Deb's Days Out

THE LIVERPOOL BIENNIAL

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 07:53:31 +0000

Liverpool was buzzing tonight - it's the start of the Biennial and all the arty people are out in force. The streets are packed and people are going from one venue to another, soaking up feisty modern art. Our main port of call was Novas CUC on Greenland Street where the artist son is one of 26 international artists with their work on show. And then as we were leaving we saw all the glitterati arriving for the Bloomberg Contemporaries 2008 over the road - security men in abundance

RAZORLIGHT @ THE PHIL

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 11:20:57 +0000

Not many people know this! But Razorlight are on at The Liverpool Philharmonic on October 25th. I'm not sure ifg there are any tickets left from the box office but they've not caught on yet on eBay and you can get them fairly cheaply - worth getting!

HAMMERSMITH & WINDSOR

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 07:34:13 +0000

We decided that it was about time we visited the London son so we booked an apartment near West Wycombe - from the internet and set off on Friday. That's last Friday - the day of the deluge. I think we saw every drop of rain there was and it was almost impossible to see a thing on the motorway. However, the apartment was better than we could have hoped for and our French windows had beautiful views over rain-soaked Chiltern Hills.

Whoever invented sat navs deserves every penny of their fortune. It cleverly got us to our son's front door in Hammersmith in 45 minutes. We walked to the Anglesea Arms for lunch and my husband, who is a bit of an expert on steak pies - having eaten so many during his 62 years - declared his beef pie and mash to be the best ever. While we were in the High Wycombe area we visited the village where The Vicar of Dibley is filmed, Turville.

Spookily enough, when we got back to our apartment we watched Midsummer Murders and there was the very church. We also went to Windsor and Oxford - so much to see and do. We'll have to go back.

ATLANTA, CHESHIRE AND DERBYSHIRE

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 11:58:56 +0000

We were up at 5am yesterday to take our daughter to the airport. She's now in a hotel bedroom (basic is how she describes it) in Atlanta, Georgia. By her bed, I hope, is the list of dos and donts that we have sent with her. Thank God for the internet. She managed to get onto MSN at Philadelphia Airport to tell me that it was baking hot. She said she'd tried to sit on the pavement outside the building but had been hauled inside by an official who told her it was too dangerous. So they'll probably have her down as trouble already. Her itinerary includes the Coca Cola factory, the Olympic Park and the zoo where the brand new giant panda panda cub is - it was in an incubator yesterday so we hope it'll be ok. I've told her that I've managed to find a streaming webcam on top of a tall building in Atlanta, so if she can find her way up it once a day that will be appreciated. After we'd dropped her at the airport we had a run through Cheshire and a walk round Wilmslow. Then to Derbyshire where we stocked up on the original Bakewell puddings and had lunch here

The Eyre Arms. Very nice but a bit expensive and £5.20 for a glass of ordinary wine? Now that's a rip off.

ENJOY @ THE LOWRY

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 07:21:11 +0000

If you're an Alan Bennett fan get onto the box office at The Lowry now because until September 6th "Enjoy" is being staged there. Written in 1980, this dark comedy, starring Alison Steadman and David Troughton, is set in Leeds, where an ageing couple live in one of the city's last back-to-backs. With the demolition of the area in progress, Wilf and Connie are to be rehoused in a new maisonette with a waste disposal unit and non-slip vinyl flooring. The play has had great reviews. We'll be there this week - with a meal at "Lime" first. Can't wait! Our daughter is off to Atlanta tomorrow to see the new panda cub She's going with a long list of dos and donts as you can imagine. One of the main dos is to text daily and woe betide her if she forgets!

REM @ MANCHESTER

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 07:37:52 +0000

We saw REM at the Old Trafford cricket ground yesterday. That's the fourth time I've seen them live and it was the best. They bashed out one fantastic hit after another for over two hours. Because I'm in the fan club (naturally) we had early-entry wrist bands so managed - we thought- to secure a prime position on the front row of the cricket-style seating. This was fine for the first six hours but by the time night was falling I'd lost count of the number of drunks who'd tried to climb or sit on the small metal rail in front of us, and overbalanced. Then one woman did her party piece and bent over the rail to vomit - nice. Editors were on too - I thought they were very good and will now listen to more to see if it was just the live performance that I liked or if it was really their music.

YORK

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 08:05:09 +0000

We go to the Ebor meeting at York every summer - sometimes we sunbathe while watching the races, sometimes we shiver. This year we didn't see a single race. The whole meeting was cancelled because of the rain. What a disaster. I have to admit I prefer sightseeing and shopping anyway but our hotel was full of people who had travelled from all over the place to be there just for the racing element. Instead of losing money to the bookies we managed to find Wilfred Owen's cottage in Ripon; had an enthusiastic tour of Shandy Hall in Coxwold where Laurence Sterne wrote Tristram Shandy and saw Roman artefacts in Malton Museum so we've come home a lot wiser and probably richer.

THE COURTYARD

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:18:42 +0000

The Courtyard at Littler Crosby is a lovely place for lunch or just for a coffee. It was a real treat today sitting outside in the sunshine over a pot of coffee and a delicious toasted teacake. The black goat was sunbathing while we were there.

THE FENCE GATE INN

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 19:06:38 +0000

Because it was such a foul day and because there was a sale on, we went to Boundary Mill today - it takes around an hour to get there - along the M65 and off at Colne. There were some fantastic bargains to be had and we came home with stacks of bedding and towels. When we left, we were just in time for lunch at a favourite haunt - The Fence Gate Inn. It's in the middle of some glorious Lancashire countryside

, This late 17th-century inn is where local farmers drop in with their produce and for a glass of Theakstons, or the micro-brewed seasonal beers. You'll find Huntley's Lancashire ice cream; Salmesbury organic pork; organic Lancashire cheese from the dairy at Chipping; duck from Goosnargh; beef from the Trough of Bowland; Pendle Forest lamb; leeks from Formby; tiny sweet brown shrimps from Morecambe Bay and late damsons from Westmorland. The inn has won awards for its Cumberland sausages. We just had an open poached salmon sandwich and a glass dish of delicious fat chips (absolutely not cooked from frozen).

HADRIAN'S WALL

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 06:59:55 +0000

Northumberland has entered my "favourite places" list. And I'm ashamed of the fact that I'd written it off as a wilderness without ever having visited the place. We enjoyed a mini-break at Slaley Hall (above) on the outskirts of Hexham. Beautiful weather, fantastic surroundings and delicious food. When I couldn't sleep one night last winter I watched an Open University programme all about Vindolanda - the Roman settlement next to Hadrian's Wall where the oldest surviving writing tablets had been discovered, buried beneath mud and clay. The originals are now in the British Museum but facsimiles are in the museum at Vindolanda - and touchingly, one is a birthday invitation from the wife of a Roman soldier, to her friend.

Cy Twombly

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 06:49:49 +0000

I appreciate the fact that London is only two and a half hours away and if you set off early enough, a trip to the capital makes a great (if somewhat expensive) day out. The artist son is, as I write this, en-route for London to see Cy Twombly's work at The Tate. It's lashing down and there's just been an announcement on the local news that trains between Lime Street and Runcorn are affected by a signalling failure. I HATE TRAINS.

HELLO AGAIN

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 18:49:53 +0000

DUE TO A TECHNICAL ERROR ON MY PART (I COULDN'T REMEMBER MY PASSWORD!) I HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO KEEP UP TO DATE ON THIS BLOG. IT'S A PITY BECAUSE A LOT HAS HAPPENED IN THE INTERIM. HOWEVER WE'RE STILL DOING A FAIR BIT OF TRAVELLING AROUND THE AREA SO I'LL LOOK FORWARD TO PASSING ON ANY GOOD FINDS AND PLEASE, IF YOU'VE FOUND SOMEWHERE WORTH A MENTION, DO LET ME KNOW..

TOO GOOD FARM SHOP

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 16:56:21 +0000

We went for a run around the Parbold and Mawdsley area the other day and had a drink at the Brook House pub at Heskin. Then we stumbled across a delightful farm shop on Too Good Lane. The free range eggs are delicious and they were selling lilies at £1.50 a bunch and beautiful big bunches of freesia for £2.50. There's plenty of organic meat and chickens in the chilled area too.

CERI HAND GALLERY

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 16:34:10 +0000

We all went along last month to Liverpool's newest commercial art gallery - for the opening night and to see the artist son's work of course. It was a fantastic champagne event with hundreds of people there, spilling out on the pavement in the summer evening sunshine. It's on Cotton Street, on the way into Liverpool and is well worth a visit - but check opening times first.

KLIMT EXHIBITION

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 16:11:26 +0000

It was good to see queues forming at the Klimt Exhibition, and not just because we had pre-booked tickets. The Albert Docks is a bleak, dark and gloomy place and even with temperatures in the high 70s and the sun blazing in an azure sky, the Tate can be bathed in darkness so the queues brought a little much-needed life to the place. And Klimt brought some colour and some gold. I hadn't realised how similar some of his work is to that of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. As well as the paintings there are a number of interesting artefacts and I'm now determined to find some cutlery just like the 106-piece set in the exhibition. I bought a beautiful dainty little bracelet that's linked in colour to the exhibition. After our allotted hour in the Tate we crossed the road to see Liverpool 1 - the new commercial section of the city. The new John Lewis is terrific but I was permitted only a 15 minute runaround because my other half was sitting on a step outside. So on a golf day I'll return for a proper look.