Manchester magic

18/10/2017


Manchester, like Leeds and Liverpool,  is a delightful city, a mix of architecture, an energy and purpose.  New buildings under construction everywhere.  A down side to this sense of a thriving lively place is the number of beggars.

Today a contemporary craft fair, with 151 exhibitors ranging from joinery to textiles, jewellery, glass,  leather, sculpture.  Just as well transporting things home is an issue.

On a recommendation from an exhibitor (demonstrating a laser cutting machine) we went on the hunt for a coffee shop, behind the Deansgate station, an unprepossessing alley. There a roaster shop, unpretentious, excellent coffee. En route we watched some young men practising wall jumping, no other onlookers, just their own entertainment,  and ours! Such young athletic confidence.

Further up Deansgate is the John Ryland Library, built and donated to the people of Manchester by the widow of said John Ryland, who made millions in cotton manufacturing in the 19th C.  A wonderful building, housing an eclectic valuable collection, including fragments of what is thought to be the oldest relic of the New Testament, great leather tomes, maps, illustrated manuscripts.....  Furnished in oak, exquisite reading nooks with iron radiators enclosed in decorative panels, topped with bronze. Becoming a researcher there would not be a pain.

Continuing our wander through the city we came across street musicians with latin dancing, happily lightfooting in a square near the cathedral.

Our day came to a grand finale at the Last Night of the (autumn) Proms, complete with union jack waving audience, an entertaining Welsh conductor, then an amble back to the boat, a few hundred yards away.

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