Advertisement
Published: July 28th 2006
Edit Blog Post
So last week I headed up to Manchester and Liverpool.
Catching the train from London it was only about 2 hours to get up there and was nice travelling through the countryside. I brushed up on my history on the train, as I read back about the history behind the War of the Roses, as this was the area it occurred (I'm sure you are proud mum). Got to Manchester Piccadilly and met Heather, who I met in Melbourne last year along with Liz and Rach. So I was staying with her and her parents, Helen and John (many thanks) in a suburb called Prestwich in Manchester.
My first day up there saw me travel out to Manchester United's ground, Old Trafford. A guided tour of the stadium was pretty impressive, with the ground holding 70,000 people. In terms of size from the turnstiles to the playing surface its obviously not as big a stadium as what we have at home. The size of their rooms and bathrooms were a lot smaller than Telstra Dome and MCG, however you could still feel the sense of history around the place and it had quite an aura about it all.
Old Trafford
The main entrance It is fairly modernised inside and it was great listening to stories of things that had taken place at certain areas of the stadium etc. that I had no knowledge about. So from there I walked past the Old Trafford cricket ground, where England will be playing Pakistan this week. From here a caught the metrolink back into town and wandered around the streets on another hot day. It is great trying to get lost in a city with no map, but the tram tracks were always there to guide me back to where I was supposed to go. While walking down the main mall, I must have looked seriously desperate or something! I was stopped by someone trying to get candidates for a new dating television show ... I declined their generous offer.
Met back up with Heather who was coaching some kids along with ex-sprinter, Linford Christie (big guy!). Before dinner and a relatively quiet night in.
Next day we headed off to Liverpool and met up with Liz. We ended up walking through a red squirrel sanctuary and not seeing one red squirrel, despite my best attempts to prove they were throwing conkers at Liz
Man U
Inside the stadium and Heather. We then made our way to the beach, the first sandy beach I have ever seen in England. The sand was alright once before you go to the water and apparantly its advisable not to swim in it. If you saw the British Golf Open last week, then it was like that as I think it was close by. We then wandered around Liverpool's main part of town, saw the Liver Building, Albert Dock, Merseyside and Cavern Club (where The Beatles started). The Beatles are everywhere around the town nowadays! Also got to catch up with Rach here and the four of us had some Tapas, which is weird seeing I was in Spain two weeks previous and didn't have any! Headed back to Manchester that evening to have some drinks with Heather's friends, who seemed really cool and sociable.
The rest of my time was spent touring around Manchester. Walking the parks and historic houses there. Walked around the canals and watched as the long boats were whisked through the narrow locks. We would have a curry at an Indian restaurant, Sanam, on a street known as 'The Curry Mile' as all the shops along a
Cavern Club
Me and my mate John Lennon stretch are Indian restaurants or stores with an Indian touch. While we saw it at dusk we really didn't get the view of all those neon lights lighting up at night, but you could imagine what it would be like. This also happened to be on the hottest July day ever in England, only about 36 degrees, but it feels hotter, as England (and Europe) are experiencing a bit of a heat-wave at the moment. It is by far more consistently hotter than last year. Unfortunately, such weather here means every English person thinks its okay to walk in every public place with their pale white chest for all to see. Unbelievable!
The next day we were up early and across to Liverpool to meet up with Liz and her dad, who happens to work at Everton Football Club (Premiership soccer club). I was told on the Monday when I got up there that they were trying to organise for us to go see them train and meet Tim Cahill (Aussie soccer hero), so I said far enough. So we went down this narrow little lane to where the security okayed us to go through, and we arrived at
Manchester
Canals that are around Manchester Bellfield Park.
So Tim came out and was really cool, chatting away to us and asking us questions. We talked about the World Cup and how great it was, it seems Tim is still excited about it all and was also really disappointed at how we went out, perhaps suggesting ''we were robbed!'' He was also taking the p out of how the English played, which I lapped up. Really nice fella and we were chatting for about 10 minutes and chuck in some photo opportunities.
We then watched them train, and Liz's dad seemed to know everyone, as we said hello to a few players and coaching staff, they all seemed pretty cool and it was interesting listening to Liz's dad talk about the goings on within the club. We had a tour of their training facilities and then toured the car park, with a few impressive cars on show, thanks to some generous bank balances.
I then returned back to London and onto Chelmsford. I am sure it was about 3-4 degrees warmer when I got out at London than to Manchester, when I left there.
Cricket wise has picked up in the last
Man U Bench
The home side's bench at Old Trafford few weeks. My last 5 bats, have seen 2 hundreds and 3 fifties, and everything feels pretty good. Bowling is steady without being too outstanding, just need to get more rhythm to it, which is probably due to not doing as much of it as I do back home.
Work was going along all okay, until I have now moved departments due to people on holiday and I have now moved to the hottest part of the building in a week which has been constantly above 30. So not all that fun.
So I think that is about it for this entry. Nothing planned for the short term. Our club has cricket week next week, where there is a game to be played each day and we have a few golf days planned. But its just over a month to go until the end of the season and I will have to sort out what I am going to do and where to travel to.
Stay happy kids.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.419s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 20; qc: 98; dbt: 0.2637s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
Laud
non-member comment
Doc you are the sultan of dross. Peter Roebuck's got nothin' on you. What is missing is your off-field stats though - lift!