mightaswell.

HUuuuauaaaaaaaahhhhRRrrrrrrrggggghhzzzzz.

That’s the sound of me stretching my hands, positioning my chair, neatly arranging that cup of tea in front of me, stretching again, trying to remember the URL of my blog, checking Twitter first, having another biscuit, and finally logging in to Wordpress to write… a blog post! It’s been a while, bah bah bah, the usual. But hey, I’ve brought something back from the many trips I made in the past couple of months: Stories. And piktchas. That’s what you’re here for, right?

Now, let’s start in non-chronological order with my short visit darn sarf. We went to the wonderful Butlin’s holiday park in Minehead for the Nightmare Before Christmas ATP (curated by Les Savy Fav, which I ended up missing twice in one day, Battles, and Caribou, just in case you’re wondering) at the beginning of December, and, being the ueber nerds we are, somehow did not spend the  whole weekend getting drunk and chasing seagulls (and by that I mean making out with Dutch girls) like my German friends. In fact, we got up early every morning and went on excursions around Somerset and Devon to see some more of the South than just the inside of the chain restaurant and arcade games lined Butlins pavilion.

On the first day, we tried to explore the rather magnificent looking Dunster Castle near Minehead, only to find that it is closed to the public over the winter months (it’s okay, I only cried a little). A short walk around the ‘medieval’ (for some meaning of medieval) village did not bring up any more interesting sights and so we returned just in time to watch the first set of Battles.

The next day, we stretched a little further and simply drove as far west as we could, finally landing in Lynton/Lynmouth on the north coast of Devon. As expected, the town had already gone into winter hibernation – except for the big and cold Arts & Craft centre, where we interrupted the reading pleasures of a lady in a thick winter coat. Back outside in the pouring rain, we followed signs to the Cliff Railway, just out of curiosity. Much to our surprise* the cafe at the top of the cliff was open for business, and we did our best to support the local economy by purchasing coffee and stale apricot cake.

And this was my breathtaking account of a spectacular holiday. The highlight of the weekend was when I got a text of my ex-housemate, who kindly agreed to look after the rabbit: I had dropped the wrong set of keys into his letterbox, leaving the rabbit locked into our flat for the entire weekend with quickly dwindling supplies of hay and water in his cage. Images of the rabbit doing this while trying to survive on a diet of newspaper cropped up in my head. Thanks to our landlord however, the situation was quickly resolved, the ex-housemate got into the flat to feed the rabbit, and all three of them (including the rabbit) just sigh and roll their eyes a little bit whenever my name is mentioned.

We didn’t meet Bracken, resident dog of the Cliff Railway Cafe in Lynton.

* I must apologise for the number of clichés I’ve used in this blog post. This is what happens when you only write scientific papers for months. You lose all ability to communicate and default to clichéd language. Just like all those scientists that write for the Daily Mail. Q.E.D.

First things first: You want sloes? Go and get sloes! Check out my carefully drawn map of Chorlton Water Park (jelly-bean-shaped area marks the spot) and go sloe picking while they’re still there.

We’ve been wondering for a while where to find sloes from in and around Manchester. Due to lack of a vehicle, the tip-off about the sloe bushes at junction 19 of the M60 wasn’t exactly helpful. We were just about to head down to Stockport and wander around the parks there, looking for prickly bushes, as the mighty @robotswanking received a Twitter message from sloe expert Cormac. Plans were changed quickly and mission: sloes headed south-west instead, to Chorlton Water Park.

Just by accident (we did actually get lost on the way to the orchard, taking a right turn after the bridge rather than just heading straight on) we wandered down a small path in a field that seemed completely overlooked by the many visitors. And there it was: a sloe bush. Not very big, not many fruit, but it was what we were looking for. As we had picked what would have been enough for at least a glass full of sloe gin, we moved on further down the path – and discovered what can only be described as (drum roll) sloe valley (ta-dah!). Dozens of sloe bushes, easily accessible by the side of the path, just waiting to be picked. As we got closer to the gate that was leading back to the main path, the sloes got bigger and bigger, until we finally found one bush that kept us busy for almost an hour.

We returned home with scratched hands, muddy boots, black dirt under our nails and a small blue Ikea bag filled to the brim with big round sloes. Several hours of pricking and several bottles of booze later, we had these beauties in our kitchen:

So – if you fancy picking some sloes around South Manchester, Chorlton Water Park is the place to go! Don’t worry, there’s enough for everyone. Just make sure you’re careful and don’t trample down everything, yes?

* And I do apologize to Liam Frost for the sloe-pun in the title.

There you are, just relaxing a little, going on holiday for a bit, walking round the Alps, chasing cows and all that, and all of a sudden it’s been several weeks without a proper blog post. But here we go again – more Manchester exploration!

On a rather crappy Saturday morning we decided to go for a little walk round West Didsbury and, suddenly taken by an unexpected spirit of adventure, felt the urge to simply get on the bus and go somewhere we hadn’t been before: Stockport. Armed with a bagel and a cup of tea from the local deli, we boarded the grand ship that is the 42 Stagecoach (top deck, front seats!) and I couldn’t help but feel a little like the unirider version of Columbus, having set off for a short walk, then accidentally ending up discovering a whole new world.*

After a surprisingly short bus ride, leaving behind Parrs Wood, the Heatons (or was it just ‘a’ Heaton?) and a pub in a massive roundabout, we arrived at Stockport bus station, which has a, well,  interesting 1970s feel to it. Our first destination, the Hat Museum, was conveniently located right next to the bus station – never mind the confusing directions to the main entrance, which led us up the stairs to the rather magnificent Stockport Plaza cinema and down some back alley. The lady in the museum seemed enthusiastic to welcome us, which wasn’t surprising as we were the only visitors except for a group of old ladies. The museum itself was much smaller than I had expected given the size of the building that houses it, but the ground floor with the different machines used for hat production reminded me a lot of the Power Hall at MOSI with its impressive steam engines. Some of the machines are still in working condition, and I’d love to join a tour at some point to see them live in action!

Our exploration of Stockport continued with a trip to the market, which was disappointing at first (the stalls outside the market hall), but quickly turned rather delightful as we discovered the cheese stall inside the market building. If you ever fancy some port wine cheddar, or perhaps a tangy lemon crumble Cheshire cheese, that stall is the place to go. We washed down the generous cheese samples with some coffee from St Mary’s church across the road, which is surprisingly pretty on the inside, and offers a nice view (modulo scruffy back gardens) across the Pennines from the outside. I also learned that the words to ‘By the Rivers of Babylon’ were not written by Boney M, but that they are from the bible. That, or the people who built St Mary’s thought it was funny to include a little disco pop on their stained glass windows.

And since our bellies were not quite filled yet, we went for a cheeky chippy tea at Pisces just down the road from the market. The chips were chippy, the pie pie-y and the peas mushy – and I was in heaven. Looking down onto the street from the 1st floor of the building I may have even muttered the word ‘quaint’ – yes, I was looking at YOU, Stockport. I bet you didn’t expect that from angry auntie Sam, eh!

Before boarding the 42 back into Manchester, we finished off our trip in true class with a short visit to the high street, Poundland, and the many shopping centres in Stockport’s city centre. To continue my series of fantastic marketing slogans for Manchester (including gems such as ‘Burnage – it could be worse.’ and ‘Baa Bar – not shit until 9pm!’), I’ve come up with one for Stockport: ‘Saturday Shopping in Stockport – same shops as everywhere, but not quite as shit as Market Street!’. Might need a little refinement.