture until there was some prospect of going out without getting soaked. However, we had time to have a good search in newspapers and on-line, and decided to visit the theatre.

We settled for The Duchess of Malfi, which was on at The Old Vic. It wasn't completely sold out, so we were able to get tickets. We were pleasantly surprised because we were able to get inexpensive tickets (£20) at the front of the Circle, in an area known as the slips. These seats are a bit to the side, but close enough to see and hear very well, as long as you don't mind having to turn your head to the side. Considering that the other price of seat we were offered was £75, this seemed a very good deal. Apparently these seats in the slips are only available on the day of the performance.

It was a play which was slightly familiar - I had read it at University, so we knew what to expect; the usual Shakespearian/Jacobean tragedy, first act strewn with rushes, last act strewn with corpses. But we found it really riveting and compelling, with some horrific moments, like the slow strangulation of the Duchess on stage. The last act, with the Duchess being already dead, just piles up more corpses, with the Duchess' waiting woman having her neck gruesomely and loudly broken, and all the main cast members eventually ending up dead. After the curtain calls the cast reminded us of one of the play's themes, that of the so-called 'honour killing' and asked us to donate to a charity which takes care of those who might otherwise be victims of this grisly crime.

Although I found it very gripping, I was also quite gripped by a digestive problem, and probably shouldn't have eaten any supper. So I was quite uncomfortable throughout the performance, and was glad to get back to bed. I found it hard to sleep though with the digestive pain, and as I had already taken a full dose of Zantac, I wasn't able to take any more. I have no idea what brought on the problem, but at least it was the only time during my visit, so it could have been worse.

When we woke on Sunday, it was to more stair rods of rain, so we had no incentive to go out until the weather improved a bit. Then we went to the Picasso exhibition at Tate Britain. I must say I had no idea Picasso had influenced so many modern British artists; the exhibition showed works by Duncan Grant, Wyndham Lewis, Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore, Frances Bacon, Graham Sutherland and David Hockney alongside some of Picasso's work so that the influence became obvious, even to my untutored eye. The exhibition was extremely crowded so I couldn't take pictures, though I managed some of the prints in the shop.

I don't like a lot of Picasso's work, but I did enjoy the exhibition. Afterwards, as it was cold and a bit damp again, we just went back to supper.

I didn't have time to do much on Monday, around getting my hair done and visiting the British Museum to confess that, in my perambulations around the world, I have managed to lose my Friends' card, and need to have it replaced so I can go to the exhibitions free of charge.

I was able to wander a bit in the museum, but it was a wonderfully sunny day and my hair appointment loomed, so I caught a bus to St Paul's as the hairdresser is near there. I know the tube would have been quicker, but it was too beautiful a day to disappear into a hole in the ground. I ate my lunch in the cafe in the crypt of St Pauls, which was lovely and cool. I found I was much too warmly dressed as the temperature soared. Really, the weather recently has been most confusing.

After the haircut etc, I caught another bus to Oxford Street and wandered the whole length of it. I feel a bit starrved of London, but at the moment the whole place is full of tourists and it's quite hard to get about because of the crowds. Later, I went to meet my sister (using the Tube this time, squashed in like a sardine and wretchedly hot) and we caught a train south of London to where we had booked supper with my other son.

I though Tuesday should be another day of culture, so I went to the Royal Academy in the morning to see the Zoffany exhibition.

I didn't know a lot of his work, apart from the portraits of George 3rd and Queen Charlotte, but I enjoyed some of it a great deal, particularly the theatrical paintings. The paintings of court and bourgeois family life I didn't like so much, but there were one or two paintings, notably one of some beggars on the road to Stanmore, which I was really taken with, so I was glad I went to see it. No photographs were allowed of course - and it was a bit too crowded anyway. After lunch at the Royal Academy, I wandered down Picadilly and ducked into the Burlington Arcade when it suddenly started to rain. It's years since I've seen anybody in London getting a shoe shine.

The rain didn't last long, and I decided to play the tourist and pay a visit to Westminster Abbey, somewhere I haven't been for over 50 years. I would guess quite a few Londoners don't visit these places, or only go once as children and then never again.

You can view Westminster Abbey as a tourist attraction, a place of pilgrimage, or a collection of art. It was the art and architecture I went to see, though it is clearly a busy church as well. My back was starting to ache, so I couldn't spend too long there - anyway, on most days you have to leave by 4.30 because evensong is at 5 pm. The architecture is amazing, especially some of the fan vaulting which looks almost as if it is made of delicate white icing rather than stone. There is also exquisite carving and guilding to admire, 15th century altarpieces, stained glass, tiny decorated chapels, the Cosmati pavement, and a wealth of decorated tombs, many of former kings and queens. I was disappointed not to see the coronation chair, but it as been taken away for conservation.

The abbey museum is also of interest, as it has funerary figures dating back to Edward 3rd, mostly of kings and queens, but there is also one of Nelson. I knew he was a small man, but you only realise quite how tiny he was when you are standing next to him. You aren't allowed to take any pictures, which is a pity, but I did take some of the cloisters.



After that I badly needed a seat and a cup of tea, so went to the Jewel Tower. But it was too hot to sit outside, and my back was too painful to allow me to go in for further sightseeing, so I walked past the Houses of Parliament and the statues



and the thousands of tourists and caught a tube to Embankment from where I crossed the Hungerford Bridge, pausing to admire the wonderful views of the river



And stopped at the Royal Festival Hall for a comfortable seat with a nice cup of tea. I really do miss London!

Just after 6.30 I met my sister at the National Theatre for supper, then we saw Collaborators, a new play about Stalin and Mikhail Bulgakov. I found it fascinating, with its themes of the dreadful compromised an artist may have forced on him by a dictatorship, and the ways in which he can be humiliated. The powerlessness of the individual when confronted by the state and the arbitrariness of the individual's fate were truly chilling, and make you appreciate life in Britain all the more - thank goodness we don't live under a dictatorship.

Wednesday was the day of my talk, and I intended to be in London early to do my final preparations. I was in plenty of time to catch the 9.24 train and there was a 9.39 train as a backup. Unfortunately, both were cancelled! The next one, due at 9.54, didn't arrive until nearly 10, so I wasn't back in my old office until nearly 11. This meant I was quite short of time to prepare for the talk. Fortunately, there were no problems and the talk went well. Afterwards, I caught up with various emails and things in my old office until going home time, and then went to Euston for my train back to Manchester.

The house in Manchester wasn't much further forward. Most of the kitchen is in place, and the fridge is now in the kitchen as well - no more barefoot early morning trips to the garage for milk for breakfast! More problems have emerged with kitchen building though, so it still isn't in a finished state. It seems quite daft, but you can buy, from an apparently reputable DIY store, a wine rack to fit next to your kitchen cupboards which has a set of compartments none of which is big enough for any known wine bottle. I can't imagine how they are still being sold! The Ikea wall top cabinets are only supposed to need two screws, but they seem to be too heavy, even without any contents, for the walls here. And though the kitchen sink and the dishwasher are in place, it still isn't a working sink or a working dishwasher, so we are continuing to wash the dishes in the bathroom.

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