BACK TO MANCHESTER

Friday, April 21, Robin and I were heading back to Manchester. When we originally scheduled our trip, we had rooms in Hotel Football for the Manchester United v Chelsea match. When that got rescheduled, we were able to get a refund for the tickets, but we could not cancel the hotel room. So we decided to go ahead and use it. The plan was to go there on Friday, spend Saturday doing something fun, then return for services at St. Mary’s and All Saints on Sunday. But first, some lunch in Conwy. Robin had a prawn taco salad and I had a very delicious chicken, bacon and ranch panini. Priorities.

The trip back to Manchester was uneventful. I was quite comfortable driving, and Robin was quite comfortable not saying “CURB!” every two minutes or so. We got checked into Hotel Football, and made a quick run over to the Manchester United Megastore. My friend Craig was wanting a shirt for his son. We told him the price of a jersey, and he quickly decided a different kind of shirt was called for. We found one, and threw in a poster of his son’s favorite player, and headed back for dinner.

I started my dinner off with a Red Devil, a cocktail that was topped off with a couple of red peppers. Why? Because Manchester United, that’s why! It was perfectly paired with my meat pizza. Robin was laughing at me, which is preferable to the climate-changing mood I often cause. I’ll take her smile any day!

Saturday saw us heading to Bakewell. This is a quaint English village in the Peak District National Park. It is home to the world-famous Bakewell Pudding. Our plan for the day was to have a nice morning of shopping, and then head to Poole’s Cavern to check out a cave. The drive through the Peak District was nice. The scenery was excellent, and the weather was perfect.

Bakewell was a picturesque village. Shops abounded, as did cafes and coffee shops. Robin and I browsed several shops, then saw a sign for a bazaar of some type. We followed the signs, and found a Scout building that housed quite a few vendors. The British version of the Boy Scouts was just Scouts. Makes sense. The bazaar was a fundraiser, so now we had a good reason to buy, as if we needed a good reason.

The nice thing about the bazaar was that we got talk to a couple of the vendors. Lovely people. Of course Robin got into a deep, philosophical discussion with a vendor about the differences between Star Wars and Star Trek. Give her a chance to get into it, and she will wax philosophical about the virtues of the world of Star Trek. Original series, not those lesser series that came about later. Yup, I married a Trekkie. Live long, and prosper.

We had lunch in an Austrian cafe, Tiroler Stübel. One thing we noticed is that the Brits are a very dog friendly country. There were dogs everywhere. We had no problems with it. We like dogs, and all the dogs in Bakewell were as well-behaved as their owners. In any event, the food was excellent and Ranger-approved. From there it was time to bid Bakewell goodbye, but not before we purchased a Bakewell Pudding, and a Bakewell Tart for later. We had to see what all the fuss was about, of course.

Robin and I both grew up in Indiana, so we were no strangers to caves. We both enjoy caves, so we were looking forward the British version. Poole’s Cavern came up in a Trip Advisor itinerary, and I booked a couple tickets online. There was a visitor’s center and a gift shop near the entrance. We sat down to await our tour, and I passed the time by giving silly names to the prehistoric creatures painted on the ceiling. Robin rolled her eyes, but I was at least able to avoid smelling any vanilla.

We made our way back to Hotel Football, where we watched Wrexham win promotion to the Football League. After watching Welcome to Wrexham, Robin and I became Wrexham fans, and cheered them on as they achieved their goal of promotion, after 15 years of playing down in the National League. I fyny’r dref! Up the town!