Day Trip to Madchestar

Antony Gormley

A kiwi friend is visiting her family in Southport, we live in North Derbyshire...where to meet? Manchester! What to do in Manchester? Need a place to chat, need a bit of walking around, need cake...the Art Gallery of course.

Kate Malone, Pineapple [detail]

We bundle ourselves into the car to Grindleford and hop on the train that used to be a bus (I kid you not) and trundle very slowly Manchester bound. It's an old train, and has a certain smell that should you wish to reproduce, get your old running trainers very wet, leave them in a plastic bag for about a month, then retrieve them and dry them out on a radiator.

After stopping at every village in the Hope Valley, and every lamp post we arrive in a soggy Manchester. 

Very lovely to greet old friend, and she has kiwi chocolate and biscuits, we set off in an art galleryish direction. A little confused with all the roads and traffic, we are beeped at by a bus, we reach our destination. (we are country bumpkins after all).

Rebecca Lawton, Roll'em Girls '16

Straight to the cafe of course, need to catch up and obviously need to eat a giant chocolate croissant to fortify ourselves for the day. Taken in by the Kate Malone ceramic pineapple on the way, the exhibition we came to see was really excellent. Fashion and Freedom "New fashion and film inspired by the women of the First World War"

We learnt things (who knew Emmeline Pankhurst's 'guards' were trained in martial arts in order to protect her) we really enjoyed the designs and the films accompanying the exhibition were well worth a watch - go see it. 

Favourites were the knee embroidery with an embroidery frame, a commentary on women being able to display parts of their body previously frowned upon. Women - now allowed to expose their knees, would actually decorate their knees!  I liked the use of embroidery to portray this and the frame of the hoop - brining a traditional female occupation into the public eye. 

Time for lunch, that chocolate croissant couldn't possibly be expected to keep us going all day. Back to the cafe, a lovely lunch, more chat of course. We  felt fortified to view more art.

The obligatory photo of the Gormley and onto some Japanese design via traditional paintings. Some lovely organic ceramics. 

One plate, four forks

Feeling inspired, onto an art shop. Sheffield's art supply shops I often find are not great. Fred Aldous beckoned. OMG - I'd never been in before. Things just seemed to leap into my basket, lovely lovely things, lovely thinks that smelt of creativity and pencils, things that will help improve my creativity. I want to live there, apparently it's not allowed.

Ey up duck

Original duck face

Time for cake before the train back to Grindleford. A minty (yes minty) brownie, kinda nice, kinda weird. More chat and a selfie - we forgot to do the duck face as seen earlier. 

  

Right up our street

Warning, this blog post contains low flying ducks

Having both grown up with Coronation Street, on hearing the studio tours were going to close as the sets have moved to a new location, me and my little swamp duck felt it our duty to visit. So popular are the tours, that we could only manage to book for a Sunday evening. Oh well, off we set in the car through the backstreets of Manchester, past all the betting shops, takeaways and pubs with Weatherfield beckoning. No worries for us if we had any car troubles, I happen to know there's a very fine mechanic resident on the street. I'm sure Kev, a heartthrob (for some) when I was at school, would give it the once over.

We arrive, we sort out our tickets and spend an extortionate amount on a hot chocolate and ham and cheese sandwich, we receive our backstage passes.

Inside we find the green room, the costume and make up, actual costumes and studio sets. So small! The trickery of camerawork and wide angle lenses is amazing. Also - the stairs in the Platt household don't go anywhere. Apparently when a cast member goes upstairs, they just have to stay at the top of the stairs until the filming finishes. David Platt's character said (so the guide told us) he spent most of his childhood waiting at the top. You can sometimes spot a foot, I'm going to look out for feet from now on.

It was pretty cool, and and, we got to see a pair of Deirdre Barlow's spectacles - legend.

No photos allowed inside, although we did sneak a selfie in the Rovers. When called for our photo behind the bar, two shots - one pulling a pint, the other a quick kiss! I pulled the best barmaid! Unfortunately that photo came out blurry so we didn't purchase it. When we kissed, all the other people on the tour went  "Ahhh" very sweet! We were very careful for the rest of the tour though, Corrie being renowned for bumping off lesbian characters.

Then we were out on the cobbles, in the actual street. All the doors, all the shop fronts, even the bus stop. Loved that the bus




destination was 'Eccles'.

We saw it all, the Chippy, the salon, the pub, the Bistro, the Kebab shop, everything. It was a great night on the cobbles. The gift shop was in the medical centre, where you could even buy  - yes you guessed it, flying duck fridge magnets.

Release the hounds of hell[o] I’d like to lick your face!

I love autumn, I love the colours, I love the surprise sunny days, I love the first week after the clocks change and it feels like a lie in every morning. And I love halloween.

Halloween didn’t start so well this year.

• Pumpkins purchased - tick
• Teen has full address for party (with instructions) - tick
• Outfit for teen established - tick
• Treats purchased - tick
• Pumpkins stored in a sensible space so they are still fresh for carving, like the fridge for example - err, about that

Apparently, placing the pumpkins on the windowsill to look all lovely and autumnal for the week leading up to Halloween is not the best idea. This is because the windowsill is directly above a radiator. It would appear that it’s really hard to tell that a pumpkin has started to ‘go over’ as a only small hole appears in the base, the outer pumpkin looks all fine and dandy, all the gunk seeps slowly out, covering the windowsill and dribbles quietly down the back of the radiator. Only to be discovered when you pick up said pumpkin for carving. Delightful (not).

Fortunately one pumpkin was fine, the rotting one - I retrieved half of it, enough for a rough lantern type effect.

Left with time and motivation to be pumpkin creative, I got in touch with my inner Day of the Dead Mexican persona. It’s at times like this, my lino cutting tools come in handy.

Time to collect offspring from work, then get ready for the onslaught of small people demanding sugar based confectionary. Inspired by the transformation of teen into A from the TV show Pretty Little Liars, and my pumpkin, I thought - why stop the inner Mexican inspiration at a mere pumpkin. Using supermarket face paints, I think I did an OK job.

It certainly scared the children who came to call, or it may have been the screaming at the top of our lungs when the doorbell rang "release the hounds of hell" flinging the door open and screaming some more. Stamping really loudly was also a favoured way off getting to the door. Asking which one [child] would be the tastiest went down very well. The responses ranged from "You're scary" to nervous giggling. I heard one child potter off to another group of tricksters and say "go there, that woman's scary." We ran out of treats fairly swiftly.

The dogs went mad every time the doorbell rang, barking like wild beasts, however, as soon as they saw the children, they jumped up and received all the cuddles and admiration. Hounds of Hell? Hardly. Canines of cute more like.

Only one question remains, how does one clean rotting pumpkin liquid stains from behind a radiator?

The Great Bakewell Bake Off

A blog post about baking you you say? 


Well here you are.

It was my Birthday on Friday, and as it fell on a Friday, I considered that a valid reason to stretch out the celebrations for the entire weekend. It was lunch AND dinner out on Friday, dragging offspring along the Monsal Trail on a bike on Saturday, so a trip to the local Baking festival on Sunday was a given really.

I've not attended a baking festival before, I'd not even seen a live cooking show before, with no knowledge of what to expect, we arrive in the show grounds in Bakewell. A very apt. name for the location of a Baking festival.

We get through the gate with a very precursory check of the ticket on my phone to be greeted with stalls selling food, coffee, vintage crockery, clothing and of course an 'invaluable' kit for peeling garlic.

We greet Maisie's friend and her family and head to the theatre cooking show. Stacie Stewart of Master Chef fame was first up.  A clean living eating fanatic who now only eats raw broccoli and anything with antitoxins in it. She's lost 4 stone you know. Anyway, she wrote a book about proper baking 4 year's ago so will be demonstrating from that book rather than the book about being a good vegan that hasn't been published yet. She was fairly engaging with the audience, told some amusing stories about her Nan teaching her cooking and her mum saying she prefers going to Gregs.

Then time to walk round the food stalls. We try various cheeses (caramelised onion was a winner) ginger bread, parkin, rape seed oils (If I'm honest that tasted like the smell of massage oil), jam, and maybe a bit more cheese. We scoff a nice pork baguette whilst sat an a hay bail and avoided the wasps. We survey the games available. Quite tempted to have a go at splat the rat but Maisie moved me away.

We catch the end of Edd Kimber (@theboywhobakes) and wait for the next theatre performance Ms Marmite (@msmarmitelover). We liked the look of Edd, he made what looked like a lovely battenberg cake, a favourite, and has an obvious passion for sugar and baking. At question time, I resisted the urge to ask "what was it like being so close to Sue Perkins and do you have her phone number?" 

We scoot up to the front of the tent for Ms Marmite. Famous for developing the home restaurant concept in the UK. Inviting your mates round for dinner and charging them.  She was great. A real person with a desire to feed people. In fact, she made a valiant attempt to provide the entire audience with a lemon curd injected donut. With the help from her daughter, she chatted and chatted, and fashioned loads of donuts. Rather than the 30 minutes from the other bakers, we had the whole hour full of cooking theatre. To our delight, Maisie got a donut...mmm donuts. Ms Marmite would be welcome to come round to our house for tea is ever in the area, I'd only charge her a tenner!

However, not everyone in the tent was impressed. Ms Stewart was waiting stage left to come on next. Ooh, a bit of drama. Her face was a picture. She was not happy about the timing. Sadly for us, Ms Marmite finally finished her donuts and blondie cake, and was shuffled of the stage. A rapid tidy up was executed and Ms I'm a proper healthy vegan was back on stage. I think I would have liked her better if she hadn't mentioned being able to deliver her cooking presentation within the time (in a passive aggressive way). I also think I would have liked her better if she had baked the food she was passionate about, not the food she doesn't eat anymore. I'm a firm believer in being who you are. 

Well, after all that drama, a quick look at some cakes was needed, a taste of some Japanese tea and back for more Edd. A healthy debate about the pronunciation of scone. Obviously you pronounce it scone. And if to put the cream or the jam on first. The jam obviously. Edd disagreed. Boo.

The finale was a chocolate creator based in Castleton. Good to have a local, and refreshing to see someone not selling their latest book. Good stuff.

Time to come home and shout 'bake' 

Archie (or for short - Archibaldi Garibaldi Biscuit Boy)

It was raining

The dogs needed walking

We set off at a pace, not wanting to be out for too long.

Archie went off to explore in the long grass, me and Mollie stride off ahead.

He was taking his time to catch up, I call, no sign. I look back and what looks like some comedy puppet dog is stumbling along sitting, then kind of hopping around a bit. 

On closer inspection, he has got tangled up with giant burrs from the burdock. They were stuck like Velcro all over his body, mainly his legs and tummy. One had kind of velcrowed his front leg to his chest, hence his strange hobbling gait. I started pulling the burrs off, he squealed with each one poor little wimpy thing he is. At the last one, he leapt free almost clicking his heals together and skipping off! He came back to me, gave a little bark, I stroked his head and he was off again. Sooo cute!

Interesting fact...the inventor of Velcro developed it after noticing the burrs attaching to his dog. Archie is following the tradition of dogs wherever burdock grows apparently.

Rhode trip

So we were sat on a plane full of "Sweaty Pommies" as Leanne described it, destination Pefkos, on the Greek isle of Rhodes. 

Objectives: To lie around, read books, catch some rays. swim, eat olives, eat feta, eat stuffed vine leaves, eat kleftikos, you get the idea. (Oh yes and maybe drink the odd beer)

Equipment packed: swimming goggles, snorkel, three pairs of shorts, several t-shirts, togs, sunscreen and Uno.

Risks: Being detained by the metal detector at the air port.

Well. That happened.

Actually it always happens, to me anyway. Typical scenario. Put possessions in tray, hope trousers don't fall down due to lack of belt, try to get bracelet off. Fail to get bracelet off. Security person says just go through that will be fine.

*ALARM*ALARM*ALARM*

Madam if you can just step to one side. Well, this time it was the most intimate body pat down ever. I felt bad I didn't know the woman's first name. So intimate even, that she could tell I was wearing a sports bra for goodness sake!

Anyway...moving on.

Airport uneventful, flight the same, the longest slowest bus journey designed to give us the impression Rhodes is bigger than it actually is. 

Greeted by Paul the Greek from Michigan, reassured us he was actually Greek and a lovely holiday was had by all.

Voting status

Post vote thumbs up

I shared on Facebook, twitter (@rachelmcw) and instagram (rachelmcw) that I've voted, it's important not to waste one's chance of bragging about voting on social media...so thought I'd best blog about it. I could Snapchat, but my only friend on Snapchat is my daughter so it seemed a bit like overkill - she knew we were going off to vote as she saw us potter off down the road.

Here's a blow by blow account of how it all went for me.

We gather up the dogs, we walk to the polling station, I enter said polling station to cast my votes.

My conversation with the returning officer goes like this:

RO: "Which Collier-Wilson are you, Leanne or Rachel?

Me: "I'm Rachel, Leanne is outside with the dogs"

Leanne's conversation with the returning officer goes like this:

post vote stupid grin

L: I'm Leanne Collier-Wilson"

RO: Ooh, we've just had a Collier-Wilson in"

L: Yes, she's outside with the dogs"

Artist's impression of my vote

Quick question - do the returning officers also count the votes?

As a bonus I got a compliment for reading the instructions and putting the white voting slip into the box which said "white voting slips" 

Now I just need to stay awake...feeling sleepy as it's just gone 10 pm.