We have run away.
I had got gate fever very badly indeed.
We were supposed to be at work, but we didn’t go.
Instead, we packed the camper van and came to Manchester, which is where we are right now.
This took some doing, because of needing to be decently organised. All of our things for the weekend needed to go into a suitcase, our things for this evening and tomorrow needed hanging up in the camper van, and our things for wearing today needed to be folded and laid next to the bed, ready for when we woke up. I am not good at making choices in the mornings.
All of it needed to be ironed, and Oliver’s needed to be extracted from his luggage and washed as well. He needed an extra bag packing because he is going to go and stay with some friends on Sunday.
We did this organising late last night, and it all just seemed to be too hideously complicated for sensible thought processes. At one o’ clock in the morning we were still arranging things in the appropriate piles and counting underwear, and digging sleepily through the wardrobe in the loft, trying to find smart summer trousers which had not inexplicably shrunk. Oddly, loads of them had, probably the damp.
In any case, it paid off. By the time we went to bed we were entirely prepared, and hardly rushed around at all this morning. Indeed, we were so organised that today we were only an hour late setting off.
We were going to the theatre. One of my friends is in a play, called A Touch Of Magic, which is part of the Manchester artistic fringe festival, and I wanted to see it.
We thought that whilst we were there we would fit in a trip to my friends’ restaurant. This is in the centre of Manchester, in the Printworks, and I have been plugging it shamelessly on Facebook for weeks, despite the fact that I have not actually been there.
The chaps in question have in fact made occasional guest appearances in these pages, as regular rascally taxi customers in the days when they lived in the Lakes and worked in a local hotel. They are not even as old as Numbers One and Two Daughters, and they have very bravely gone to Manchester and set up their own bar and restaurant.
I think this is monumentally courageous, given that their joint ages probably don’t add up to mine, and Manchester is a terrifying big city full of pirates and villains and banks and other scary things.
They have designed and created a whole new restaurant. It is called Blank Canvas, and I am plugging it again here, because this is my diary, and I can if I like, and also it was ace.
I have attached a picture of Oliver’s milkshake. Oliver was of the opinion that it was the nicest milkshake he had ever drunk, and after some consideration and judicious sampling of the burgers and chips, he pronounced the place to be a paradise for a boy.
This seemed entirely sensible given the youth of its proprietors. Clearly they have thought hard about what are the nicest things in the world and done those, although since they are not thirteen, the cocktails were excellent as well, made with pineapple and lime and mint, perfect for a sunny afternoon. We had two, against Mark’s better judgement.
All in all although it is not a site for gourmet sophistication, the menu being the sort that has lots of different sorts of burger but no gnocchi or aioli, we thought happily that it was a superb place to go with a teenager. We ate until we were stretching the seams of our trousers in some discomfort, and sat on very comfortable sofas next to an open French window, gazing out at the big city arrayed before our very eyes.
The food was ace, and I was sorry that I was too old to appreciate the milkshakes, just looking at it made me think uncomfortably about diabetes. Oliver was enchanted to discover that somebody had thought to add candy floss and cake icing into a milkshake. If only somebody had invented such things in my childhood.
Do go there.
We went on from there to the theatre, which was another rather splendid event.
The theatre turned out to be a pub in Salford called the Kings’ Arms, which has adapted part of itself into a little theatre.
It must have been an absolutely massive pub, fancy being able to build a theatre upstairs and still have room for a large pub as well.
It all turned out to be magnificently good fun. Our friend was in the bar, being in costume and pretending to have just got off an aeroplane, because the play was about being on holiday. Even the audience had been told to dress as though we were on holiday, so Mark obligingly tied knots in the corners of his handkerchief and arranged it over his bald patch.
The ushers on the door were pretending to check us into an hotel, and kindly gave us seats right in the middle of the front row. This turned out to be just a couple of feet away from the action, so we felt as though we were right in the middle of it all, as if we were really there with the cast, and I had to restrain myself from joining in at times.
It was a brilliant night. I laughed until my face hurt, and then we joined our friend in the bar for a hour of listening to inside theatrical stories and contented reminiscences.
We strolled back across Manchester in the sunset, listening to the sounds of the city. A band was playing outdoors somewhere, and people were singing along and applauding enthusiastically. We took the dogs for a late stroll so that we could listen.
It felt like being on the front row in the city itself, right in the middle of lots of things happening. Even in this huge place we have friends, we can go to places and find welcomes and smiles.
We are in the camper van now, beside the railway, listening to the sounds of the night.
What an ace way to start a holiday.
