London to Manchester

Really struggled to get an Uber this morning. Taxis and Ubers are in short supply as London has woken up to a new week for the workers.

Our train to Manchester is at 10:33am from Euston Station. The train services here are fantastic. There is a train every 30 minutes to Manchester. The trip is about 2.5 hours at quick speed.

My luck with seating selection is poor. We are facing backwards, and I can’t handle that, so I found an unoccupied seat facing forward. Quirky habit.

At Manchester we will hook up with Gail & Alan who are part of our British family. We know them through my mum who was a pen pal with Gail’s mum Kath since 1944. Kath passed away last year but we keep in touch with Gail & Sarah (and hubbies). It is a special relationship.

We saw Gail & Alan briefly last year when they came down to London for the day. This will be fun because we have most of the week with them. We did see them at their home about 11 years ago so it will be great to reacquaint ourselves with Manchester.

We were greeted at the station and told the weather is not that great, but we do not mind. We will have plenty to catch up no matter what we do.

Our stay is for three nights so we settled in and then headed out to a midafternoon lunch at a lovely old pub followed by a visit to the Royal Horticultural Society Garden Bridgewater.

Once visited by Queen Victoria and King Edward VII, Worsley New Hall survived a fire and two World Wars before it was demolished in the 1940s. All that remains is the terraces that overlook the lake which is now reclaimed.

The RHS master plan for RHS Garden Bridgewater is amazing and beautiful. The gardens have all been reestablished and the gardener's cottage refurbished. There is also the apprenticeship cottage where the boiler was housed, it was their job to keep the coal fire alight. The tunnel at the front was the entrance to an underground passageway to the main mansion. They would use this to take flowers and food to the main kitchen without being seen by the aristocracy.

The flowerbeds and vegetables growing are stunning. So many blossoms and shrubs to check out.

Back home and chatted until late. Gayle brought out a box of letters that my mum had written to Kath dating back to the mid 1990s. Got a bit nostalgic. There was also one from grandfather announcing himself when he traveled to the UK in 1945.Read more