Goodness, what a day and a night of adventures.
Once again, this is going to be an unimaginative recounting of the barest details, because I am absolutely longing to sleep. This entry will be a hasty presentation of the unadorned events of the day.
Sorry.
Manchester is a jolly Happening City, I can tell you. I have never seen so many peculiar looking people. There was a bloke in a mini skirt and Doc Marten boots in the shop this morning. He had shaved his head and had a ring through his nose. I had to try very hard not to stare. I was not being rude but such sartorial choices are not familiar in Windermere, and I was absolutely dying to gawp with frantic curiosity.
There was another bloke, also in boots, this time with a long blue floaty dress, and this was during the day. When we got to the Halloween dressing up party time of the evening things got even weirder. Almost all of the young women seemed to have abandoned the idea of clothes completely and just dressed in sparkly underwear for the evening, and everybody had painted their faces in black and white. I think that people look a bit unusual when they go out in Bowness sometimes, but Manchester has left it as far behind as if it were a three-legged donkey having a crack at the Grand National.
We had an enormous breakfast of course, because we are on holiday. We have been occupying mealtimes with an ongoing family debate about what we would do if we had our own country to run, the answer to which seems to be that we would all turn into Kim Jong Un. We have discussed the death penalty and private versus state education, religion, immigration and employment law. Banned subjects for conversation are Jack’s new router and anything to do with engines. Stick to the safe topics of religion and politics, we decided.
Having settled these matters comfortably we all went our separate ways. Mark and I went Christmas shopping and the children buzzed off to occupy the day in some kind of escape room which seemed to double as a grown-up play area.
We spent far, far too much in Waterstones.
We all reconvened before dinner, and strolled across the now madly busy city to the Greek restaurant for dinner, where we met up with my mother and sister, who were joining us for the evening, because we were, as I am sure I have told you, going off to the theatre afterwards.
We have been to that restaurant lots of times before, and I ate such an enormous dinner of magnificently falling-off-the-bone lamb that I have had indigestion ever since. I do not mind this because it was absolutely worth it, it was divine, and we ambled over to the theatre feeling thoroughly replete.
Fiddler on the Roof was splendid. I love the music, and the dancing, and it is a show I know so well I could have recited it along with them. It was very modern, with shouty argumentative daughters, which I supposed modern audiences expect, although I didn’t. I would have had some sharp words to say to my daughters if they had been as stroppy as that lot.
To our great curiosity the show was stopped halfway through. The cast was shepherded off the stage and the house lights went up. We were told to sit in our seats and hang on, because the performance had to stop. No explanation was given, and after about fifteen minutes it all started again as though nothing had happened, despite the raging curiosity of the entire audience.
Afterwards we had lots of ideas about why it might have happened, but of course we will never know.
Of course we finished up in the bar.
Between the wine and the indigestion I have quite had enough, and am going to sleep now.
It has been the most glorious day.
I will see you on Sunday.
