Thursday 2nd December 2010 (part 1)

And welcome back to the Arctic circle. Or Kent, as it is more commonly called. It seems winter arrived whilst we were in the north, or at least the snow did. The cold beat us to Manchester, minus nine degrees as it was as we stepped off the train.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Of course, with hindsight, it is easy to see that travelling to Manchester and Blackpool on the last weekend of November might be tempting the weather Gods to throw their worst at us; but it's never that bad in Blighty is it??

So, Saturday morning rolled round, and we took the cats to the cattery, cleaned the house and at eleven set off for Dover station and the first leg of our trip north. It had began to snow as we left home, but once we got to Folkestone there was over an inch on the ground, and I did begin to worry that it was a mistake to do the trip.

But it was too late for those thoughts.

We arrived into St Pancras, and walked along the frozen Euston Road via Marks and Sparks for some classy food for the trip and an Italian chain for pasta and fizzy sweet wine. It was fine enough and we floated to Euston Station and our red and white train to speed us north to Manchester.

With wild abandon, we upgraded to first class for the princely sum of 15 pounds. And so we settled into our reclining armchairs with cups of fresh coffee laid before us, and soon enough London's north-west suburbs rolled by, and then wonderful Milton Keynes and then up the Trent Valley.

It was all rather splendid; waiter, more coffee if you please. we rolled into Crewe and did not change; and then Stockport, possibly, before as the sun set on a cold blue sky, we trundled past the Manchester outskirts, Man City's new home before pulling up at Piccadilly.

The doors slid open and the artic air rushed in. By heck, it were cold. Not just cold, but cold to the bone. We consulted our phones for directions to the hotel, and set off towards Piccadilly Gardens. Our hotel lay between a shoe shop and a branch of Subway; but was nice enough. We had a fine large room with a view over a side street to an interesting pub.



We went out soon after, wrapped up like Nanook of the north and his wife and tottered up towards the Arndale and the glittery lights of the closing shops and to weave our way in between the overladen shoppers.

The place I was heading for was the big wheel in the centre of the city, and so with little persuasion from Jools we were soon queueing up for a ride round and over the roofs of the shops.
I had ridden the wheel by day, and it was good, but by night the vies were spectacular indeed. We could right over to Salford and Old Trafford, still emptying after their 7-1 win.



Into The Printowrks to meet with my friend, Bloo. We watched as the young and fearless, some wearing nothing more than a net curtain, apparently, set out on a night of white lightning and dancing round their handbags. Whilst we shivered in our dozen layers.



Bloo turned up, and we headed for dinner; a Chinese buffet place called Yum Yums, which at a tenner or so a pop was not as cheep or as cheerful as it might have been; but the food was good and plentiful.

And then onto Bloo's local, for beer and chat. And a couple more beers thrown in for good measure before it was time to head back out into the bitter cold. We got lost, or took a wrong turn, and flagged a taxi down to take us the 500 yards through the backstreets to our hotel and our warm, warm bed.