When I’m not busy ranting, I spend a fair bit of time looking/chasing after the furrier one of my flatmates. Dave (aka the rabbit person) over at “Do a Barrel Roll” asked me to write a guest post about my life as a rabbit owner and it got a little out of hand. Hop* over to his blog for the rather epic three part rabbit diary, 168 days of rabbit. It’s like 500 days of Summer, but with more poop and bite marks.
Update: In only just noticed that the rabbit has his own tag on Dave’s blog. I told him that he’s famous now. He nibbled on some cardboard and ran off to celebrate.
I’m still on the minifood! And still alive, obviously. I skipped breakfast on day 3 and had a random selection of mini foodstuff for lunch (mini sub with a tiny little sausage shaped smoked cheese, cherry tomatoes, a small can of lemonade…) – the real highlight of the day however was the afternoon which was filled with teeny tiny little mini versions of biscuits. Along with my mini cup of coffee, I had the smallest chocolate digestives and incredibly realistic mini jammie dodgers, which are just adorable. Mini biscuits = mega win.
My rather lovely dinner consisted of an omelette with mushrooms, (over)cooked in a ridiculously tiny frying pan, and a ramekin full of salad.
Danger Bear!!
Overcooked omelette on a saucer. I could probably call this art. The shot glass contains water, not vodka… just saying.
After dinner I decided to decorate the remaining cupcakes with butter cream frosting – can you possibly imagine how many mini cupcakes you have to eat to feel sick? Oh boy.
They did look pretty though – pink, green and peanut butter (yes, that’s a colour. Peanut butter.)
Unsurprisingly, my breakfast the next morning was nothing but a small pot of Petit Filous (pictured after I had eaten it… my blog is thrilling isn’t it!) and a mini cup of coffee.
Lunch was boring (tomato soup and a mini quorn sausage roll… or 2 mini quorn sausage rolls, if you cut them in half!), so we’re moving straight onto after work drinks – it’s Friday after all! I had (after a couple of real size pints I must admit) a tiny little half pint of Kronenbourg from a lovely little glass which tried to look just like its bigger brother. Aww.
Thanks to Josh’s left arm (pictured) and the fabtastic Clare (of Words & Fixtures-and-so-many-other-places-on-the-webs-where-people-write-things-fame… that’s what people actually call her!*) who I bumped into on my way home and provided rather marvelous company for the duration of this tiny drink. Seriously, you should go out and party with Josh’s left arm one day, he’s hilarious.
Eventually I made it back home and got ready to assemble not one, but TWO mini burgers. TWO EFFIN BURGERS. Complete with tomatoes, lettuce, cheese and gherkins. Mini gluttony strikes again.
I just received an email with the above text and a link to a video of Carlos Tevez moaning about Manchester. It is pretty hilarious – the highlights are: “There’s nothing to do in Manchester […] it rains all the time, you can’t go anywhere!” and “I will not return to Manchester, not for vacation, not for anything.”
Bless.
Video clip is on the BBC website, clicketyclick the image to watch.
FYI, the caption says ‘I speak very bad English’. Tehehe.
Okay, here’s the deal: I run 10 kilometres, you give me loads of money for that, which I then give to a charity of my choice. That makes sense, right? Wait, what do you mean, what’s the point of me running at all? Well, it’s… you know… oh just give me the money already, will you!
Sponsored charity runs are a completely alien concept to Germans. I had to explain the idea to my family several times, mumbling something about ‘challenge’ (“Why? You run all the time anyway don’t you? What’s the challenge in that? And why should we give you our money?”) until I finally resorted to the ‘give me your money and you’ll be on my wall of fame’ trick.
I signed up for the Manchester 10k run in January and started training quite enthusiastically…for about a week. Then I realised that 10k wouldn’t be a big deal anyway and went back to doing my usual runs round the block and in the park. I forgot about it completely for a while until about a week ago when I was planning the upcoming weekend and started to panic: I won’t be able to make it. I’ll get really ill before the run. We’ll be late. I’ll oversleep. I’ll have to go to the loo every five minutes. There will be torrential rainfalls. We won’t be able to park anywhere. I’ll pass out for no reason.
Fortunately, the mighty Jogger Swan King took me under his wings, and the whole ‘I’m going to run 10k as fast as I can’ affair turned into ‘we’ll run 10k with a guy in a 7 ft swan costume and have fun’. Our team partner Dr Maha was suffering from an ankle injury, so we decided to take it easy on the day. Dressed up as the Swan King’s hipster bodyguards (think Bjorn Borg ca 1975 meets Michael Cera in Juno meets the 118 118 guys), sporting hot pants, white socks and co-ordinated ponytails (mine left, Dr Maha’s right), we rolled up to the great event in the loveliest Manchester weather: freezing cold, drizzly rain, icy wind.
After the much needed warm-up with Mr Motivator*, the guns went off and we embarked on a leisurely jog joining 40.000 other runners, down Portland Street, then Chester Street, to the Man United ground, and back up along Deansgate, to the finish right in front of the Hilton. Here’s the highlights of the day:
At km 1 I realised I needed the loo.
At km 2 we whooped for at a runner wearing a giant giraffe costume and the Swan King high-fived loads of kids.
At km 3 we had our first ankle-pain-induced walking break.
At km 4 we went past a band playing ‘Chariots of Fire’ by Vangelis (click the link and you know the song!), pretending we were running in slow motion.
At km 5 we started swearing at people on the side who were eating chips.
At km 6 we stopped for a little dance to the Stone Roses in front of Clint Boon’s stage.
At km 8 the Jogger Swan King had a little jig with the dixie band. I also finally found the loos.
At km 9 I got utterly confused because people were shouting my name at me, until I realised that it was written on the race number on my chest.
At the finishing line the announcer praised the Swan King, mentioned my name, we high-fived and collected our medals and goodie bags from the army.
Oh, what fun we had. If you see someone walking round Manchester with a medal round their neck, that would be me.
I raised an okayish £333, Mr Swan King managed around £500, both for the Red Cross, who welcomed us in the Charity Village with bananas, crisps, iced tea, mini mars bars and custard creams worthy of a children’s birthday party. (THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO DONATED, YOU’RE SUPER AWESOME!)
Due to tiredness I’m actually lacking sarcasm, so here’s my completely honest and filthy cliche conclusion: despite the weather, the atmosphere at the run was great, the other runners were nice, and we really enjoyed it. And OHMYGODIWANTTODOITAGAIN.NOW!
Next year. Next year. And I’ll up the fancy dress. Oh yes.
* It wasn’t Mr Motivator, but I really wished it was.
I’ve been busy doing groundbreaking research, training for the Manchester 10k run and playing with Gethin in the past couple of weeks, please excuse the lack of posts. Normal services will be resumed next week.
Here’s a few rabbit action shots to cheer you up. You know you want it.
Bunny likes to climb things. And people.
We tricked him into posing with some cherry blossoms for Easter cards by pretending they were tasty. He totally fell for it. Ha!
The fact that something is on the floor which usually isn’t on the floor gets the bunny madly excited. ‘Dude…it’s…it’s a backpack! On the FLOOR! How crazy is that, man?’
Is it just me or does he look like a guinea pig/horse/cat crossbreed sometimes?
Paws and slippers.
I sowed some cress in a plastic tub, as a present to him on Easter Sunday. He had a little nibble, probably just out of politeness, then went back to destroying our furniture. Ah well.
I don’t know what happened in Wales during the last few ice ages, but it must have been pretty intense. The west coast of Wales pretty much consists of hills, mountains, mountain-like hills, rivers, lakes, estuaries, and sheep. I presume the sheep came after the ice age (who knows…), but everything else looks like it has been scrunched up and folded and squeezed and punched by incredibly powerful giant ice masses. This is also what I imagine the Welsh did with their language – scrunch the words, fold and squeeze them, add a few ls and ys and ds here and there to make it completely illegible.
I went to Snowdon last year, which, while certainly offering a decent walk in surprisingly nice weather, was rather unimpressive. This time we staying for a weekend, exploring the area around Barmouth (Abermaw in Welsh) and climbing Cadair Idris, which is Wales’ second most popular mountain. Well, ‘mountain’. To summarise the weekend: I ate honey ice cream, and saw sheep, and drank ale, and saw sheep, and went up on a hill, and saw sheep, and watched the sun set over the sea while drinking cider, and saw sheep, and learned Welsh, and saw sheep, and had pie and chips, and saw sheep, and went to Happy Valley, and saw sheep, and played with frog spawn, and saw sheep. I loved it!
I’ve been putting off this post for a week because I’ve not been feeling particularly chatty, but the pictures are really nice, so please enjoy the ensuing silence and look at some pretty photos while I’m gathering strength for a first class rant. Or a rabbit post. Or a ranty rabbit post.
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.
I’ve been a little bit quiet lately, which has been mainly caused by a series of Manchester Girl Geeks events, partly also by my new flatmate. Little Gethin is 18 months old, black, furry, and goes absolutely crazy for coriander*. This may sound weird to some of you who have been growing up with cats, dogs, and plenty of other animals surrounding them, but I am genuinely excited, almost ecstatic, to welcome my first ever pet to my house.
I adopted the rabbit from a friend who was going to move house and couldn’t take him with her; and to say I was a little worried about doing everything right would be understated. I spent hours bunnyproofing our flat, sticking cables into plastic tubes, removing books from the bottom shelves, reading up on ‘how to look after your rabbit’, their diet, how to keep them entertained, and generally panicking about coming home one day, finding the rabbit had rioted in our flat, turned his cage upside down, peed in my flatmate’s bed, pulled apart his 1st edition copy of Robinson Crusoe, chewed through our £200 solid wood coffee table, eaten several bars of chocolate before attempting to electrocute himself with the Playstation 3 cable and eventually drowning in the loo.
When Geth moved in, I made sure I spent a lot of time just sitting on the floor, talking to him (trying very hard to avoid babyspeak) and resisting the urge to go all ‘ooooh cuuuuteeee bunnyyyyyyyy, wanna cuuuuudddlle’ on him. Having previously looked after him for a couple of days, I expected the rabbit to be quite timid, ignore me and go about his own business. I was surprised to find that the excitement about his new environment had made him rather inquisitive and bold, overlooking my cage cleaning activities, hopping over my legs, following me into the kitchen, and even jumping onto the sofa next to me a few times. In fact, while I’m writing this blog post, he’s on a tour across the front room, squeezing through a tunnel, trampling over jars with candles and jumping onto his cardboard box (I’ve called it ‘the bunny fort’). My flatmate, who is mildly allergic to rabbits and can’t touch them, has figured out that Geth seems fine being stroked by his feet, as he proudly demonstrated one night – while I appreciate his attempts to show the bunny some affection, I’m not sure if I agree with the whole foot stroking thing yet.
After a week at our place, the rabbit is still in good health, the furniture looks okay(ish), the cables and wires haven’t been touched yet, the litter tray is in use (well, including the general area around it), he eats and drinks like a champion, and he’s accepted us as his new friends. I do very much hope he doesn’t start hating me once he finds out that I’m going to have him neutered…
Oh, and while we’re at it: the RSPCA Manchester and Salford have lots of rescue bunnies that are waiting for a nice person to adopt them. Have a look at the adorable little furballs on the RSPCA website.
* I’m keeping a list of things he does and doesn’t like to eat. So far I’ve found that he’s into coriander, bananas, carrots, sugar snaps, parsley and pak choy, but only the green bits. Fussy eater.
[Photo by Matt Orlinski, model: the beautiful Mr Gethin himself]
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!
While I’m still not the biggest fan of Manchester (cue ORLY owl here), I have started to fall in love with this country, or at least, some parts of it. Mainly the green ones. Pair beautiful nature, lakes, some woods and breathtaking views with a slightly pathological passion for outdoor activities* and you’re guaranteed some amazing weekends walking up and down hills, almost necessarily followed by yet another popular activity: pub.
For exactly this purpose, and to escape the only mildly appealing February weather in Manchester, I went on a rather spontaneous trip to the north western part of the Lake District. Due to a BBC documentary on Wainwright walks, I was intrigued by a fell named Catbells, situated on the shores of Derwentwater near Keswick, which the presenter was walking up in her perfectly shiny and neat hiking outfit. I only ever managed to watch that one episode, so I wasn’t particularly adventurous when planning the trip and decided to go for the obvious: up Catbells. Conveniently, there’s a YHA situated just on the opposite site of Derwentwater, which promised charming bunk beds, a waterfall at the rear of the building, and local ales. I booked instantly.
Highlights of the drive to Keswick included me gradually realising I had left walking boots, compass, spare socks, the camera battery as well as the SD card, and my phone charger at home, stumbling across a tiny little red book with walks ‘from the easy to the adventurous’ in the Northern Lakes, buying Kendal mint cake (novelty!) and Borrowdale tea cake, and listening to Therapy. After a short detour to one of the many hiking shops in Keswick to replace equipment, we found the YHA and walked back along the lake into town for Saturday night entertainment: pies and pints. Veggie for me and giant ‘cow pie’ for my companion. Awesome!
8.30 on Sunday morning, pies and pints suddenly didn’t seem like such an awesome idea anymore. My head was hosting a samba party, the rain was pouring down outside, and the sofas in the lounge had actually been very comfortable the previous night. Nonetheless, we were there for walking, so we did what we had to do: walk. The little red book from the service station had told us about an ‘alternative Catbells‘ that promised a ‘satisfying’ 4 hour walk from the south west shores of Derwentwater, over Maiden Moor and Bull Crag up to Catbells.
Thanks to my excellent map reading skills, the missing compass and zero visibility we only got lost twice on the route, which caused me to first panic quite a bit, then feel like kissing the path once we found it after an hour of dragging ourselves up a hill. As we got to the top at Maiden Moor, the clouds cleared all of a sudden and we got some amazing views over the valley west of the fells. The last part of the walk was downhill apart from the short ascend to Catbells, which offered some good views over the lake, but felt much less spectacular and heroic than our previous odyssey through the mist.
On the drive home, we took the scenic route down the A road to Windermere rather than the motorway, past majestic fells, flooded lakes and through adorable little towns. Back in Manchester, it was raining.
When in doubt, eat. (Ancient German proverb.)
* I have observed that every British citizen needs to have a minimum of three pairs of special occasion shoes in their possession: wellies (for festivals, farming or simply crap weather), football boots (because everyone plays football… or ultimate frisbee), and a pair of hiking boots (for the odd trip to Wales, the Peaks or the Lakes).
Sam Bail 
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