Category: Food

You Ride, We Ride: This is not the Manchester I know.

Sam Bail

Have I actually mentioned my bike? I’ve got a bike. The best bike in the world, to be precise. I got it from one of my favourite people, almost a year ago, and the first time I was riding it down a quiet and leafy street in Didsbury I started to cry, which was followed by a celebratory bottle or two glass of wine. A glorious day.

Anythatwasthemotherofallhangoversway, last week marked the beginning of my favourite time of the year in Manchester – the 6 months of “oh it’s getting warm…nope, not quite yet…but now!! No… no, still not warm enough to wear short sleeves. OH there it is, that must be it, Summer! No, no…false alarm. Whoops, it’s November again. Well that was that then, I guess. Better luck next year.” Highly determined to make the best of the few hours of sunshine I can get here every year, I put on a floral print dress – my official summer uniform – got on my bike and cycled down to Levy for some food at POD and a visit to the superawesome Laurie Pink, but more about that later.

The excitement had me as soon as I had caught a glimpse of the magnificent trees blooming on Fog Lane that stood bright and colourful in the Sunday sun. I cycled faster. We crossed Kingsway into Burnage. I gasped: My first visit to Burnage. BURN. AGE. Famous for being the home of the Gallagher brothers, Dave Rowbotham of the Durutti Column being murdered in his flat, and… uhm… yeah. That record shop, I guess. I excpected tumbleweeds, gunmen and saloon doors, but I only saw a wide tree lined road, a country pub-ish looking pub with the poetic name ‘The Sun in September‘ and several parks, including the rather vast Cringle Park, luring us in with the promise of seeing an ‘Indian Bean Tree’ that couldn’t be spotted – if anyone has managed to find the location of the ‘Indian Bean Tree’, please do let me know. The bike ride, the greens, the country pub-ish pub and the sun had made me so enthusiastic however, I even came up with a marketing slogan for letting agents who would like to advertise properties in the area: “Burnage – it could be worse.”

Having crossed Cringle park, we suddenly found ourselves in the heart of Levenshulme, only two minutes away from POD, which, once again, didn’t fail to amaze me with the tastiness of its food as well as the slowness of the ordering and food preparing process. But to be completely honest, I actually prefer anticipation up to the point of self-torture to the finished product – this is exactly the right place for me.

On the way back, we paid a visit to the wonderful Laurie Pink who I had met on my first trip to Levenshulme last year. The crazy lady had put herself through a 24 hour drawing marathon to create dozens of drawings for everyone who donated for Comic Relief – raising over £1300 pounds in one day. I had commissioned a royal portrait for my cycling companion, the mighty Robot Swan King (yeah… don’t ask), which we had come to pick up that afternoon. We were welcomed by Arthur and Smith, two incredibly lovely whippets, a pouting cat, actor/singer/comedian Mitch Benn, who was sat in the kitchen watching roller derby videos, and a room with walls covered in drawings as a proof of Laurie’s hard work*. Having swapped cake for drawings, we hopped onto our bikes and cycled back down south – not without stopping by at the ‘Sun in September’ for a cheeky half of fizzy apple juice. I’m living life on the edge.

* madness

The Middle: Adventures in Nottingham

Sam Bail

If you put England in a big rectangular box, you may find that Nottingham is pretty much exactly in the centre of this box. Well, maybe after chopping after off some pointy ends… sorry Northumberland, but your north half is history… you too, Cornwall… and take Devon with you… Oh, just go with me on that one.

Just as its geographical location and its decidedly Northern feel* clash a little, does Nottingham clash with itself in terms of architecture. The city seems torn between preserving its medieval heritage with all its Robin Hood romantic, the castle, beautiful old buildings, and strips of cobbled streets, a weak attempt at converting these old buildings into the ubiquitous high-street outlets, and some pretty awful modern architecture – or whatever classified as modern in the 1960s. Visually, it’s just all over the place.

After Nottingham had waved a cold hello at me with rain and a rather dodgy looking subway, I found myself in Market square and suddenly realised what Manchester was missing: a central square! The bad excuse for basically everything that is Piccadilly Gardens, the lovely but out of the way St Ann’s Square, or Exchange Square, the, well, area behind Selfridges which I didn’t even know was considered to be a ‘square’, just don’t make up for the feeling of discovering a city’s central hub, buzzing with busy shoppers and newspaper vendors, showing off a fountain, a memorial or a landmark of some sort (Nottingham chose a big wheel here), trams and buses crossing, often overlooked by some impressive building – in the case of Nottingham the council offices.

Now that I’ve got the moaning out of the way, I can say that I did really enjoy the day in Nottingham, despite having come here on a Monday where the two main museums and galleries (the Castle museum & art gallery and the contemporary art gallery) were closed. Thanks to the magic that is Twitter, I received lots of recommendations from some lovely people (that is you Gem, Neil, Ian, Ian, Helen and Sophie!)

After a stroll around town, I tried to seek shelter from the rain in the Galleries of Justice where I went on a tour around the former courts of justice and the pretty miserable prison (or ‘gaol’ – learned a new word!) which had been in use since the 15th century, including an area of cells called ‘the pits’ – no explanation needed I guess. My navigating skills failed me once again and I got lost on the tour, walking through a maze of fire exit doors in search of a toilet and being too embarrassed to go back to the rest of the group once I had found myself in the foyer of the building. I found comfort in a hot bowl of soup just next door at a former church, which had been converted into a rather nice and incredibly spacious bar, and went on to have a look round the castle area – only to get sucked into Delilah on the way, an absolutely stunning deli (now go and sort out your dirty minds will you?) that is granted to give you a mild  heart attack at the till.

I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering round the castle, talking to a crazy photographer at a bus stop, failing to resist the urge to do a little shopping which then turned into a big shopping, and stuffing my face with incredibly delicious cake at The Walk, a cute little cafe hidden away at the end of some inconspicuous looking tunnel off Bridlesmith Gate, where the pretty waitresses wear white lace pinnies on black tops and chunky pearl necklaces as their uniform. Judging by the international clientele and the number of travel bags, I concluded that the cafe must be listed as one of the top places in Lonely Planet. After a lovely Girl Geek Dinner at Cape bar just round the corner, including pizza followed by even more cake and some great talks, I walked back down the hill to catch the last train back from, uhm, Nomingham to Manchester.

The journey then turned into a bit of an adventure as soon as the conductor announced that our train to Sheffield would have to make a short detour to get around a broken down train on the tracks, which led to my missing the connection to Manchester. After a short moment of panic, the station phoned a taxi for me and two fellow travellers, a cheerful Irish couple on their way to Oldham, and so we ended up on a midnight drive down Snake Pass, whizzing through the fog that seems to never leave the peaks, with the Irish lady happily humming and singing in the back seat.

The castle hill which is covered in holes and caves. Looks very much like the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona to me!

* Northern feel = awful weather and grey skies.